riding a late-breaking wave
Feb. 20th, 2005 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kleenexwomanWas going to bring in “Inspired By” to Poet's Collective. Did bring in “Inspired By” to Poet's Collective. Spent $0.50 printing out copies. Buuuuut when I got up to the room in the U.C., it was dark and there was nobody there. Waited around for twenty minutes. Still nobody there. It was listed on the e-mail I got, it was listed right outside the room, everything. I know I wasn’t at the last meeting. Was it just cancelled and nobody bothered to tell me or send me an E-mail? Did everybody just forget or decide to not go? I’m pissed off about this.
On the bright side, I did get to waste twenty minutes slumping in the hall and listening to someone’s TV show about five ethnically diverse young aspiring pop culture icons shopping for each other. Bleh. After the first five minutes I stuck my fingers in my ears and worked on making up dialogue for my vaguely outlined Re-A/Willard crossover. Eventually realized that most of it sounded like I’d ripped it off of Douglas Adams and was totally out of character. I think I’ve watched the H2G2 movie trailer too many times.
I’ve also been seriously thinking (again) about a sequel to “Reeling Off The Years.” It’ll probably intertwine three narratives: George in college, Marty in college, and George’s renewed relationship with Junie (and to a lesser extent, Phil and Kevin). Some of the ideas I’m having for it are things that I really could fit into an original story instead, but it’s going to be interesting to apply it to the characters. Anyway, there’s no law that says I can’t reuse ‘em later. If I do, and I get published, and one of my adoring fans discovers all that fanfic I wrote when I was in college, it’ll be a nice surprise for them. < /dreaming>
ETA: Oh, and fuck, no Fiction Collective tonight either ‘cause of the snowstorm. (Yes, we have a snowstorm. See weather rant at bottom of entry.) No chai for me, but that just means I’ll have time to make sure “From the Gods” actually is 250 words like I promised.
I’ve been deconstructing myself lately. Teenage angst? Introspection? Highly charismatic Sociology professor? That, and probably all of the above. I need to find out how I work. It’s a little bit scary; it’s like taking apart my mind while it’s still running. The problem is that I can’t do it myself, and I can’t really trust anyone else to do it for me.
The issue today was belief systems and behavior self-modification. We discussed the idea of “acceptable hypocrisy”, which I vaguely remember as a Chinese idea from “The Diamond Age” and which explores the gap between deep-seated, irrational beliefs and opinions /and/ intellectual morality and knowledge, and the way that gap allows for safe social functioning.
Really, you can’t help what you believe, and you can’t help what you want. It’s what you can accept and how you act that determines whether you are, fundamentally, a good person. (ETA: That’s the first time in a long time I’ve written a value judgment that didn’t have a long string of qualifiers before it, and I'm a bit uncomfortable about that but also a bit smug. Total objectivity = overrated? Can’t decide whether it’s philosophical paralysis or just the serenity of ration. Serenity would be nice, I’ve been very spazzy lately.)
Anyway, this turned into a conversation on impulses (conversation because it was after class. During class, Sheptoski lectures about experiments and I scribble notes with the words “it’s all a fucking conspiracy” sprinkled liberally throughout). One of the things I said was that suppressing minor impulses seemed pretty natural and social to me, and that I’d been doing it since I was a kid. I knew I was weird when I was young, but I wasn’t sure what parts of me were weird. I looked to my parents for normality, though. When I did something that Mom and Dad couldn’t quite understand or handle, I knew that was me being strange. When they knew immediately what to do, I figured it was a normal kid thing I’d done.
And Mom and Dad knew what to tell me: “Rachel, don’t pick your nose.” “Rachel, don’t sing in class.” “Rachel, don’t throw your math book across the room.” So I internalize that stuff. “Rachel, don’t tell dead baby jokes in front of Mom.” “Rachel, don’t throw snowballs at the scary screaming preacher.” “Rachel, don’t troll the homophobic message board.” So I grow up to be, if not a completely productive and functioning member of society, at least not a Psycho Killer, ba ba ba ba.
So I tell this (sans “Mom and Dad”, with generalities attached) to Sheptoski, thinking that he’ll say something wise about social standards. Instead, he asks me why I assume that everyone has these impulses to suppress.
And I know that he just wants to make me think. He likes making his students think. He asked the class today which country had the most freedom, and when 90% of the students he called on said it was America, he made them explain why. Then we got into a discussion on the definition of freedom, and I think everybody kinda left with the impression that Canada or maybe Switzerland might be a slightly better stronghold of Freedom With a Capital F than America. (Is it? Hell if I know, I don’t even know what the word means now.) But definitely got everyone thinking.
And it made me think. And it made me a little paranoid, because the best philosophy of morality that I can come up with is based on the idea that everyone has these impulses and that one’s own virtue depends on one’s ability to suppress them.
But that’s based on making me feel better. Because I have some horrible thoughts and ideas and desires, and some of them are things I don’t actually agree with at all (come from the id, I suppose). I accept and acknowledge that they exist, but I can’t accept that they mean anything. These things aren’t what I really feel. They’re something alien inside me.
So if most people don’t actually have these impulses and ideas--if cognitive dissonance isn’t the sane, healthy norm--then what does that say about me?
Confronted my past in the Thursday campaign. The backstory for my mage hasn't been very important in the game so far, but it came into play during the Test. (She had to take a test to let the Mage Council, because apparently there is one, know that she was worthy to be a mage and wouldn't be hunted down.)
Thought it'd be a typical test of strength where I fry monsters with Magic Missile. Boy, did I ever underestimate the DM's imagination there. Instead of killin' grues, I got to go through my backstory, complete with the grandma who went crazy because she settled down and had a family instead of training her talent, the mom who lovingly kicked me out to learn second-rate magic from a family friend, the older brother banishing me from the family because of the Evil Demons that made me magic (but only after the parents died and he convinced me it was my fault). After that, I had to resist an evil voice that encouraged me to forget the quest, to forget the other players, to forget my Destiny of saving the world, to join it and take power instead. That the world wouldn't care if I saved it. That I'd end up alone, stoned by the villagers and burned at the stake.
I passed the test, of course. Told the voice that I didn't want to be an evil mage and that I just wanted to do good. (I am Lawful Good, after all. Wouldn't have been in character.) But jeez, Josh, way to accidentally hit on my real-life insecurities. Way to coincide there, life! Couldn't have done it better myself if I had been writing a YA novel.
Y'know, I bet I am a character in a YA novel. I bet all this coming-of-age stuff is a story arc, and the last eighteen years of my life were just backstory. After this semester is over, the story will end and I will cease to exist. Except in fanfiction, possibly, and wouldn't it just be too fucking weird and too fucking perfect if I was actually in a fanfic? If none of this was canon? And in that case, who's the Mary Sue? There's got to be a Mary Sue around here somewhere. Show yourself, you sparkly-haired, lightning-orbed minx.
ETA: Just talked to Ben. For five minutes. And he's only an hour away and we still can't see each other. One hour is far too little, especially when at least five other people on my friendlist are having rapturous reunions with people who live much farther away. Hello, people who are having rapturous reunions. I hope you are having a nice time.
And when Brian and Dad are in Florida. Florida. With...palm trees and shite. And air that doesn't actually freeze your lungs. I'm missing a much-needed dose of family bonding and meteorological benevolence because the Michigan educational system didn't bother to correlate their spring breaks.
Actually, I could care less about the palm trees if I got to go home and see people. Or go to Texas or Maryland or Ohio or Arizona or England or wherever the fuck you are (you know who you are) and see people.
Instead I'm listening to Steely Dan (this takes care of the palm trees, because listening to "Walk Between the Raindrops" makes palm trees, blue water, and art-deco skyscrapers appear unbidden before my eyes) and rereading old conversations on Yahoo (yay for message archiving). And ignoring my Econ, which is really more of an immediate problem than not being in Florida playing ping-pong with my brother. I don't want to fail Econ. On the other hand, I don't want to do Econ, and I want to play ping-pong among the palm trees.
If crushing malaise and vague loneliness at 3 AM is the worst my life ever gets, I should consider myself lucky.
On the bright side, I did get to waste twenty minutes slumping in the hall and listening to someone’s TV show about five ethnically diverse young aspiring pop culture icons shopping for each other. Bleh. After the first five minutes I stuck my fingers in my ears and worked on making up dialogue for my vaguely outlined Re-A/Willard crossover. Eventually realized that most of it sounded like I’d ripped it off of Douglas Adams and was totally out of character. I think I’ve watched the H2G2 movie trailer too many times.
I’ve also been seriously thinking (again) about a sequel to “Reeling Off The Years.” It’ll probably intertwine three narratives: George in college, Marty in college, and George’s renewed relationship with Junie (and to a lesser extent, Phil and Kevin). Some of the ideas I’m having for it are things that I really could fit into an original story instead, but it’s going to be interesting to apply it to the characters. Anyway, there’s no law that says I can’t reuse ‘em later. If I do, and I get published, and one of my adoring fans discovers all that fanfic I wrote when I was in college, it’ll be a nice surprise for them. < /dreaming>
ETA: Oh, and fuck, no Fiction Collective tonight either ‘cause of the snowstorm. (Yes, we have a snowstorm. See weather rant at bottom of entry.) No chai for me, but that just means I’ll have time to make sure “From the Gods” actually is 250 words like I promised.
I’ve been deconstructing myself lately. Teenage angst? Introspection? Highly charismatic Sociology professor? That, and probably all of the above. I need to find out how I work. It’s a little bit scary; it’s like taking apart my mind while it’s still running. The problem is that I can’t do it myself, and I can’t really trust anyone else to do it for me.
The issue today was belief systems and behavior self-modification. We discussed the idea of “acceptable hypocrisy”, which I vaguely remember as a Chinese idea from “The Diamond Age” and which explores the gap between deep-seated, irrational beliefs and opinions /and/ intellectual morality and knowledge, and the way that gap allows for safe social functioning.
Really, you can’t help what you believe, and you can’t help what you want. It’s what you can accept and how you act that determines whether you are, fundamentally, a good person. (ETA: That’s the first time in a long time I’ve written a value judgment that didn’t have a long string of qualifiers before it, and I'm a bit uncomfortable about that but also a bit smug. Total objectivity = overrated? Can’t decide whether it’s philosophical paralysis or just the serenity of ration. Serenity would be nice, I’ve been very spazzy lately.)
Anyway, this turned into a conversation on impulses (conversation because it was after class. During class, Sheptoski lectures about experiments and I scribble notes with the words “it’s all a fucking conspiracy” sprinkled liberally throughout). One of the things I said was that suppressing minor impulses seemed pretty natural and social to me, and that I’d been doing it since I was a kid. I knew I was weird when I was young, but I wasn’t sure what parts of me were weird. I looked to my parents for normality, though. When I did something that Mom and Dad couldn’t quite understand or handle, I knew that was me being strange. When they knew immediately what to do, I figured it was a normal kid thing I’d done.
And Mom and Dad knew what to tell me: “Rachel, don’t pick your nose.” “Rachel, don’t sing in class.” “Rachel, don’t throw your math book across the room.” So I internalize that stuff. “Rachel, don’t tell dead baby jokes in front of Mom.” “Rachel, don’t throw snowballs at the scary screaming preacher.” “Rachel, don’t troll the homophobic message board.” So I grow up to be, if not a completely productive and functioning member of society, at least not a Psycho Killer, ba ba ba ba.
So I tell this (sans “Mom and Dad”, with generalities attached) to Sheptoski, thinking that he’ll say something wise about social standards. Instead, he asks me why I assume that everyone has these impulses to suppress.
And I know that he just wants to make me think. He likes making his students think. He asked the class today which country had the most freedom, and when 90% of the students he called on said it was America, he made them explain why. Then we got into a discussion on the definition of freedom, and I think everybody kinda left with the impression that Canada or maybe Switzerland might be a slightly better stronghold of Freedom With a Capital F than America. (Is it? Hell if I know, I don’t even know what the word means now.) But definitely got everyone thinking.
And it made me think. And it made me a little paranoid, because the best philosophy of morality that I can come up with is based on the idea that everyone has these impulses and that one’s own virtue depends on one’s ability to suppress them.
But that’s based on making me feel better. Because I have some horrible thoughts and ideas and desires, and some of them are things I don’t actually agree with at all (come from the id, I suppose). I accept and acknowledge that they exist, but I can’t accept that they mean anything. These things aren’t what I really feel. They’re something alien inside me.
So if most people don’t actually have these impulses and ideas--if cognitive dissonance isn’t the sane, healthy norm--then what does that say about me?
Confronted my past in the Thursday campaign. The backstory for my mage hasn't been very important in the game so far, but it came into play during the Test. (She had to take a test to let the Mage Council, because apparently there is one, know that she was worthy to be a mage and wouldn't be hunted down.)
Thought it'd be a typical test of strength where I fry monsters with Magic Missile. Boy, did I ever underestimate the DM's imagination there. Instead of killin' grues, I got to go through my backstory, complete with the grandma who went crazy because she settled down and had a family instead of training her talent, the mom who lovingly kicked me out to learn second-rate magic from a family friend, the older brother banishing me from the family because of the Evil Demons that made me magic (but only after the parents died and he convinced me it was my fault). After that, I had to resist an evil voice that encouraged me to forget the quest, to forget the other players, to forget my Destiny of saving the world, to join it and take power instead. That the world wouldn't care if I saved it. That I'd end up alone, stoned by the villagers and burned at the stake.
I passed the test, of course. Told the voice that I didn't want to be an evil mage and that I just wanted to do good. (I am Lawful Good, after all. Wouldn't have been in character.) But jeez, Josh, way to accidentally hit on my real-life insecurities. Way to coincide there, life! Couldn't have done it better myself if I had been writing a YA novel.
Y'know, I bet I am a character in a YA novel. I bet all this coming-of-age stuff is a story arc, and the last eighteen years of my life were just backstory. After this semester is over, the story will end and I will cease to exist. Except in fanfiction, possibly, and wouldn't it just be too fucking weird and too fucking perfect if I was actually in a fanfic? If none of this was canon? And in that case, who's the Mary Sue? There's got to be a Mary Sue around here somewhere. Show yourself, you sparkly-haired, lightning-orbed minx.
ETA: Just talked to Ben. For five minutes. And he's only an hour away and we still can't see each other. One hour is far too little, especially when at least five other people on my friendlist are having rapturous reunions with people who live much farther away. Hello, people who are having rapturous reunions. I hope you are having a nice time.
And when Brian and Dad are in Florida. Florida. With...palm trees and shite. And air that doesn't actually freeze your lungs. I'm missing a much-needed dose of family bonding and meteorological benevolence because the Michigan educational system didn't bother to correlate their spring breaks.
Actually, I could care less about the palm trees if I got to go home and see people. Or go to Texas or Maryland or Ohio or Arizona or England or wherever the fuck you are (you know who you are) and see people.
Instead I'm listening to Steely Dan (this takes care of the palm trees, because listening to "Walk Between the Raindrops" makes palm trees, blue water, and art-deco skyscrapers appear unbidden before my eyes) and rereading old conversations on Yahoo (yay for message archiving). And ignoring my Econ, which is really more of an immediate problem than not being in Florida playing ping-pong with my brother. I don't want to fail Econ. On the other hand, I don't want to do Econ, and I want to play ping-pong among the palm trees.
If crushing malaise and vague loneliness at 3 AM is the worst my life ever gets, I should consider myself lucky.
