Ransom Instructions

So, I'm (t)-5 days until I reveal my inner baldness. 

Nervous? Heck yeah. 

Excited? Absolutely.

Curious? Off the charts.

Worried that because of how I designed this project, I will be bald for for a year or more?

Crosses my mind every friggin' day!

Freaked out that I may look more like Evan Handler than is comfortable? Hey you...get outta my psyche!!

I'm going to be bald until I raise $25,000 for charitable organizations.

See why I'm already planning my hat wardrobe for next winter?

Yeah. I know. Kinda crazy. 

Contours of the Ransom Drop:

• At the $5,000 mark, I will donate my very long locks to Locks of Love (http://www.locksoflove.org)

           Until then, the (n=100,000) x (30") of hair will be remanded to a Ziplock bag.

• I will NOT be growing my hair back until I raise another $20,000

People have suggested I aim lower.

No! (Though I appreciate the spirit of your concern for me in the suggestion.) 

I decided that $0.25 per hair is absolutely reasonable ransom (I have approximately 100k hairs). Actually, I came up with the figure by asking myself "What's the minimum amount of money I'd take if someone walked up to me and asked if they could pay me to shave my head." So the way I see it, $25k is a low bar, because I didn't take into account the indecent proposal of shaving my head and staying bald for an extended period of time.

Donation Station -OR- How I helped Bevyn get her hair back

Though I am inspired to do this project by survivors of the ravages of cancer and mental illness, I am also psyched to declare war on apathy (see previous post). To do that, I realized I can't mandate where people choose to put their energy/money/time.

Thus:

1. You may donate to ANY charitable organization that you believe betters the lives of humans, creatures, and/or the planet.
   
   Does World Wildlife Fund or ASPCA count? YES!
   http://worldwildlife.org/
   http://www.aspca.org/
   
   Surfrider Foundation or Greenpeace? YES!! Yes!!
   http://www.surfrider.org/
   http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/
   
   NAMI or Henry Street Settlement? YES PLEASE!
   http://www.nami.org/
   http://www.henrystreet.org/
   
   A Village for One or Called to Rescue? I'd be honored!!
   http://avillageforone.org/
   http://www.calledtorescue.org/
   
   (Research additional charities here: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ )
2. Volunteer! If you are unable to contribute monetarily or are inspired to do both, report your volunteer hours. Each hour of volunteer work counts as $20.
   (Research volunteer opportunities here: http://www.volunteermatch.org/ )
3. Report/email/post: If you decide you would like to participate in my project, note your contributions of time/money by posting a comment on my blog with the following information:
   
   Comment: Your first name, last initial. Organization. Amount of volunteer hours and/or $ dollar amount.
   
   If you would rather email me that information, I can post it for you. I will also honor requests for anonymous donations of time/money via my email account (DRBevyn (at) gmail (dot) com). It would look something like this:
   
   Dexter M.      $50                           A Village for One   (www.avillageforone.org)
   Anonymous    6 volunteer hours      at Henry Street Settlement

This is also a way for you to give a shout-out to a worthy organization. 

Love a charity or know a great place to donate time? Post it! Or email me and I'll post it!

Finally: there's nothing wrong with taking satisfaction in being public about your donations.

(I believe that the pride in doing something good for the world is a healthy thing and deserves to be acknowledged. You may differ from me on this, and if so, please ask me to post for you anonymously.)


One of the powerful things about donating "out loud" is that it creates an awareness that guides our own behavior; it's called Social Norming. When we see others do something, it changes the way we see it and impacts what we do. For good or for ill, it does. And when we give exclusively in quiet ways, other people miss out on the chance to see modeling of care-giving behavior to the world.

Just a thought.

Anyway, I promise to post photos of my baldness as shortly after I shave as I can.

Thanks for your interest, willingness, support...even your thoughts that I'm guano crazy. Attention getting is the first step to consciousness raising.

Mad love.

-bkr
(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

Apathy Gravity

In a beautiful missive to her friend circle, my mother (LittleMom) announced that I was "declaring war on cancer and mental illness..." This is true. But I'm discovering that this project is about more than that.

I realized I'm declaring war on apathy.

Yes, here is where I do that thing writers do and tell you what you already know...the definition of a word. But to spice it up, I'll give you the definition from one of my favorite books (Webster's Unabridged, 1913): 

Apathy Anx*i"e*ty (#), n.; pl. Anxieties (#). [L. anxietas, fr. anxius: cf. F. anxi\'82t\'82. See Anxious.]67

1. Concern or solicitude respecting some thing ovent, future or uncertain, which disturbs the mind, and keeps it in a state of painful uneasiness.> Ap"a*thy (#), n.; pl. Apathies (#). [L. apathia, Gr. ; priv. + , fr. , , to suffer: cf. F. apathie. See Pathos.] Want of feeling; privation of passion, emotion, or excitement; dispassion; -- applied either to the body or the mind. As applied to the mind, it is a calmness, indolence, or state of indifference, incapable of being ruffled or roused to active interest or exertion by pleasure, pain, or passion. The apathy of despair." Macaulay.

A certain apathy or sluggishness in his nature which led him . . . to leave events to take their own course. Prescott.

According to the Stoics, apathy meant the extinction of the passions by the ascendency of reason. Fleming.

As a person and a therapist, I define apathy as a marker of human helplessness.

When I began announcing that I will be shaving my head for this project, the responses I got varied more than I had anticipated...and shook out pretty cleanly into 3 groups.

•  About 1/3 displayed genuine excitement and (to the pleasure of my ego) a little bit of awe. 
• Another 1/3 displayed serious concern (as if perhaps I hadn't thought this through, or worse...that maybe I had finally lost it).

It was the final third, who really caught my attention. They were people I know and love, who gave a cursory, "good for you" and then changed the subject. At first, my feelings were hurt. How could these people who know me be so indifferent to something so important to me?

Quickly, the answer came to me: Apathy. 

The answer came quickly because I knew the uneasy, heavy, inertia of apathy well. 

We are all familiar with the "Fight or Flight" response, right? A creature is faced with a threat and based on an appraisal of the likely outcome, the choice is made to either fight or fly/flee. In my work with trauma survivors, I noticed the 3rd "F" = "Freeze." (Which, by the way, I learned from Johan Rosqvist and Rachel Lowenthal.) If our appraisal is that neither fighting nor fleeing will ensure survival, we freeze.

Apathy is the emotional equivalent of freezing. 

When I looked at the vastness of my helplessness in the face of The Terrorist (cancer) and The Tyrant (mental illness), I succumbed to apathy. Lulled by the refrains you probably know well: "There's nothing I can do. The problem is too big." Or maybe worse, "How arrogant am I to think I can make a difference?" Every so often I would be jolted from my emotional paralysis by anger...but soon anger would deteriorate into frustration and then dissolve back into apathy.

The problem with apathy, is that like with most physical bodies, once we become emotionally inert, a sort of gravity occurs which makes it SOOO much more difficult to break free into action or a different emotional response which could bring about action. (No, I will NOT be spouting Newton's classical mechanics...it's not like I have a SLIDE from my motivation and procrastination workshops or anything...)

So here's my mission and I invite you to join me. Let's get "ruffled and roused to exertion" to move toward what is important to us. 

And, what is important to me DOES NOT have to be important to you. I've redesigned my project to reflect this...which will be the topic of my next blog entry. And for those of you wondering: I still have a full head of hair...and I'll be shaving it off by the end of the month. Pictures to be posted ASAP!

Please check back...follow...leave comments. Mad love to you all.

-bevyn

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com