Devout Skeptic

I have always struggled with faith. I grew up in a Daoist household but spent my elementary years in a Christian school. I would bow to statues symbolic of my ancestors, asking them to bless our fruit, and then sing praises to the one true God, asking Him for redemption from my iniquities.

I’ve always been sympathetic to Christianity but very often skeptical of its seeming convenience. In the first grade, one of our recess monitors — a very dear older woman whose name eludes me — convinced me that the angels would celebrate if I would just accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I remember asking her whether it was all so simple, and if somebody who was evil throughout his entire life could simply accept Christ on his deathbed and receive the promise of heaven. She told me that God loves all His children, and that it’s our responsibility to love each other in kind.

I trusted her. To some extent, I still do. Though I have since grown wary of the Church’s dogma, I still believe fiercely in the strength of human compassion. And I believe that we will ultimately be judged not on the merit of our personal accomplishments but on the quality of our contribution to other people’s lives. Still, I have spent the last several years consumed with doubt. Why is there so much injustice and prejudice if God so loves the world?

Fireworks on Remembrance Day

If it weren’t for the project I’m working on in the Helen Hamlyn Centre, I would never have given much thought to the level of prejudice our society holds towards older people. We tend to think of older adults as dependent and senile, refusing to acknowledge them as whole human beings with needs for physical and emotional intimacy. The little graphic design that exists regarding older people’s sexuality is either patronizing or fetishistic.

Ageism originates from our refusal to understand older people on their own terms. Nick Lalaguna, my contact at our charity partner Age UK put it thusly: “We don’t hate older people. We hate when older people strive to live the same lives as younger people.” As a result, we organize sexuality and age into separate spheres that are hostile to each other, associating sex with youth and potency, and age with death and decrepitness.

Dr. Stacy Lindau, a researcher at the University of Chicago that I’ve been corresponding with, has told me that we need to conceive of a sexuality that is ageless. We need a new way of understanding older people as human beings, and sexuality as an essential part of human life at any age. In terms of design, the campaign we are creating will take a more inclusive and holistic approach to older people’s sexuality. Instead of focusing narrowly on STI prevention, we will promote older people’s ability to make informed decisions about their sex lives — free of violence, coercion, disease, and misinformation.

Recontextualizing phrases from an over-50′s sex guide

Quick type exploration using the WHO definition of sexual health

My job over the next few months is to create a preliminary piece of design that speaks to this approach by collaborating with a few older respondents. I’ve been working with Catherine, a fellow designer, to devise a set of interview questions as well as an exercise in which our respondents will collage together images, objects, and taglines related to sexual health. The hope is that we’ll take whatever design that comes out of that collaboration to the condom manufacturer Durex, presenting them with a strategy to open up a market for the over-50′s by distributing a positive, informed message about older people’s sexuality to the general public.

To be honest, this all sounds incredibly ambitious and overwhelming. My supervisors and our project partner have been optimistic and supportive about the work I’ve done thus far, but I often fear that a project of this magnitude is beyond my abilities. Despite this, I’m finding ways to put my self-worth issues aside and to focus on the task at hand. For whatever reason, I’ve developed a stronger sense of faith in my work over the last several weeks and am beginning to understand the importance of self-belief.

I think I am gaining confidence by working with the tutors and other students in the Communication Art & Design course: I am inspired by their seriousness of purpose, and the critical advice they’ve been giving me has been helping me stay afloat despite my relative ignorance about the design process. I’m especially grateful for my friend Joe, who is always willing to make time to help me with my work despite his own deadlines. It’s that kind of generosity, I think, that makes me thankful that I chose to come to the RCA.

Setting off sparklers on Remembrance Day

Late-night carnival in Victoria Park

On Friday, I visited my friend and fellow Princeton alum Deepa at Oxford. As we caught up on each other’s lives and reminisced about home, the conversation turned towards considerations of faith. We talked about the possibility that true spirituality doesn’t have to lie inside the strict confines of organized religion, and that faiths as seemingly irreconcilable as Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity share a lot in common when it comes to ideas about compassion.

The next morning, we walked through this enormous, empty field called Port Meadow in the neighboring town of Jericho. I was captivated by the beauty of the English countryside. As we trekked through the rain-soaked grass, I was reminded of similar journeys I had made several years ago through the Maharashtran countryside the summer I studied to be a yoga teacher in India.

I distinctly recall getting lost without an umbrella in the heaviness of the monsoon rains. I remember being overwhelmed by a feeling that my soul was cleansed, however temporarily, of fear and desire, of worry and sadness. As we walked along the Thames through that field in Oxfordshire, I felt that sense of peace return, almost as if it had been there all along.

Walking across Port Meadow

An abandoned abbey once occupied by nuns

Inside one of the college’s sanctuaries

Later that day, I found out that a close friend of mine had suffered a second cardiac arrest. Though Grayson and I haven’t been in touch over the last few years, we shared a lot of each other’s company during high school, mostly over our mutual love for musical theater. When our school put on My Fair Lady, I played the sidekick Jamie to his Alfred P. Doolittle. In Damn Yankees, I was Old Joe to his Young Joe. In many ways, however, we were opposites. He was a steadfast Christian, and I a devout skeptic. He had a deep and abiding interest in war and war games that I could never really understand. We respected each other’s values but rarely agreed on any major political issues.

Whether he knew it or not, Grayson was one of my best friends — one of the reasons I made it through those lonely, self-loathing years. He and his mother Regina would always be ready with hugs after the myriad choir performances that my parents were never able to attend. The love and humanity that they showed me gave me something to believe in. Grayson’s father Brant is keeping a blog updating family and friends about his condition. I check it every few hours fearing the worst but hopeful for news of his recovery.

I don’t know whether it helps, but I am praying for Grayson and his family.