More Espresso, Less Depresso

Flash fiction:

More Espresso,

Less Depresso:

This idea keeps me up at night,

With a smile on my face,

And a mind full of memories.  

Artist’s Statement:

The photo and flash fiction have multiple messages within them. The main objects

of focus are the Cthulhu mask, the eyes and the sign, but the background also holds

significance. The Cthulhu mask is representative of two things: my goofiness and

my passion for thinking about the unknown, as Cthulhu is often used as a symbol

of the unknown. I left the red eyes unedited because I enjoy how they look, and

realized that they perfectly symbolize how much I like mistakes that turn out to have a cool

final result. “More Espresso, Less Depresso” is a reference to how much I love coffee

and how it brings people together. This is a message in both my flash fiction and my

photo. Some of my favorite memories are of me going to a coffee shop with friends

and family and just having a great time. As weird as it sounds, drinking coffee always

hits me with waves of nostalgia. Finally, the background of my photo is my grandparents house, a place that I find very special. The picture in the background is an old photo of my grandparents

that I like to think of as a hint to the audience about what this place is.

Reflection:

Some people say that identities are impacted by the choices that we make, but to

who is this impact apparent? Is it someone’s own idea of their identity that changes,

or is the change only based off of other people’s judgments? While some would

say identity is defined by one’s own self,

I believe that today, people’s identities are being defined by society as a result of bias and

stereotypes. The only way to correct this continuous misinterpretation of identity,

as a society (in my opinion) is to reach out to new groups of people to gain a better

understanding of the world

around us.

In her 2014 TED Talk, “How to Overcome Bias”, diversity advocate, Verna Meyers,

discusses the everyday examples of bias and what it makes people do, from

pedestrians moving to the opposite side of the street, to police officers shooting

minorities due to popular stereotypes being deeply ingrained in their minds. To add

more urgency to her argument, Meyers goes on to say that nobody is bias-free,

even the people we look up to the most. She uses the example of a family dinner,

where she delves into every family member’s hidden bias. As she put it in the

Ted Talk, “You love grandma, but grandma is kind of racist.” (Meyers). Meyers

says that to fix this deeply rooted issue, we must not run from our biases, but

we should “walk toward our biases” (Meyers) and tackle them head on in order to

overcome them.

I completely agree with Meyers’ argument, as I believe running from bias

only makes it worse. Her point of walking towards our biases perfectly aligns

with my idea of reaching out to people of different groups, whether

they’re of a different gender, ethnicity, sexuality or religion than you. We must learn

face the fear that comes with bias, which in turn will grant us deeper understanding

of other people’s identities. In time, after making this a regular practice, we as a

society may be able to do less labeling and become more accepting when it comes

to identity. In the end, identifies are meant to be self defined, not defined by

other people. Hopefully we can keep that as a universal truth.