Dissection
May. 16th, 2006 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormFirst stab, in which I decide that minimalist or cryptic posting will do.
Dipping my toes in the narrative waters: last night was Korean Movie Monday. It should have been the most awkward Korean Movie Monday in the history of the world, but it was a lot of fun. The girl in the movie we watched, Duellist, was voted by three out of three past and present boyfriends to have a dating style similar to my own. I tried to bite a bunch of people in the centre of a ring of people, and succeeded sometimes. I had fun. I recieved some much-needed comfort from CrazyChris and Juggler, and spent most of the movie with my mouth dangling open. It was... really something. If anyone wants to see this movie, I may be willing to buy you a copy and mail it if you don't live in Vancouver.
For the twenty-four hours proceeding KMM I had some sort of sunstroke/something or other. There were likely many contributing factors: drinking Thursday, sun on all weekend days, a ridiculous amount of sweaty sex, some caffeine, my general susceptibility, my lack of hats. It sucked. Today summer's picked up its heat and, although I had to work outside today, I'm fine now. I think I'm just to the point where I'm photosynthesizing again-- my body can handle minimal nutrients and lots of water, but that's about it.
Now.
My mind has been jumping up and down and waving its arms and screaming at me lately. Well, not my mind, which has been busy ignoring it, but perhaps my spirit. Some bit of me's been trying to get attention, anyway. It's got it now.
Ever since I came out of my bedroom when I was, oh, fifteen? I've been trying to figure out this people thing. Some people seem to have it effortlessly, but I was raised by books and an abusive father, so I've had a steep learning curve. Apparently I'm still learning.
One of the big issues for me comes up when people have expectations of me. You know, I don't deal well with behavioural expectations. I deal okay with goal-oriented expectations-- in those cases I can procrastinate and get the thing in by the deadline, I can get it done early and get it out of the way, I can put my shoulder down and grind away until I have the thing I want done because reaching a goal is a victory to me, and a worthwhile thing, and I enjoy it.
General expectations, on the other hand, tend to make me crazy.
This isn't where I want to go.
I was going to come home and write that my interaction with people involves me asking, over and over again, who are you? Who are you? With people who are close to me, the answers are big and clear. CrazyChris' identity is a big scream, gloriously inconsistent sometimes like all humans are. Juggler's self-ness is like an alarm clock in the neighboring apartment when they're on vacation-- it's there, always, in the background if you listen. You can't turn it off. I take such joy in these people. I love the way the shape of them folds out into their world in such prominent, intense detail. There is a fringe of interaction where their edges meet the world and a mutual shaping process occurs, and this is what I see when I look at them. I think I may come to be one of these people someday. I think I'm partway there. I feel like a counselling course on how to use "I" statements.
There are some people who I ask, who are you? and the answer is quiet, or it isn't there at all. I ask it in a hundred ways-- what do you like to do, who are your parents, where are you from, what do you think of this or that, what are you thinking? I'll ask. In the answers to those questions, or in the silences, there are my answers.
I've always been afraid to answer myself honestly when I ask myself, who are you? Here we come back to the beginning of this thought, to my difficulties with the slow cyclic dance of social interaction. Because, you see, when I ask myself who are you I find myself answering, instead, the question who should you be? They are certainly both important questions to ask, but it is in confusing the two that I fall down and am trampled by my own humanity, by which I mean my own flaws.
The older I get the more I feel a sense of ownership over myself and my decisions, and the more loathe I am to relinquish it to others. My body is mine, my voice is mine, my thoughts are mine, my soul is my own. Irony overruns me at this point, where the more I am myself, the more I can love other people. The more I am myself, however, the more difficult it is to figure out how to bend for people. Things shape into two categories-- not a big deal (this category contains more things as thetime goes by, and I am thus mellower) and the way I do things (which, although negotiable, is not enforceable by any other power).
I think that's what I needed to say, for now. What I do next will frighten me. What I'm doing now frightened me before. Oddly enough, though, the fear always disappears the deeper I go.
Dipping my toes in the narrative waters: last night was Korean Movie Monday. It should have been the most awkward Korean Movie Monday in the history of the world, but it was a lot of fun. The girl in the movie we watched, Duellist, was voted by three out of three past and present boyfriends to have a dating style similar to my own. I tried to bite a bunch of people in the centre of a ring of people, and succeeded sometimes. I had fun. I recieved some much-needed comfort from CrazyChris and Juggler, and spent most of the movie with my mouth dangling open. It was... really something. If anyone wants to see this movie, I may be willing to buy you a copy and mail it if you don't live in Vancouver.
For the twenty-four hours proceeding KMM I had some sort of sunstroke/something or other. There were likely many contributing factors: drinking Thursday, sun on all weekend days, a ridiculous amount of sweaty sex, some caffeine, my general susceptibility, my lack of hats. It sucked. Today summer's picked up its heat and, although I had to work outside today, I'm fine now. I think I'm just to the point where I'm photosynthesizing again-- my body can handle minimal nutrients and lots of water, but that's about it.
Now.
My mind has been jumping up and down and waving its arms and screaming at me lately. Well, not my mind, which has been busy ignoring it, but perhaps my spirit. Some bit of me's been trying to get attention, anyway. It's got it now.
Ever since I came out of my bedroom when I was, oh, fifteen? I've been trying to figure out this people thing. Some people seem to have it effortlessly, but I was raised by books and an abusive father, so I've had a steep learning curve. Apparently I'm still learning.
One of the big issues for me comes up when people have expectations of me. You know, I don't deal well with behavioural expectations. I deal okay with goal-oriented expectations-- in those cases I can procrastinate and get the thing in by the deadline, I can get it done early and get it out of the way, I can put my shoulder down and grind away until I have the thing I want done because reaching a goal is a victory to me, and a worthwhile thing, and I enjoy it.
General expectations, on the other hand, tend to make me crazy.
This isn't where I want to go.
I was going to come home and write that my interaction with people involves me asking, over and over again, who are you? Who are you? With people who are close to me, the answers are big and clear. CrazyChris' identity is a big scream, gloriously inconsistent sometimes like all humans are. Juggler's self-ness is like an alarm clock in the neighboring apartment when they're on vacation-- it's there, always, in the background if you listen. You can't turn it off. I take such joy in these people. I love the way the shape of them folds out into their world in such prominent, intense detail. There is a fringe of interaction where their edges meet the world and a mutual shaping process occurs, and this is what I see when I look at them. I think I may come to be one of these people someday. I think I'm partway there. I feel like a counselling course on how to use "I" statements.
There are some people who I ask, who are you? and the answer is quiet, or it isn't there at all. I ask it in a hundred ways-- what do you like to do, who are your parents, where are you from, what do you think of this or that, what are you thinking? I'll ask. In the answers to those questions, or in the silences, there are my answers.
I've always been afraid to answer myself honestly when I ask myself, who are you? Here we come back to the beginning of this thought, to my difficulties with the slow cyclic dance of social interaction. Because, you see, when I ask myself who are you I find myself answering, instead, the question who should you be? They are certainly both important questions to ask, but it is in confusing the two that I fall down and am trampled by my own humanity, by which I mean my own flaws.
The older I get the more I feel a sense of ownership over myself and my decisions, and the more loathe I am to relinquish it to others. My body is mine, my voice is mine, my thoughts are mine, my soul is my own. Irony overruns me at this point, where the more I am myself, the more I can love other people. The more I am myself, however, the more difficult it is to figure out how to bend for people. Things shape into two categories-- not a big deal (this category contains more things as thetime goes by, and I am thus mellower) and the way I do things (which, although negotiable, is not enforceable by any other power).
I think that's what I needed to say, for now. What I do next will frighten me. What I'm doing now frightened me before. Oddly enough, though, the fear always disappears the deeper I go.
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Thoughts
Date: 2006-05-16 10:18 pm (UTC)I also think boundaries are healthy. When we step up and take care of ourselves, we also provide the space for others to do the same. More compassion for ourselves yields more compassion for others. When we share the gift of ourselves we allow the gifts of others into our lives.
I hope I don't sound preachy, I just feel very passionate about these ideas and was moved by the process you shared.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-16 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 02:32 pm (UTC)