It's good to know that, as a non beer-lover, I can feel righteous in not celebrating this day by drinking Guiness.
It's a funny thing, the way symbols are derived at all - and how they evolve.
Pink, that emblematic color of nipples now so ubiquitously associated with corporate breast cancer marketing campaigns, vapid "femininity", and razors I am allowed to use as a woman, was actually once most popular for MALE children.
The frog, sometimes considered emblematic of the French (are kids still aware of that old one anymore, though?), who sometimes are caricatured as profligate and promiscuous lovers, is deeply associated with the idea of fidelity.
Indeed, the dog - widely loved most for its faithfulness and loyalty - is repurposed linguistically to refer to profligate and promiscuous lovers, generally male ones.
So it is an interesting history - Guiness, so PR-ready in its shorthand Irishness - is actually a centuries-deep English product, and generations of its proprietors were anti-union and anti-everything (Americans?) expect in a broad-strokes portrait of "What Is Irish" ... For eighty-four years, indeed, the company has been based in London, apparently.
Side note: intoxivation, spotted in a link at the bottom of this article, is a delicious coinage.
Showing posts with label epiphanic moments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label epiphanic moments. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
ZPG ... and Little Beasts
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I learned my dad, whose chief pride, joy, and commitment in life were his kids and his love for mom, actually worried a lot about having children. He was extremely concerned about global overpopulation – and this was fifty years ago, kids, back when the world’s population was a mere pittance at just over three billion (we’re around seven billion now, if you believe The Internet). He had no such qualms about marriage itself, interestingly enough – my parents were wed within three months or so of meeting one another – and the story goes that he was asking my aunt (his sister, married before he was) “Is it true two can live as cheaply as one?” very quickly once he met my mom.
I had a bit of the good, old-fashioned population fear myself when I was younger, intermingled with the “do I want to bring a child into *This World*” angst I think many of us get, without really allowing it to take concrete form. But, above all, my failure to procreate stems from the lack of desire to do so.
My mom and I were antiquing one day, and somehow it came up – a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon, and I learned that dad had once been very concerned about global population growth. Coming along well after this question had become moot for him, of course – I knew only a dad whose greatest fulfillment was in his kids and wife. I can’t honestly remember whether she asked me, but I told her I had not had children because I never experienced that driving desire some people have, and it seemed to me that, lacking that, it would be incredibly unwise to have kids anyway. She seemed to accept this; either because she knows me well, or because she herself has not endured the world’s most painful urge for more grandchildren (she does have two), it’s always seemed to me that she wasn’t het up about my providing them. I can recall a time when people pushed me a bit about having children, but I can’t recall my mother being one of those to whom it seemed to mean a great deal to dictate my procreative habits.
Mom’s strongest guidance in that department, in fact, always came in the form of explaining in no uncertain terms the very negative consequences of my becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and the expectations of my continence in this department. (Indeed, she was still having nightmares about my showing up on the doorstep knocked up after I turned forty, though I haven’t heard about such a dream in the past year or two. Heh.)
Truth be told, I used to have a potent fear – and I’m not really cured of it, though the point is to my mind clearly moot by this time, aged forty-six – that I would be abusive. This is not owing to any such example, but when I reached twenty or so I just had an instinct about my impatience and temper – my twenties were not good years for equanimity and tolerance – and this stuck with me even to the point I still feel guilty about the way I treat my poor pets sometimes. Pen doesn’t behave like an abused child, but I’ve given her a shout or two – partiuclarly during the house-training months - not proud to remember.
It doesn’t come up much anymore, that people find me unnatural for not having children – but, at this point in life, I do sometimes catch the glimmer of strangeness when people realize I have not. The discomfort is hardly what it was during my “child bearing years”, but it remains an unnecessary awkwardness I wish people could avoid, even those who don’t know they’re reacting to it. At times like starting a new job and so on, the failure to be a participant in a 4-member nuclear family in the correct neighborhood does come up again and again. Given the photos of my nieces at my desk, too, there’s always the explaining to do.
So after all these years of the subliminal layer of my life, in which dealing with my unnaturalness in this regard is a perpetual, but very quiet, buzz in my eardrums, it was interesting to consider my father … as a man who wasn’t perhaps completely sure he wanted to be a father.
Well, he WANTED that. But he was capable of questioning it.
Let it be said, once he plunged into the wide world of parenthood, there was no way to tell if he ever questioned it again. My suspicion is: no. He was committed to us, to my mom, in a way I’ve rarely seen anyone commit to anything. The worst memories are the confirmation of this – the time I verbally beat him up when he all but did a term paper for me – and I didn’t like the way he did it. (Eesh.) The time I rejected a present he was so pleased to have bought for me. That one still makes me queasy, and it’s been probably twenty-five years. The fights I picked, with my brother and/or my mom. I wasn’t a nice kid any more than I was a nice twenty-something, and if his devotion EVER flagged, he concealed it utterly. And dad is the person in this world who knew more about me than anyone living except for Mr. X.
I think about the generosity of his love, its limitless capacity and tolerance and patience and bounty, and it makes me weep and I am humbled. I’ll probably never love like that in my life – though what I felt for and wished I could give to Mr. X is more than I ever would have imagined when we met. What I have given. I may not love like my dad, but I am damned steady, maternal instinct or no.
Years on, and ageing somewhat now, it’s hard not to look back on my thinking when I “could have” done this or that, and not think I was making excuses. But the omission of parenting has never been in doubt. I can remember naming babies when I was eighteen years old, with my First Love. But I cannot recall a single moment in my life, hearing the tick-tock of the Biological Clock, nor wishing anything had been different in this. I’ve never regretted not becoming a mother, either.
Maybe my omission is the balance to dad’s allowance. I held off where he sallied forth.
Or maybe I’m just my own odd and lonesome beast, wandering the plain on the margins and enjoying untrammeled grass. It can get lonesome – and even scary, knowing jackals pick off the loose ends. But I seem never to have needed to contribute more little-beasts to the herd.
I had a bit of the good, old-fashioned population fear myself when I was younger, intermingled with the “do I want to bring a child into *This World*” angst I think many of us get, without really allowing it to take concrete form. But, above all, my failure to procreate stems from the lack of desire to do so.
My mom and I were antiquing one day, and somehow it came up – a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon, and I learned that dad had once been very concerned about global population growth. Coming along well after this question had become moot for him, of course – I knew only a dad whose greatest fulfillment was in his kids and wife. I can’t honestly remember whether she asked me, but I told her I had not had children because I never experienced that driving desire some people have, and it seemed to me that, lacking that, it would be incredibly unwise to have kids anyway. She seemed to accept this; either because she knows me well, or because she herself has not endured the world’s most painful urge for more grandchildren (she does have two), it’s always seemed to me that she wasn’t het up about my providing them. I can recall a time when people pushed me a bit about having children, but I can’t recall my mother being one of those to whom it seemed to mean a great deal to dictate my procreative habits.
Mom’s strongest guidance in that department, in fact, always came in the form of explaining in no uncertain terms the very negative consequences of my becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and the expectations of my continence in this department. (Indeed, she was still having nightmares about my showing up on the doorstep knocked up after I turned forty, though I haven’t heard about such a dream in the past year or two. Heh.)
Truth be told, I used to have a potent fear – and I’m not really cured of it, though the point is to my mind clearly moot by this time, aged forty-six – that I would be abusive. This is not owing to any such example, but when I reached twenty or so I just had an instinct about my impatience and temper – my twenties were not good years for equanimity and tolerance – and this stuck with me even to the point I still feel guilty about the way I treat my poor pets sometimes. Pen doesn’t behave like an abused child, but I’ve given her a shout or two – partiuclarly during the house-training months - not proud to remember.
It doesn’t come up much anymore, that people find me unnatural for not having children – but, at this point in life, I do sometimes catch the glimmer of strangeness when people realize I have not. The discomfort is hardly what it was during my “child bearing years”, but it remains an unnecessary awkwardness I wish people could avoid, even those who don’t know they’re reacting to it. At times like starting a new job and so on, the failure to be a participant in a 4-member nuclear family in the correct neighborhood does come up again and again. Given the photos of my nieces at my desk, too, there’s always the explaining to do.
So after all these years of the subliminal layer of my life, in which dealing with my unnaturalness in this regard is a perpetual, but very quiet, buzz in my eardrums, it was interesting to consider my father … as a man who wasn’t perhaps completely sure he wanted to be a father.
Well, he WANTED that. But he was capable of questioning it.
Let it be said, once he plunged into the wide world of parenthood, there was no way to tell if he ever questioned it again. My suspicion is: no. He was committed to us, to my mom, in a way I’ve rarely seen anyone commit to anything. The worst memories are the confirmation of this – the time I verbally beat him up when he all but did a term paper for me – and I didn’t like the way he did it. (Eesh.) The time I rejected a present he was so pleased to have bought for me. That one still makes me queasy, and it’s been probably twenty-five years. The fights I picked, with my brother and/or my mom. I wasn’t a nice kid any more than I was a nice twenty-something, and if his devotion EVER flagged, he concealed it utterly. And dad is the person in this world who knew more about me than anyone living except for Mr. X.
I think about the generosity of his love, its limitless capacity and tolerance and patience and bounty, and it makes me weep and I am humbled. I’ll probably never love like that in my life – though what I felt for and wished I could give to Mr. X is more than I ever would have imagined when we met. What I have given. I may not love like my dad, but I am damned steady, maternal instinct or no.
Years on, and ageing somewhat now, it’s hard not to look back on my thinking when I “could have” done this or that, and not think I was making excuses. But the omission of parenting has never been in doubt. I can remember naming babies when I was eighteen years old, with my First Love. But I cannot recall a single moment in my life, hearing the tick-tock of the Biological Clock, nor wishing anything had been different in this. I’ve never regretted not becoming a mother, either.
Maybe my omission is the balance to dad’s allowance. I held off where he sallied forth.
Or maybe I’m just my own odd and lonesome beast, wandering the plain on the margins and enjoying untrammeled grass. It can get lonesome – and even scary, knowing jackals pick off the loose ends. But I seem never to have needed to contribute more little-beasts to the herd.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Axing the Ax!
I was struck and amused at some of the ideas I'm bouncing off my SBC readers, and thought it was worth sharing, if only for the realization I came to in the final line of my note to these wonderful ladies ...
By the way, if you don't like having opening chapters of a novel "spoilered" - well, then, this contains spoilers. However, nothing of substance beyond the first few dozen pages will be ruined by this post. If you're interested in "process", though - read on, because this is full-on authorial sausage-making! (Note: "Cloti" is my nickname for Queen Clotilde. Other characters named are a mix of historical and fictional, mostly the latter.)
***
Kristi, to catch you up on brainstorming last weekend, Leila helped me to see that I could cut the character of Clovis’ older sister, Lanthechild (and her traitor husband, Gaianus) out of the novel. Just because she existed doesn't mean she needs to exist in this novel! This weekend, I decided I probably need to ditch Clovis’ own mini battle with trichinosis, too. That thread doesn’t do anything but demonstrate Cloti’s administrative expertise, and I don’t think evidence of that is so short those scenes and their aftermath are worth preserving. Your thoughts?
I’m also shifting the opening progression to move straight from Evochilde’s death to the battle with Syagrius, eliminating all the talk of horse breeds and cousin Wedelphus, and prep for five years, to tighten the progression of events. It’ll be coronation, mother’s banishment, death of Evochilde, big battle, with very little exposition and blah-blah in between. Any character I can eliminate, I need to - so if you think the little scribe boy, Merochar, needs to go, for instance, tell me. For now, I’ve kept Mero since he does provide an ongoing thread through the novel - but he may not be essential, so throw ideas around there, too.
Pharamond’s parents may get to keep their names, but I may also eliminate the scenes where their deaths occur; it doesn’t add anything to the action, nor Clovis’ character (their deaths don’t even do much for Pharamond’s character, textually speaking!), so that will probably go.
Funny, how I can feel so “fertile” as a writer, coming up with so many darlings to kill!!
By the way, if you don't like having opening chapters of a novel "spoilered" - well, then, this contains spoilers. However, nothing of substance beyond the first few dozen pages will be ruined by this post. If you're interested in "process", though - read on, because this is full-on authorial sausage-making! (Note: "Cloti" is my nickname for Queen Clotilde. Other characters named are a mix of historical and fictional, mostly the latter.)
***
Kristi, to catch you up on brainstorming last weekend, Leila helped me to see that I could cut the character of Clovis’ older sister, Lanthechild (and her traitor husband, Gaianus) out of the novel. Just because she existed doesn't mean she needs to exist in this novel! This weekend, I decided I probably need to ditch Clovis’ own mini battle with trichinosis, too. That thread doesn’t do anything but demonstrate Cloti’s administrative expertise, and I don’t think evidence of that is so short those scenes and their aftermath are worth preserving. Your thoughts?
I’m also shifting the opening progression to move straight from Evochilde’s death to the battle with Syagrius, eliminating all the talk of horse breeds and cousin Wedelphus, and prep for five years, to tighten the progression of events. It’ll be coronation, mother’s banishment, death of Evochilde, big battle, with very little exposition and blah-blah in between. Any character I can eliminate, I need to - so if you think the little scribe boy, Merochar, needs to go, for instance, tell me. For now, I’ve kept Mero since he does provide an ongoing thread through the novel - but he may not be essential, so throw ideas around there, too.
Pharamond’s parents may get to keep their names, but I may also eliminate the scenes where their deaths occur; it doesn’t add anything to the action, nor Clovis’ character (their deaths don’t even do much for Pharamond’s character, textually speaking!), so that will probably go.
Funny, how I can feel so “fertile” as a writer, coming up with so many darlings to kill!!
Monday, February 20, 2012
"Your Research is Showing"
The work yesterday was a satisfying swath across the novel. I'd researched, during the formative stages, various festa, and used those to punctuate certain events and transitions.
Research is wonderful. It can be an adventure; it can imbue a novel with the richness of setting.
It must be deployed, of course, with extreme care.
So yesterday, I moved across a field of festivals, and removed certain (especially Roman) specificity and particulars. This has given me the idea, too, that I need to take a pass (run a search function) at G-d as well. I need to smooth out theological detail which doesn't propel the plot either. In one case, I can guess at one entire scene which probably needs to be cut, and perhaps turned into something radically different. This will serve both the directive to deepen Clovis' personal perspective and character, and to eliminate "encyclopedia entries" (just thinking about it; the bit where they're reading the various texts of the (now we recognize it as the Nicene) creed is giving me the embarrassed willies).
The trick with performing surgery on a dragon with a pocket knife isn't finding a bigger knife.
It's knowing where to cut.
Research is wonderful. It can be an adventure; it can imbue a novel with the richness of setting.
It must be deployed, of course, with extreme care.
So yesterday, I moved across a field of festivals, and removed certain (especially Roman) specificity and particulars. This has given me the idea, too, that I need to take a pass (run a search function) at G-d as well. I need to smooth out theological detail which doesn't propel the plot either. In one case, I can guess at one entire scene which probably needs to be cut, and perhaps turned into something radically different. This will serve both the directive to deepen Clovis' personal perspective and character, and to eliminate "encyclopedia entries" (just thinking about it; the bit where they're reading the various texts of the (now we recognize it as the Nicene) creed is giving me the embarrassed willies).
The trick with performing surgery on a dragon with a pocket knife isn't finding a bigger knife.
It's knowing where to cut.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Book Associations
About a week ago, X and I were talking about reading and writing, and I brought up A Memory of Lions again. He's aware of the book, and of course I have gone on public record with its influence on my own work. Oddly enough, this was the first time I explicitly recommended he read the book, though. We've talked about "voice" a bit of late; his own tone and voice, as he has begun work on a regular review column, and the way he makes such a good reader for mine. So in thinking about my own, I said, really - read Memory and it will make so much about my own writing and focus so clear to you.
And that was the first time I heard it.
X's ex had a thing for Godwin's (better known) work - and also for Mary Stewart.
My mom has been making fun of me for twenty-nine years now, over my habit of re-reading books - specifically, and *most* particularly: Stewart's Arthuriana. As he put it to me last week - she felt she didn't have to read any more Arthurian works. And I have always felt the same. Much of an Arthurian/Merlin nerd as I should have been, I was actually very limited in my indulgences - because nobody could have improved on my experience of The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment. Even The Wicked Day, though I liked it, almost felt extra-canonical to me. A good book, but the whole had already been produced.
X's ex, apparently, had that relationship with both Stewart *and* Godwin.
I've read Sherwood, Memory, and even Godwin's modern satires, Waiting for the Galactic Bus and Snake Oil Wars - but never have gotten myself to crack Firelord. It seems, with Parke Godwin, I'm almost obsessively a one-book woman. Sherwood was GOOD. But Memory is something deeper - and something far to special to me. TOO special. I can't let anything stand beside it - not even Godwin's other works. What if I felt about Firelord as I do about Sherwood? It would be a pointless read. And Stewart's Merlin did it all for me.
So it was a funny thing to find, after all these years knowing him, this strange new thing to know. That a man would find two women who are suckers for the same books - something so unique and so personal as a book - isn't anything odd. (As he put it, roughly, "geeky is as geeky does" or something like that.) What was strange was such an intimate similarity between myself and her. It shouldn't, yet it strikes me odd we have the same tastes in something that means so much to me. Obviously, we've had the same taste in something else that means rather a lot to me - and I am not of the type to find reasons to (a) dislike or (b) disrespect "the ex" generally. I'm not nuts about everything she does, but it's not as if our lives actually touch, so for the most part her existence is no-harm/no-foul as far as I'm concerned. Yet I've always maintained an implicit expectation of our dissimilarity overall. We've gravitated to vastly differing lifestyles - so the fact of our respective involvement with X has never generated much interest in her.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this odd little bump in the night - was that X felt some reluctance toward the reading recommendation. The mental association of the author is *that* strong, for him, with her. To go into a Godwin book - even one he's not sure she's even read - simply *speaks* of her, to him. My being something of a unique and special creature in his life, he recoils from tying me to anything else, even by my own association.
And that is the surprise.
Writing, for me - no matter my denials of how precious each baby word may or may not be to me - no matter how pragmatic about my work, my characters, my talent; or the marketing, etc. - is "mine". If it's not a badge I wear to prove anything to people, it IS a commitment for me. And I have learned how to commit, in this life. I am dedicated to my authorship, and "take it personally" so to speak. Right down to my voice - and where I learned it.
***
***
Earlier this morning, I was listening to Rolling in the Deep again. A friend who's a coworker is in town for meetings, and she brought me both of Adele's CDs. So I had it playing - and Rolling is the first track on 21. It was all I could do to contain myself, listening to that song. Its power is unbroken for me, no matter how often I hear it - and here I was, sitting at my desk, all but weeping.
Not a lot of art nor even personal emotion actually can overcome me. It takes something I care about VERY deeply to exert such influence over me.
A Memory of Lions' influence over me is complete. As complete as Rolling is. As complete as that swelling, bombastic bit of Wendy Carlos' Moog-performed Brandenberg concerto, the piece my dad used to play to wake up my brother and me. As complete as the memory of a hospital ... where I held my dad's still-warm hand ... where I first held my youngest niece, and smelled her red-gold head. Memory is the one piece of literature which owns me outright; the work I would save from a fire; the one I would seek on the worst day of my life. It is beautiful, but not because it is fanciful. It's, like ... X-beautiful to me, actually. It can be so hard, it can be so sad ... it can be so joyous. It can make you stand up, make you want to fight. Make you silent.
I don't know whether the power of her books is the same for X's ex. It's odd, but I find myself incurious. And I don't resent his reluctance to partake of this thing, so meaningful to me. Life is an odd thing; sometimes it comes up with stuff like this - and if you ascribe too much to it, if you CARE about it beyond synchronicity's inherent interest, you can drive yourself a little mad. Perhaps it's reassuring, some thread in the women this man I love has in turn loved. He spent more than a quarter of his life with her; and he and I have spent almost as long, ourselves, knowing each other now.
X knows me better than any other person ever has - and yet his curiosity is inexhaustible, I sometimes think. Certainly, we never run out of things we want to talk with each other about.
Finding unexpected surprises is a part of the blessing of attracting fascinating people to your life. I'll never forget the time he showed me that ridiculously funny spit trick he can do. And he's unlikely to be able to ever wipe his memory clean of some of my funnier attributes.
It's kind of a joy, though, that not everything left to learn is just that much workaday triviality.
I contain multitudes (my blog profile says so!). So does X. What a neat collection of things human beings are.
And that was the first time I heard it.
X's ex had a thing for Godwin's (better known) work - and also for Mary Stewart.
My mom has been making fun of me for twenty-nine years now, over my habit of re-reading books - specifically, and *most* particularly: Stewart's Arthuriana. As he put it to me last week - she felt she didn't have to read any more Arthurian works. And I have always felt the same. Much of an Arthurian/Merlin nerd as I should have been, I was actually very limited in my indulgences - because nobody could have improved on my experience of The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment. Even The Wicked Day, though I liked it, almost felt extra-canonical to me. A good book, but the whole had already been produced.
X's ex, apparently, had that relationship with both Stewart *and* Godwin.
I've read Sherwood, Memory, and even Godwin's modern satires, Waiting for the Galactic Bus and Snake Oil Wars - but never have gotten myself to crack Firelord. It seems, with Parke Godwin, I'm almost obsessively a one-book woman. Sherwood was GOOD. But Memory is something deeper - and something far to special to me. TOO special. I can't let anything stand beside it - not even Godwin's other works. What if I felt about Firelord as I do about Sherwood? It would be a pointless read. And Stewart's Merlin did it all for me.
So it was a funny thing to find, after all these years knowing him, this strange new thing to know. That a man would find two women who are suckers for the same books - something so unique and so personal as a book - isn't anything odd. (As he put it, roughly, "geeky is as geeky does" or something like that.) What was strange was such an intimate similarity between myself and her. It shouldn't, yet it strikes me odd we have the same tastes in something that means so much to me. Obviously, we've had the same taste in something else that means rather a lot to me - and I am not of the type to find reasons to (a) dislike or (b) disrespect "the ex" generally. I'm not nuts about everything she does, but it's not as if our lives actually touch, so for the most part her existence is no-harm/no-foul as far as I'm concerned. Yet I've always maintained an implicit expectation of our dissimilarity overall. We've gravitated to vastly differing lifestyles - so the fact of our respective involvement with X has never generated much interest in her.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this odd little bump in the night - was that X felt some reluctance toward the reading recommendation. The mental association of the author is *that* strong, for him, with her. To go into a Godwin book - even one he's not sure she's even read - simply *speaks* of her, to him. My being something of a unique and special creature in his life, he recoils from tying me to anything else, even by my own association.
And that is the surprise.
Writing, for me - no matter my denials of how precious each baby word may or may not be to me - no matter how pragmatic about my work, my characters, my talent; or the marketing, etc. - is "mine". If it's not a badge I wear to prove anything to people, it IS a commitment for me. And I have learned how to commit, in this life. I am dedicated to my authorship, and "take it personally" so to speak. Right down to my voice - and where I learned it.
***
***
Earlier this morning, I was listening to Rolling in the Deep again. A friend who's a coworker is in town for meetings, and she brought me both of Adele's CDs. So I had it playing - and Rolling is the first track on 21. It was all I could do to contain myself, listening to that song. Its power is unbroken for me, no matter how often I hear it - and here I was, sitting at my desk, all but weeping.
Not a lot of art nor even personal emotion actually can overcome me. It takes something I care about VERY deeply to exert such influence over me.
A Memory of Lions' influence over me is complete. As complete as Rolling is. As complete as that swelling, bombastic bit of Wendy Carlos' Moog-performed Brandenberg concerto, the piece my dad used to play to wake up my brother and me. As complete as the memory of a hospital ... where I held my dad's still-warm hand ... where I first held my youngest niece, and smelled her red-gold head. Memory is the one piece of literature which owns me outright; the work I would save from a fire; the one I would seek on the worst day of my life. It is beautiful, but not because it is fanciful. It's, like ... X-beautiful to me, actually. It can be so hard, it can be so sad ... it can be so joyous. It can make you stand up, make you want to fight. Make you silent.
I don't know whether the power of her books is the same for X's ex. It's odd, but I find myself incurious. And I don't resent his reluctance to partake of this thing, so meaningful to me. Life is an odd thing; sometimes it comes up with stuff like this - and if you ascribe too much to it, if you CARE about it beyond synchronicity's inherent interest, you can drive yourself a little mad. Perhaps it's reassuring, some thread in the women this man I love has in turn loved. He spent more than a quarter of his life with her; and he and I have spent almost as long, ourselves, knowing each other now.
X knows me better than any other person ever has - and yet his curiosity is inexhaustible, I sometimes think. Certainly, we never run out of things we want to talk with each other about.
Finding unexpected surprises is a part of the blessing of attracting fascinating people to your life. I'll never forget the time he showed me that ridiculously funny spit trick he can do. And he's unlikely to be able to ever wipe his memory clean of some of my funnier attributes.
It's kind of a joy, though, that not everything left to learn is just that much workaday triviality.
I contain multitudes (my blog profile says so!). So does X. What a neat collection of things human beings are.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Rhythm
The phrasing in my work is as much a matter of the musical concept of "phrasing" as it is the words of which it is comprised. Mom and dad gave me a good vocabulary, and words can be a matter of magic for me. But I will climb over three words for the right syllabication, syncopation, rhythm-ation; get me there by punctuation.
Yes, very silly - I know that. But the point is that I will change an entire sentence to hit the inflection I need, the momentum, and the bump-and-grind a concept I'm putting down requires of its words. Sometimes, I'll move a substantial word so it falls off the tongue at the right moment (and - yes - I read my writing out loud), or simply change the lesser words, even adding or subtracting, to arrive at the right phrasing and rhythm. Finally, when the need arises, I'll just change a substantial word outright, for another, if the shifts don't get a sentence or its paragraph into satisfactory shape.
It's not typical for me to hear these beats in advance of getting to the point of writing (though my stupid brain does go into writing-rhythm OVERDRIVE when I am in bed but unable to sleep). I don't hear them even in the sentence preceding the one which suddenly clunks unpleasantly. I just know, most often while I am actually writing, but always when I re-read, when the number of syllables doesn't work. If the emphasis doesn't balance with the rest.
I'm no Mozart, where the writing is within me, and I know it before I get it out; I know little more than my main subject, and the immediate goal of the scene I'm working on. Still, it's instantly apparent when it is *wrong*. Even when I don't read something out loud, the way my mind processes reading is a mental audio.
The blog gets a lot less of this attention from me than my work for publication. Even so, I imagine regular readers here get a sense of the movement and pauses of my voice - which, even as filtered through different characters maintains an essential nature I couldn't and wouldn't wish to change. This voice is borrowed - or echoed ... recorded. I took it from both my parents, but with very conspicuous characteristics from The Major Side.
I talk like my father. I talk like my aunt and uncle. I talk like my cousins and my brother. I'm not as good at it as most of them, but it fuels whatever skill I have as a writer. My work is my father's, my uncle's - certainly my brother's (who first took me to JRW's conference, which educated me into enough confidence to finally, seriously do the work). My work is derivative, in the most positive possible sense.
Rhythm is the music of my father's gravelly voice. It's the emphasis of my uncle, the pause of my grandfather, the precision of my grandmother, the loud laughter of my aunt.
It's also the shock of humor and the joy of my maternal grandma. It's my mom's decisiveness and sometimes her emotion and hesitancy. It's the memory of her daddy; the arcing, Southern "aw" or the incandescent urgency of her sisters; the lilting impenetrability of her brother, accustomed to sermons.
It's the blood of the body of my work, and blood doesn't work without its *pulse* ...
***
Rhythm keeps my work alive. It's not the only invigorating force. But it is inexchangeably vital. So important I'll come up with nonsense like "inexchangeability" just because I like the way it flows, like the way it feels against my mind's tongue.
Some people have a mind's eye.
I realize, in my mental senses - my mind's ear, my mind's tongue, dominate.
Yes, very silly - I know that. But the point is that I will change an entire sentence to hit the inflection I need, the momentum, and the bump-and-grind a concept I'm putting down requires of its words. Sometimes, I'll move a substantial word so it falls off the tongue at the right moment (and - yes - I read my writing out loud), or simply change the lesser words, even adding or subtracting, to arrive at the right phrasing and rhythm. Finally, when the need arises, I'll just change a substantial word outright, for another, if the shifts don't get a sentence or its paragraph into satisfactory shape.
It's not typical for me to hear these beats in advance of getting to the point of writing (though my stupid brain does go into writing-rhythm OVERDRIVE when I am in bed but unable to sleep). I don't hear them even in the sentence preceding the one which suddenly clunks unpleasantly. I just know, most often while I am actually writing, but always when I re-read, when the number of syllables doesn't work. If the emphasis doesn't balance with the rest.
I'm no Mozart, where the writing is within me, and I know it before I get it out; I know little more than my main subject, and the immediate goal of the scene I'm working on. Still, it's instantly apparent when it is *wrong*. Even when I don't read something out loud, the way my mind processes reading is a mental audio.
The blog gets a lot less of this attention from me than my work for publication. Even so, I imagine regular readers here get a sense of the movement and pauses of my voice - which, even as filtered through different characters maintains an essential nature I couldn't and wouldn't wish to change. This voice is borrowed - or echoed ... recorded. I took it from both my parents, but with very conspicuous characteristics from The Major Side.
I talk like my father. I talk like my aunt and uncle. I talk like my cousins and my brother. I'm not as good at it as most of them, but it fuels whatever skill I have as a writer. My work is my father's, my uncle's - certainly my brother's (who first took me to JRW's conference, which educated me into enough confidence to finally, seriously do the work). My work is derivative, in the most positive possible sense.
Rhythm is the music of my father's gravelly voice. It's the emphasis of my uncle, the pause of my grandfather, the precision of my grandmother, the loud laughter of my aunt.
It's also the shock of humor and the joy of my maternal grandma. It's my mom's decisiveness and sometimes her emotion and hesitancy. It's the memory of her daddy; the arcing, Southern "aw" or the incandescent urgency of her sisters; the lilting impenetrability of her brother, accustomed to sermons.
It's the blood of the body of my work, and blood doesn't work without its *pulse* ...
***
Rhythm keeps my work alive. It's not the only invigorating force. But it is inexchangeably vital. So important I'll come up with nonsense like "inexchangeability" just because I like the way it flows, like the way it feels against my mind's tongue.
Some people have a mind's eye.
I realize, in my mental senses - my mind's ear, my mind's tongue, dominate.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Managing
The focus on job hunting and considering employment options (and hopes) has has me thinking a bit about my fairly fortunate past career. I've had some lulus when it comes to management, but I've also been blessed with some pretty great bosses in my day. The one who comes to mind most often, though, isn't the super generous, collegial gent from my position-before-last, or the one from my last insurance gig (both of whom I was so deeply grateful for), nor even the one from my most recent position, who said such kind things after the layoff. The one who sticks with me most is the woman from the job I had before I began to hit a more executive level. I actually worked, during my tenure at job-before-last, with another woman who had been under this woman's tutelage overlapping my own time there; we both remembered her with admiration and a good deal of respect.
The reason this woman, this manager, sticks out isn't completely unique. Her distinguishing trait was the ability to identify what people were good at doing, wanted to be doing, and liked doing - and finding ways to get them to do these things more than others. With me, she saw my interest in writing, and she had me write holiday poems for laughs for our group. Then she gave me the job of creating a newsletter for our firm ... editing an estate planning book (never published) by the firm's lawyer ... sometimes even working on or looking over marketing pieces and PR. She saw some capacity for tech, and made me an informal second banana to our IT guy when he or the interns we might not always have in-house weren't available. She recognized my ability to provide customer service, and put me in charge of the clients who were between formally assigned agents for whatever reason.
This woman exploited me more than any other manager I have ever seen - and I mean that in the most positive sense. She used my talents for the benefit of our firm, AND she also pushed me to developing them. I came in a typing machine with some sense of how to deal with people, and I left that place ready to provide a lot more value. What she did was the best possible thing for herself, for me, and for our employers. Simple as can be. But she was genuinely amazing.
I've had other managers, of course, who could plainly identify my strengths and play to them. I've learned, too, to express my interests, to leverage my talents, to put those in the fore even before I take on a new position. I'm no more a dummy than she was, back when I was so much less professionally mature.
Frankly, I'm grateful for her. She helped me to learn discipline, and she also demonstrated a savvy set of abilities I've rarely seen quite matched. I've been lucky to work for some of the best and biggest in financial services. But nobody has ever been BETTER. And nobody but nobody has ever given me so much.
I had a teacher, in first grade, who cultivated my tendency to daydream and live in my own private world. It was good for my heart, but it made for a hard row to hoe when it came to the next twelve (well, sixteen) years of schooling. Gaining authority over myself was a hard job, and took me a very, very long time.
This woman was key in this phase of my professional development, and, in a way, to some maturity beyond the office. She gave me a gift with that - and at a time in my life when, personally, I was craving structure, discipline, and growth. I owe a debt to her.
Thank you, C******. You are as good as it gets, and people know it. J*** and I both did.
The reason this woman, this manager, sticks out isn't completely unique. Her distinguishing trait was the ability to identify what people were good at doing, wanted to be doing, and liked doing - and finding ways to get them to do these things more than others. With me, she saw my interest in writing, and she had me write holiday poems for laughs for our group. Then she gave me the job of creating a newsletter for our firm ... editing an estate planning book (never published) by the firm's lawyer ... sometimes even working on or looking over marketing pieces and PR. She saw some capacity for tech, and made me an informal second banana to our IT guy when he or the interns we might not always have in-house weren't available. She recognized my ability to provide customer service, and put me in charge of the clients who were between formally assigned agents for whatever reason.
This woman exploited me more than any other manager I have ever seen - and I mean that in the most positive sense. She used my talents for the benefit of our firm, AND she also pushed me to developing them. I came in a typing machine with some sense of how to deal with people, and I left that place ready to provide a lot more value. What she did was the best possible thing for herself, for me, and for our employers. Simple as can be. But she was genuinely amazing.
I've had other managers, of course, who could plainly identify my strengths and play to them. I've learned, too, to express my interests, to leverage my talents, to put those in the fore even before I take on a new position. I'm no more a dummy than she was, back when I was so much less professionally mature.
Frankly, I'm grateful for her. She helped me to learn discipline, and she also demonstrated a savvy set of abilities I've rarely seen quite matched. I've been lucky to work for some of the best and biggest in financial services. But nobody has ever been BETTER. And nobody but nobody has ever given me so much.
I had a teacher, in first grade, who cultivated my tendency to daydream and live in my own private world. It was good for my heart, but it made for a hard row to hoe when it came to the next twelve (well, sixteen) years of schooling. Gaining authority over myself was a hard job, and took me a very, very long time.
This woman was key in this phase of my professional development, and, in a way, to some maturity beyond the office. She gave me a gift with that - and at a time in my life when, personally, I was craving structure, discipline, and growth. I owe a debt to her.
Thank you, C******. You are as good as it gets, and people know it. J*** and I both did.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Dream of a Waking Man
Hope is what ambition is made of.
It is heartbreaking that two people I love very much have none - one without even realizing it. One by their own design. The former is the sadder. She doesn't even know.
How can life be bearable when there is nothing to be done with it ... ? *Sigh*
***
"I can't get my hopes up."
If someone can't (will not) get their hopes up - NOTHING they hope for will ever just come to them.
It surprises me when people don't allow themselves to know this. It saddens me.
Especially people who think they are strong.
It is heartbreaking that two people I love very much have none - one without even realizing it. One by their own design. The former is the sadder. She doesn't even know.
How can life be bearable when there is nothing to be done with it ... ? *Sigh*
***
"I can't get my hopes up."
If someone can't (will not) get their hopes up - NOTHING they hope for will ever just come to them.
It surprises me when people don't allow themselves to know this. It saddens me.
Especially people who think they are strong.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Stealing Without Credit. Also: *WOE!*
No more "nerd" for me, apparently. It seems I am just a geek. Boo. (I'm still not changing my tags.)
Friday, August 28, 2009
A Bulleted List About Me
- I was among the freshman class of babies born at St. Mary's hospital when they first got a baby department
- Eubie Blake and I have the same birthday ... he had it first, though
- I can pop my shoulders out of the sockets, it's a great party game with the kids, donthchaknow
- At age ten, I was Rabbit #2 in the world premiere musical production, "Fifty Cubits"
- I've lived in Richmond, VA; Oak Ridge, TN; Springfield, OH ... and Richmond all over again
- BUT ... I have traveled to Kansas; Colorado; Israel; Athens, Greece; Hawai'i (twice); and NYC
- I was in the first freshman class at Mills E. Godwin HS, who had a full slate of upperclassmen ahead of us
- In 1985, I participated in the first Governor's Summer School for the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University
- Due to a special dispensation from, and the hilarous desire to make it a "race" with, my mom, I first gave blood at age 17 at a school blood drive (I bled faster, and won)
- At nineteen, I was invited by playwright Milan Stitt to apply to the Yale School of Drama ... he saw me in a scene from The Runner Stumbles; this scene also contained the one and only stage kiss I've ever had to perform (my leading man was a guy our professor was trying to bring out of his shell and who'd only taken the class as a requirement ... it was pretty bad)
- As dramatized as part one of the bullet point above may appear, please understand that including this is an indulgence and was NOT itself actually a dramatic moment; I just like that I can say this
- From June 1994 to May 1998, I increased my annual income from $12,500 to $30,000
- Since 1992, my blood donations have been almost exclusively for platelets/plasma; I have a blood platelet count two to three times higher than most people
- At a concert during the Serious Moonlight tour, I caught the towel of David Bowie (with a friend); my mom WASHED it the next morning (silly mama) ... I still have my half of the towel to this day
- My grandfather and my father between them lived in three separate centuries
- I have a great uncle (grandfather's KID brother) who came within a month of accomplishing the three-century feat singlehanded
- I can change the oil, brakes, rotors, and oil sending unit in a car (and the belts on a vacuum)
- I can carry as many as three little girls (at least one has to be a toddler) hanging from my hair
- I'm allergic to penicillin and fake-tanning
- In 1994/5 I assisted the staff attorney with my employer with transcription and editing of his book on estate planning (which was never published)
- A friend of mine wrote and directed the independent romantic comedy "Beyond Expectations" and I got to be an extra, along with our fifth grade teacher, who had a minor career-in-retirement as a movie extra in quite a few productions
- I'm a First Chapter member of James River Writers, and in four years have come close to completing my first book, a historical novel set in Late Antiquity/the early "Dark" Ages
Games People Play
I try to think about it objectively, and I think that my family don't really fit the popular conception of geeks or nerds. My mom, I have some suspicion, was a bit of a Popular Girl; my dad was a scientist, but perhaps far too good looking to be a nerd – and anyway, he conducted his youth during the Eisenhower years; surely, there is some relativism which prevents certain labels for certain socializations ...
Even if we're not quintessential Poindexters – I gravitate to the dork crowd, preferring gamers and propeller-heads over Popular Kids, or alternative/subcultural crowds, sports lovers, or whatever-category-have-you. I do hang with all of these, particularly the Ally Sheedy outliers and (when I was younger) certain elements of a somewhat delinquent population. But I'm a geek groupie at heart, always have been.
The possibly odd thing about this is that I'm not really much a part of any specific geek subgenre. I’m spread too thin, contain too many different elements, to fit fully into any of the usual buckets. My abilities and understanding of technology are limited to my requirements for it, and those are restrictively minimal to most people's mind (this itself may be a topic for a post). I'm not a gamer. I’m not a scholar nor a comic lover/reader/artist. I like a lot of geeky stuff a little, but none of it to the exclusion of the rest, and never enough to truly count myself a part of any tribal geek affiliation. My one most seriousl nerdliness is limited to a deep love of Star Trek - but I've never even gone to a Con. (Which is just sad.) Most telling of all, when people learn I’m a Trek nerd they are generally surprised to *some* degree, no matter the context in which I encounter the discussion. Fortunately, I have enough dork-sheen to fit IN with the bona fides. But like most intensive things in life, I have always been on the sidelines enjoying the real game.
And games would be the topic du post. As a nerdophile, I a nice selection of gamer guys (for some reason I don’t know but one woman enthusiast I can think of off the top of my head). One of the people I know has a blog dedicated to lots of geek-universe stuff, particularly focusing on games. The writing here is good, and brings me "in" just enough that I feel like I can get at least a bit of insight into this kind of person, whom I find so interesting – but, so oddly (and also interestingly, to me), whom I fail to share so many interests *with*.
I was talking with a propeller-head buddy of mine at work, discussing the gamer perspective I seem to be so attracted to, but which is genuinely alien to me. The thing that really struck me is, most gamers I know make it a priority, a real enthusiasm. Work buddy responds, to a comment about the blogger having a library and platform array for his games I can’t even comprehend, "Sounds like a kid at heart." The thing is, what holds my attention about this is the fact that, though we're talking about *games* … "play" is a word with a meaning unlike what the word as used in the context of childhood. Play, to a gamer, is a technical term! It refers to the graphical, physical, style/difficulty experience of a given release, or system, or even the makers of a line of games. Play, in gaming, is about the tactile and mental experience of a release’s music, the tricks of mastering it, the look and feel. Play is an aspect, but it almost doesn’t seem to be the point, quite so much as the progression and completion of levels.
In my exposure to gamers, the word "fun" doesn't actually come up all that often. Of course, I’m outside the “world” here, and my *point* is I’m missing the obvious. Of course too, YMMV (as the kids say) as to Wii games and more mainstream, accessible-to-non-gamers fun – but that’s the point; I’m talking about the specific universe of “gamers” – those people for whom a certain set of genres and expectations create a world apart from those releases pitched
Of course, too – I am not so dumb I don’t understand that fun is presupposed in games. Obviously. And to explain what is fun in one's personal experience probably bypasses the point, to some degree. I could never explain what I get out of the research for a historical novel, but the charge is very real, and I am blessed to have found the outlet. Even so, to the point of gaming and fun … the omission is odd to me. The *apparent* lack of fun, to an outsider (please read this as acknowledging the *existence* of fun, O Ye Insiders) apparently bypasses the "kid at heart" aspect of this particular hobby in another direction. And it's such an interesting direction.
The power of focus gamers have is what sets it apart to us non-initiates. The fulfillment goes well beyond “beating” your game individually, but almost inherently relies on reportage, sharing, discussion, and critique. A game isn’t fully played until EXPERTISE … is not merely gained, but *displayed*. If the game is vanquished in the forest, and nobody’s there to hear or see – then the game had less purpose. The fun derived goes from the hours of actual play, and is deepened and improved in reliving what you learned from the game, in imparting it, in dissecting its pros and cons, in the community experience. In KNOWLEDGE.
With gamers and artists and those who participate in any-given-activity as much for the other people doing the same as for the thing itself, there's a premium on knowing-more-than-the-next-person, scooping competition. Enthusiasms and hobbies of all sorts exist as prestige competitions, and prestige lies in immersive knowledge. Human beings find prestige-play impossibly compelling: the triumph of knowing something other people don't is hard to match.
English majors do this with language snobbery. Artists do it with insufferable pomposity about thematics, materials, and method. We all want to be IN, we all want to be imparters of news and knowledge. We all want to be first to know something. In gaming, this competition is actually built in; programmers construct tricks and secrets, and to play a video game, for some, goes well beyond shooting the right target. The electronic real estate, on Teh Intarwebs, dedicated to fora and discussion of who-knows-what-about-which are passionate, not rarely vitriolic, deeply analytical … and definitely reflective of a *community* dynamic. Elder Gamers have a certain kind of position and voice, newbies – as with any community – are given guidance, discipline, remediation. Relationships exist.
This morning on NPR, I heard a story about the current fear-mongering on healthcare reform. The reason fear is such an effective tool is, it is a survival mechanism. We preserve ourselves by vigilance. For a full CENTURY, this has played out in repeated attempts to block healthcare reform, and been a wildly successful tool.
The opposite of fear, modern humanity has come to believe: knowledge.
If I know more than the other guy, I'm less vulnerable than he is.
The whole point of my posting about this is … This is an area of human experience where I have an impenetrable difference in perspective. That I have this with the very people I find most interesting is the captivating part. I haven’t got a competitive nor coordinated bone in my body. It would be impossible for me to have any less understanding nor interest in video games; they rank, for me, with football for sheer opacity of boredom. There isn’t a foothold I can use to get in; for that matter, there isn’t the largest staircase I would bother to ascend in order to do so.
I have an affinity for relationships to people with interests absolutely unlike mine. Gamers, depressives, loud New Yorkers, hypochondriacs, republicans. I conduct relationships with people who have kids for goodness’ sake (kidding, y’all). It’s not that I’m open-minded, it’s that something attracts me. The deepest relationships in my life are always complicated solely, but almost invariably, by the absolute disparity in expectations.
What is strange is that the strengths in those relationships, also invariably … comes from those values that *form* these variant perspectives. I can see how someone with some experiences like mine, with morality and values I share, can even still arrive at radically different conclusions. My disagreements with the people who mean most to me aren’t the symptom, to me, of our troubles. They are a signifier of our creativity, our intensity, our dynamism, our individuality. My brother and I, my mother and I, my friends, the men I have loved (and lost or not) – we all know those things we share, but we are bound just as much by those things we know we do not.
I think this is what keeps me just on the outside of in-crowds … which, parenthetically, always seem to accept me, even if not as “one of their own”. This is a thing, about myself, I treasure more deeply than anything anyone outside my head and heart might see as my advantages.
I contain multitudes. I am grateful, proud, and joyous.
Even if we're not quintessential Poindexters – I gravitate to the dork crowd, preferring gamers and propeller-heads over Popular Kids, or alternative/subcultural crowds, sports lovers, or whatever-category-have-you. I do hang with all of these, particularly the Ally Sheedy outliers and (when I was younger) certain elements of a somewhat delinquent population. But I'm a geek groupie at heart, always have been.
The possibly odd thing about this is that I'm not really much a part of any specific geek subgenre. I’m spread too thin, contain too many different elements, to fit fully into any of the usual buckets. My abilities and understanding of technology are limited to my requirements for it, and those are restrictively minimal to most people's mind (this itself may be a topic for a post). I'm not a gamer. I’m not a scholar nor a comic lover/reader/artist. I like a lot of geeky stuff a little, but none of it to the exclusion of the rest, and never enough to truly count myself a part of any tribal geek affiliation. My one most seriousl nerdliness is limited to a deep love of Star Trek - but I've never even gone to a Con. (Which is just sad.) Most telling of all, when people learn I’m a Trek nerd they are generally surprised to *some* degree, no matter the context in which I encounter the discussion. Fortunately, I have enough dork-sheen to fit IN with the bona fides. But like most intensive things in life, I have always been on the sidelines enjoying the real game.
And games would be the topic du post. As a nerdophile, I a nice selection of gamer guys (for some reason I don’t know but one woman enthusiast I can think of off the top of my head). One of the people I know has a blog dedicated to lots of geek-universe stuff, particularly focusing on games. The writing here is good, and brings me "in" just enough that I feel like I can get at least a bit of insight into this kind of person, whom I find so interesting – but, so oddly (and also interestingly, to me), whom I fail to share so many interests *with*.
I was talking with a propeller-head buddy of mine at work, discussing the gamer perspective I seem to be so attracted to, but which is genuinely alien to me. The thing that really struck me is, most gamers I know make it a priority, a real enthusiasm. Work buddy responds, to a comment about the blogger having a library and platform array for his games I can’t even comprehend, "Sounds like a kid at heart." The thing is, what holds my attention about this is the fact that, though we're talking about *games* … "play" is a word with a meaning unlike what the word as used in the context of childhood. Play, to a gamer, is a technical term! It refers to the graphical, physical, style/difficulty experience of a given release, or system, or even the makers of a line of games. Play, in gaming, is about the tactile and mental experience of a release’s music, the tricks of mastering it, the look and feel. Play is an aspect, but it almost doesn’t seem to be the point, quite so much as the progression and completion of levels.
In my exposure to gamers, the word "fun" doesn't actually come up all that often. Of course, I’m outside the “world” here, and my *point* is I’m missing the obvious. Of course too, YMMV (as the kids say) as to Wii games and more mainstream, accessible-to-non-gamers fun – but that’s the point; I’m talking about the specific universe of “gamers” – those people for whom a certain set of genres and expectations create a world apart from those releases pitched
Of course, too – I am not so dumb I don’t understand that fun is presupposed in games. Obviously. And to explain what is fun in one's personal experience probably bypasses the point, to some degree. I could never explain what I get out of the research for a historical novel, but the charge is very real, and I am blessed to have found the outlet. Even so, to the point of gaming and fun … the omission is odd to me. The *apparent* lack of fun, to an outsider (please read this as acknowledging the *existence* of fun, O Ye Insiders) apparently bypasses the "kid at heart" aspect of this particular hobby in another direction. And it's such an interesting direction.
The power of focus gamers have is what sets it apart to us non-initiates. The fulfillment goes well beyond “beating” your game individually, but almost inherently relies on reportage, sharing, discussion, and critique. A game isn’t fully played until EXPERTISE … is not merely gained, but *displayed*. If the game is vanquished in the forest, and nobody’s there to hear or see – then the game had less purpose. The fun derived goes from the hours of actual play, and is deepened and improved in reliving what you learned from the game, in imparting it, in dissecting its pros and cons, in the community experience. In KNOWLEDGE.
With gamers and artists and those who participate in any-given-activity as much for the other people doing the same as for the thing itself, there's a premium on knowing-more-than-the-next-person, scooping competition. Enthusiasms and hobbies of all sorts exist as prestige competitions, and prestige lies in immersive knowledge. Human beings find prestige-play impossibly compelling: the triumph of knowing something other people don't is hard to match.
English majors do this with language snobbery. Artists do it with insufferable pomposity about thematics, materials, and method. We all want to be IN, we all want to be imparters of news and knowledge. We all want to be first to know something. In gaming, this competition is actually built in; programmers construct tricks and secrets, and to play a video game, for some, goes well beyond shooting the right target. The electronic real estate, on Teh Intarwebs, dedicated to fora and discussion of who-knows-what-about-which are passionate, not rarely vitriolic, deeply analytical … and definitely reflective of a *community* dynamic. Elder Gamers have a certain kind of position and voice, newbies – as with any community – are given guidance, discipline, remediation. Relationships exist.
This morning on NPR, I heard a story about the current fear-mongering on healthcare reform. The reason fear is such an effective tool is, it is a survival mechanism. We preserve ourselves by vigilance. For a full CENTURY, this has played out in repeated attempts to block healthcare reform, and been a wildly successful tool.
The opposite of fear, modern humanity has come to believe: knowledge.
If I know more than the other guy, I'm less vulnerable than he is.
The whole point of my posting about this is … This is an area of human experience where I have an impenetrable difference in perspective. That I have this with the very people I find most interesting is the captivating part. I haven’t got a competitive nor coordinated bone in my body. It would be impossible for me to have any less understanding nor interest in video games; they rank, for me, with football for sheer opacity of boredom. There isn’t a foothold I can use to get in; for that matter, there isn’t the largest staircase I would bother to ascend in order to do so.
I have an affinity for relationships to people with interests absolutely unlike mine. Gamers, depressives, loud New Yorkers, hypochondriacs, republicans. I conduct relationships with people who have kids for goodness’ sake (kidding, y’all). It’s not that I’m open-minded, it’s that something attracts me. The deepest relationships in my life are always complicated solely, but almost invariably, by the absolute disparity in expectations.
What is strange is that the strengths in those relationships, also invariably … comes from those values that *form* these variant perspectives. I can see how someone with some experiences like mine, with morality and values I share, can even still arrive at radically different conclusions. My disagreements with the people who mean most to me aren’t the symptom, to me, of our troubles. They are a signifier of our creativity, our intensity, our dynamism, our individuality. My brother and I, my mother and I, my friends, the men I have loved (and lost or not) – we all know those things we share, but we are bound just as much by those things we know we do not.
I think this is what keeps me just on the outside of in-crowds … which, parenthetically, always seem to accept me, even if not as “one of their own”. This is a thing, about myself, I treasure more deeply than anything anyone outside my head and heart might see as my advantages.
I contain multitudes. I am grateful, proud, and joyous.
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