I remember how nervous I was when I got the piece of paper from college telling me about my dorm assignment for freshman year. As an only child who had always had her own room, the thought of sharing one small room with three other girls was a little frightening. Summer camp had prepared me some, but I was still unsure. Thankfully, the roommate gods blessed me, and I was randomly placed with three girls who would become some of my best college friends. Not everyone was nice though, and when it came time to choose roommates for the following year, one girl who was planning on living with two of my roommates decided she didn’t want me living with them. I’d never done anything to her, didn’t even know her that well, but for some reason she didn’t want me to be part of their group. So, I ended up with my third roommate, a friend of ours and some of the other girls from our hall. Things worked out just fine, but I missed living with the other two.
It was the summer before sophomore year when I met the man who is now my fiancé. Although I wouldn’t trade our relationship for the world, three years of long distance and many weekends away didn’t do much to help the friend situation. My freshman friends and I were still close, but they had also become closer with their sophomore roommates, among them a couple more girls who disliked me for no reason. Those girls were even worse than the first, barely even recognizing my existence and never making me feel welcome or comfortable. Maybe they saw me as a threat, or maybe they just didn’t like me, but the way they treated me was totally unfair.
I never again lived with my freshman roommates. They never asked, but not for any malicious reason. I’m pretty sure they had no idea how the other girls treated me. Ignorance is bliss or something like that. What I felt was far from bliss. Being left out of their tight-knit group has made me very aware of how I treat people. Whenever I host a party, I make sure everyone is introduced to everyone else so no one is left sitting alone. I’ve made an effort to tell all of my close friends about each other so they feel more comfortable when they first meet. If I find out someone feels left out, I’ll do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
The important thing to remember is that letting people in is not a bad thing. If you give them a chance and actually get to know them, you might find you really like them. Don’t just brush people off because they’re not part of your group and they might “steal your friends.” Trust that your friends wouldn’t be friends with them if they weren’t awesome. Give people the same opportunity you would want them to give you.
Samantha Karol is twenty-something living and working in New York City. She is a writer and a grammar nerd, currently employed in development at an Israel-related non-profit. The way to her heart is through ice cream.
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Variations on the "Alpha Centauri Effect"
The “star” known most commonly as “Alpha Centauri” is the third brightest star in the night sky. Only it isn’t a star. It’s actually two stars in close proximity to one another. It is their distance from the earth, and their level of brightness that makes them appear to be one star when observed with the naked eye from this planet.
In more recent decades it was also revealed that a much smaller star, dubbed “Proxima Centauri” is also nearby. Proxima is not part of the unified illusion we see from earth, however. It is, in fact, rendered invisible to the naked eye because of its lower brightness and its vicinity to the far brighter Alpha Centauri stars. It is drowned out, so to speak.
Alpha Centauri is the closest star(s) to earth, except for the sun of course. The term “close” is relative in space, however, as the distance from here to there is about 4.7 light years. Meaning of course that it would take light itself, (which travels at 180,000 miles per second) 4.7 years to get there. Most of what lies between here and there is quite literally nothing at all, as we understand it. Cold, black, interstellar space, where even atoms themselves, the building blocks of matter, become more scarce.
Giving whole new life to the old cliché’ “so close, and yet, so far.”
Then there is the “Alpha Centauri Effect.” This is not the product of modern science, or anything famous. It has in fact been noticed and named by yours truly.
What is the Alpha Centauri Effect? Much like its name sake, it is actually not just one concept, but several concepts that are close enough in nature to fall under one term. Variations on it exist, which I will attempt to describe to you.
Variation One
Groups of people who choose to be together physically, (or sometimes just emotionally), have their own character. A specific blend of personalities, strengths and beauty. When individuals that are particularly beautiful to us in their own right are convene together, all the greater is the impression of the collective. Furthermore, while within the framework of that group each individual is, in some way, enhanced; their own personal contributions to the group are strengthened. Their personal beauty more apparent.
To a casual outside observer the beauty of the whole group may be attributed to any one given member, or series of members. And while each person of course possesses their own unique luminescence, it is not the same, or as powerful, as that of the entire group. It is only once outsiders get close enough sometimes that they realize the beauty they were assigning to one individual is in fact that of the collective.
Variation Two
Again, when we first meet someone we like, we tend to see the fairest, brightest qualities within them, when most of what surrounds them is less appealing. (Light and dark.) We overlook the fact that most people are at best a duality of some sort, and are probably multi-faceted, with some facets good, many facets bad. But so shines the brightness of that quality which endears us to them, we see that facet, that presentation, that persona, as the entire picture. We think that what we see is one, complete, convenient package of a “star”, when in fact any given person is many different concepts in very close proximity to each other. Only when we are allowed to get closer do we realize this. If it is not too late, and we do not crash and burn right into the star(s) in question.
Variation Three
This is when people who posses their own brightness, personal beauty, and individual contributions are unnoticed from a distance by others, because of their proximity to other, bigger and brighter stars. In other words, perfectly valid people who find themselves filling the role of the Proximo Centauri, that get lost in the hype, charisma, and popularity of those that others find more “interesting”. They cannot seem to break away from the other group, for various reasons, and form their own system. If they did, they too would be seen and admired for what they were, all by themselves. But as it stands, they remain enslaved by the personal gravity of others, either by association, or by similarity of mission or occupation or environment. A pull from which they cannot escape; an escape they cannot even ask for help in obtaining, because as mentioned, most people do not know they are there, unless closer examination is taken of the situation.
Variation Four
Wherein we perceive that which is bright and beautiful to be closer than it really is. We see people shine somehow, and we think we start to know someone, but we do not. We become convinced that we are loved, but, in fact, we are not. So deep seated is our fear to admit that really most of anything between us and another person is nothing but cold dark empty space, that we use terms like “close”, “bright”, “beautiful” or even “love”. But like Alpha Centauri, close is a relative term, and in fact means that we are not that close to them as a person, (or a group of people) at all.
These are the four known Variations on the Alpha Centauri Effect. You may have noticed that a few things pull all of the variations together.
One of the common threads between all four variations is the distance. The “illusions” we see, about people or about stars, are due in large part to the distance we stand from them. From a safe distance things are easier. They require less energy to take in. We don’t get close enough to see the individual, or the facets of an individual because that is work. We enjoy the brightness they give off to us, and absorb whatever energy they may be giving off, until such time as we move on from them, either out of boredom, laziness or fear.
Yet another more positive common thread may be present amongst the Four Variations. The idea that we all look to the night sky, with naked eyes, to see what is there. To capture beauty “naturally”. The things telescopes and satellites can show us are amazing to the intellect, but lack the poignant beauty of looking straight up into a starry night, unencumbered by technology.
Floating around in our blackness, we long for beauty, and brightness. And the same is true with people. We want to be around that which is beautiful among people. We are so starved for it that we will eventually accept what our eyes see amongst the night time of our lives, even once our mind knows otherwise. We look to the sky, and accept that two stars are in fact one big star, the third brightest in the sky. We do so because a single bright star is a thing of beauty to us, even though our mind remembers it is really two stars. Our eyes and our heart see but one thing…Alpha Centauri…and that is the truth we accept.
Is doing so a folly? In human affairs does a desire to love and be enraptured by the beauty we perceive trump the knowledge that says it is more than we see? Are we wrong to seek the beauty of the stars or of people? Are people wrong to not look closer at what a star really is? Is it a sin to want to lie to ourselves sometimes, if only to escape the fact that 4.5 light years of nothing lies between us and the next closest being?
And is what we see really an illusion, just because it is not scientifically true??
I don’t know. Do you?
In more recent decades it was also revealed that a much smaller star, dubbed “Proxima Centauri” is also nearby. Proxima is not part of the unified illusion we see from earth, however. It is, in fact, rendered invisible to the naked eye because of its lower brightness and its vicinity to the far brighter Alpha Centauri stars. It is drowned out, so to speak.
Alpha Centauri is the closest star(s) to earth, except for the sun of course. The term “close” is relative in space, however, as the distance from here to there is about 4.7 light years. Meaning of course that it would take light itself, (which travels at 180,000 miles per second) 4.7 years to get there. Most of what lies between here and there is quite literally nothing at all, as we understand it. Cold, black, interstellar space, where even atoms themselves, the building blocks of matter, become more scarce.
Giving whole new life to the old cliché’ “so close, and yet, so far.”
Then there is the “Alpha Centauri Effect.” This is not the product of modern science, or anything famous. It has in fact been noticed and named by yours truly.
What is the Alpha Centauri Effect? Much like its name sake, it is actually not just one concept, but several concepts that are close enough in nature to fall under one term. Variations on it exist, which I will attempt to describe to you.
Variation One
Groups of people who choose to be together physically, (or sometimes just emotionally), have their own character. A specific blend of personalities, strengths and beauty. When individuals that are particularly beautiful to us in their own right are convene together, all the greater is the impression of the collective. Furthermore, while within the framework of that group each individual is, in some way, enhanced; their own personal contributions to the group are strengthened. Their personal beauty more apparent.
To a casual outside observer the beauty of the whole group may be attributed to any one given member, or series of members. And while each person of course possesses their own unique luminescence, it is not the same, or as powerful, as that of the entire group. It is only once outsiders get close enough sometimes that they realize the beauty they were assigning to one individual is in fact that of the collective.
Variation Two
Again, when we first meet someone we like, we tend to see the fairest, brightest qualities within them, when most of what surrounds them is less appealing. (Light and dark.) We overlook the fact that most people are at best a duality of some sort, and are probably multi-faceted, with some facets good, many facets bad. But so shines the brightness of that quality which endears us to them, we see that facet, that presentation, that persona, as the entire picture. We think that what we see is one, complete, convenient package of a “star”, when in fact any given person is many different concepts in very close proximity to each other. Only when we are allowed to get closer do we realize this. If it is not too late, and we do not crash and burn right into the star(s) in question.
Variation Three
This is when people who posses their own brightness, personal beauty, and individual contributions are unnoticed from a distance by others, because of their proximity to other, bigger and brighter stars. In other words, perfectly valid people who find themselves filling the role of the Proximo Centauri, that get lost in the hype, charisma, and popularity of those that others find more “interesting”. They cannot seem to break away from the other group, for various reasons, and form their own system. If they did, they too would be seen and admired for what they were, all by themselves. But as it stands, they remain enslaved by the personal gravity of others, either by association, or by similarity of mission or occupation or environment. A pull from which they cannot escape; an escape they cannot even ask for help in obtaining, because as mentioned, most people do not know they are there, unless closer examination is taken of the situation.
Variation Four
Wherein we perceive that which is bright and beautiful to be closer than it really is. We see people shine somehow, and we think we start to know someone, but we do not. We become convinced that we are loved, but, in fact, we are not. So deep seated is our fear to admit that really most of anything between us and another person is nothing but cold dark empty space, that we use terms like “close”, “bright”, “beautiful” or even “love”. But like Alpha Centauri, close is a relative term, and in fact means that we are not that close to them as a person, (or a group of people) at all.
These are the four known Variations on the Alpha Centauri Effect. You may have noticed that a few things pull all of the variations together.
One of the common threads between all four variations is the distance. The “illusions” we see, about people or about stars, are due in large part to the distance we stand from them. From a safe distance things are easier. They require less energy to take in. We don’t get close enough to see the individual, or the facets of an individual because that is work. We enjoy the brightness they give off to us, and absorb whatever energy they may be giving off, until such time as we move on from them, either out of boredom, laziness or fear.
Yet another more positive common thread may be present amongst the Four Variations. The idea that we all look to the night sky, with naked eyes, to see what is there. To capture beauty “naturally”. The things telescopes and satellites can show us are amazing to the intellect, but lack the poignant beauty of looking straight up into a starry night, unencumbered by technology.
Floating around in our blackness, we long for beauty, and brightness. And the same is true with people. We want to be around that which is beautiful among people. We are so starved for it that we will eventually accept what our eyes see amongst the night time of our lives, even once our mind knows otherwise. We look to the sky, and accept that two stars are in fact one big star, the third brightest in the sky. We do so because a single bright star is a thing of beauty to us, even though our mind remembers it is really two stars. Our eyes and our heart see but one thing…Alpha Centauri…and that is the truth we accept.
Is doing so a folly? In human affairs does a desire to love and be enraptured by the beauty we perceive trump the knowledge that says it is more than we see? Are we wrong to seek the beauty of the stars or of people? Are people wrong to not look closer at what a star really is? Is it a sin to want to lie to ourselves sometimes, if only to escape the fact that 4.5 light years of nothing lies between us and the next closest being?
And is what we see really an illusion, just because it is not scientifically true??
I don’t know. Do you?
Thursday, June 23, 2011
"Because it's there?" Not for Introverts.
Contrary to popular belief, most introverts can in fact do things like engage in small talk, introduce themselves to a stranger, or meander about within a crowd. (Though we do prefer when it is a controlled, purposeful crowd as opposed to a mob, that is certain.) We are just not as comfortable or in the very least, not as inclined to do such things. They are outside of our status quo. Yet if we find that by doing so a greater good is achieved, we will undertake such actions. But the stakes have to be much higher for an introvert than they have to be for an extrovert.
For example one would hope that even the most reclusive introvert would save a stranger from drowning if they came across such a scene and could help. Yes they have to touch and communicate with someone they don't know, and in normal circumstances they are not thrilled about that. But saving a life makes it the highest of stakes. This is of course an extreme example, but the point is that an introvert is far less likely than an extrovert to take an action or to make a comment simply because they can. It's rare that I quote Star Trek movies, but in this case think of Mr. Spock after saving Kirk who has just fallen off a mountain:
"Perhaps 'because it is there' is not sufficient reason for climbing a mountain."
The "sufficient reason" will of course vary from introvert to introvert, but you can bet in 90% of cases there is one. That is why we don't speak much at meetings; we are weighing if there is sufficient reason to bring up the point we are formulating. That is why we don't usually seek to be the center of attention; we have determined there is not sufficient reason to halt to proceedings in order to be observed. Introverts need a sufficient reason before they go out on the town or attend a party with mostly strangers.
And yes sufficient reasons for all of these things can be found for the introvert. We may attend a party for the sake of one person we care about. Perhaps we have determined we need a break from our own thoughts, and go out on the town. We may even attend a networking event, if the event is designed specifically with writer's or other creatives in mind. So long as the stakes weigh more than the uncomfortable action, introverts will do it in most cases. But you can bet a week's pay that they have made that determination before they have taken the action.
And the stakes must be higher than "getting out there". Often, even appealing to an introvert's self interest is not raising the stakes high enough, because an introvert tends to be more motivated by ideas and creativity, and less by personal gain.
Extroverts on the other hand tend to drive meetings, offer all their half-formed ideas, enjoy having everyone look at them and listen to them, and can't wait to get away from themselves and get out on the town, or to the next party. At which they will thrive on talking to strangers. And even if they don't make a single friend or establish one single toe-hold somewhere, (though they usually do), the extrovert is ready to go out the very next day and do it all again, because the stakes of not doing so are too high for them.
So if you want to motivate an introvert to say something or to do something, don't just encourage them to "come out of their shell" or to "join the party". That doesn't tend to move us. But if you can take a few extra moments to determine what the stakes are, and have the patience and willingness to present them to an introvert in a respectful way, you may find them more willing to partake. Especially if you present to them a problem that you feel can be solved with their participation.
If you are an introvert, how high do the stakes have to be for you to do the "extroverted" stuff? Can they ever be high enough?
For example one would hope that even the most reclusive introvert would save a stranger from drowning if they came across such a scene and could help. Yes they have to touch and communicate with someone they don't know, and in normal circumstances they are not thrilled about that. But saving a life makes it the highest of stakes. This is of course an extreme example, but the point is that an introvert is far less likely than an extrovert to take an action or to make a comment simply because they can. It's rare that I quote Star Trek movies, but in this case think of Mr. Spock after saving Kirk who has just fallen off a mountain:
"Perhaps 'because it is there' is not sufficient reason for climbing a mountain."
The "sufficient reason" will of course vary from introvert to introvert, but you can bet in 90% of cases there is one. That is why we don't speak much at meetings; we are weighing if there is sufficient reason to bring up the point we are formulating. That is why we don't usually seek to be the center of attention; we have determined there is not sufficient reason to halt to proceedings in order to be observed. Introverts need a sufficient reason before they go out on the town or attend a party with mostly strangers.
And yes sufficient reasons for all of these things can be found for the introvert. We may attend a party for the sake of one person we care about. Perhaps we have determined we need a break from our own thoughts, and go out on the town. We may even attend a networking event, if the event is designed specifically with writer's or other creatives in mind. So long as the stakes weigh more than the uncomfortable action, introverts will do it in most cases. But you can bet a week's pay that they have made that determination before they have taken the action.
And the stakes must be higher than "getting out there". Often, even appealing to an introvert's self interest is not raising the stakes high enough, because an introvert tends to be more motivated by ideas and creativity, and less by personal gain.
Extroverts on the other hand tend to drive meetings, offer all their half-formed ideas, enjoy having everyone look at them and listen to them, and can't wait to get away from themselves and get out on the town, or to the next party. At which they will thrive on talking to strangers. And even if they don't make a single friend or establish one single toe-hold somewhere, (though they usually do), the extrovert is ready to go out the very next day and do it all again, because the stakes of not doing so are too high for them.
So if you want to motivate an introvert to say something or to do something, don't just encourage them to "come out of their shell" or to "join the party". That doesn't tend to move us. But if you can take a few extra moments to determine what the stakes are, and have the patience and willingness to present them to an introvert in a respectful way, you may find them more willing to partake. Especially if you present to them a problem that you feel can be solved with their participation.
If you are an introvert, how high do the stakes have to be for you to do the "extroverted" stuff? Can they ever be high enough?
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Speak Up or Shut Up? How Do We Appreciate People?
There is such a fine line when it comes to people you value. You don't want to gush about them very often, if at all, because that freaks people out. Yet at the same time if you come to value someone and keep it to yourself all of the time, they may never know, and may find it easier to waltz right out of your life.
As a writer, I am a man of words in many ways. And I have suffered the consequences both of saying how much I appreciate someone, and of not saying so. If you are curious, the argument that saying something, even if it doesn't work, is better than never saying anything just doesn't hold water. Not with me. Whether it be an unfortunate silence on my part, or and frank expression of appreciation that is not well received, the resultant distance between me and the valued person feels just as shitty.
Nor have I ever been able to swallow the bitter medicine of, "people come into and out of your life at random, and there is no sense getting tore up about it when someone leaves." That advice to me amounts to "love nobody and nothing, and be ready to die alone."
So what is the answer when we value someone? I suppose the question is poorly phrased, because the answer for each person is in all likelihood different. I know I haven't figured out my own answer to the question of safe expressions of appreciation, love, respect, or admiration for others as they come into my life. I usually seem to get it wrong.
I think perhaps we have as a people grown too cynical, too defensive, or too afraid of intimacy for which we are not prepared to accept praise of our personhood. Of our work, sometimes, yes, that we can handle. But when we read an email from someone, and look at them across the dinner table and hear them say things like, "You have a terrific sense of humor, and I don't laugh enough in life. Thank you for making it easier," the first thing many of us start to think is, "What do they want," or "I haven't known him long enough for that to be appropriate," or, one of my favorites, "I'm really don't feel attracted to you in the same way." As though each time we express the value we have in someone, there is a motive outside of it.
Maybe actions speak louder than words? Maybe by doing a good turn for someone, we can reassure them of their value in our eyes, without them tweaking over it. That might be one answer. Yet I think even then the doubts an cynicism would remain.
It's not a science, I realize that. But there has to be at least some pattern I would think. Maybe I have just been in the presence of really uptight people my whole life. I don't know. I only know that the result of my expressing how I feel about people has eight times out of ten wounded me in such a way that with every passing year I feel less willing to do so. And that can't lead to anything good, can it?
How do you do it?
As a writer, I am a man of words in many ways. And I have suffered the consequences both of saying how much I appreciate someone, and of not saying so. If you are curious, the argument that saying something, even if it doesn't work, is better than never saying anything just doesn't hold water. Not with me. Whether it be an unfortunate silence on my part, or and frank expression of appreciation that is not well received, the resultant distance between me and the valued person feels just as shitty.
Nor have I ever been able to swallow the bitter medicine of, "people come into and out of your life at random, and there is no sense getting tore up about it when someone leaves." That advice to me amounts to "love nobody and nothing, and be ready to die alone."
So what is the answer when we value someone? I suppose the question is poorly phrased, because the answer for each person is in all likelihood different. I know I haven't figured out my own answer to the question of safe expressions of appreciation, love, respect, or admiration for others as they come into my life. I usually seem to get it wrong.
I think perhaps we have as a people grown too cynical, too defensive, or too afraid of intimacy for which we are not prepared to accept praise of our personhood. Of our work, sometimes, yes, that we can handle. But when we read an email from someone, and look at them across the dinner table and hear them say things like, "You have a terrific sense of humor, and I don't laugh enough in life. Thank you for making it easier," the first thing many of us start to think is, "What do they want," or "I haven't known him long enough for that to be appropriate," or, one of my favorites, "I'm really don't feel attracted to you in the same way." As though each time we express the value we have in someone, there is a motive outside of it.
Maybe actions speak louder than words? Maybe by doing a good turn for someone, we can reassure them of their value in our eyes, without them tweaking over it. That might be one answer. Yet I think even then the doubts an cynicism would remain.
It's not a science, I realize that. But there has to be at least some pattern I would think. Maybe I have just been in the presence of really uptight people my whole life. I don't know. I only know that the result of my expressing how I feel about people has eight times out of ten wounded me in such a way that with every passing year I feel less willing to do so. And that can't lead to anything good, can it?
How do you do it?
Thursday, May 26, 2011
And Ty Unglebower, as Himself
In my 11 years as a stage actor, I have played many roles. I have even played myself. Or, as the director of the production at the time put it, "an enhanced, stereotyped version of yourself." So in one play I was, "Ty Unglebower".
But that was a play. A unique play under unique circumstances. Yet at times I, like many people, can get caught up in playing "Ty Unglebower" in everyday life off stage as well.
It is a natural and sometimes unfortunate tendency in our society to categorize. Create labels for people. Place them in easily accessible slots. And I don't just mean with strangers. We do it with our friends as well. Perhaps even more so with our friends than with those we do not know.
Here is an example. Think of your "gang." The ones that you will probably be with on a free Saturday night once a month or something. Now be honest with yourself when I ask this; Does that group contain "The Dumb One"? Is "The Horny One" in there somewhere? And I bet there is "The Quiet One". If not these three there has to be "The XYZ One" in your group. See what I mean?
These labels may have had some slight basis on truth in the beginning. "The Quiet One" really isn't worried about working the room. "The Dumb One" probably talks before she thinks more often than others. Yet without anyone truly intending it, consider that those labels have gone from wide descriptions to expectations. That after a few years of adventures and tribulations together as a group, the label has begun to define the person, and not the other way around.
Sally is the "Dumb One". But if you are not careful, her opinions will be dismissed out of hand when the topic is complex. Or they will be skipped over. Or she won't be able to finish her thought. Why? Because she's "The Dumb One". Her role is to be cute and bubbly in the group, not deep. And so if thought is involved, you pat Sally on the head and move on. At least that's how it starts.
But then something even worse happens. At some point Sally doesn't offer anything to the discussion. She accepts that she is the "Dumb One" and starts to believe it. When the group goes out she says dumber and sillier things as time goes on, and never pays attention to the serious side of things, knowing that she should not be taken seriously at such times. Sally has become her label. The group's expectations based on that label have become Sally's own. Sally now plays the role of "The Dumb One" in the play that is your life, instead of being Sally as a whole person. After all, the group won't accept or love her anymore if she starts acting like something other than "The Dumb One". She is now "Sally".
Have you seen this happen? Have you been a part of creating a role for someone you know? Or have you yourself become the victim of your own role? I have.
"Ty Unglebower" stands up near a corner of the room, observing those who are dumber than he is. He wears jeans and golf shirts. He doesn't like to be touched by anyone ever because warmth and affection disgust him. He remains silent until something in the room reminds him of a topic by which he is annoyed or confused, at which point he will lash out loudly in an enthusiastic rant of high vocabulary, much to the uproarious laughter of those nearby. The world pisses him off. People piss him off. And he wants everyone to know just how damn clever he can be in expressing that sentiment.
Ty Unglebower is an introvert who sometimes feels crowded in a small room. He likes to be near the wall sometimes because it is easier to see where everyone and everything is. Jeans and golf-shirts are not only comfortable to him, but fit in with 90% of occasions, thus eliminating the need to have a fashion sense.
He respects the boundaries of other people, and thinks it is only fair that others who do not yet know him respect his.
He doesn't need to be the center of attention very often, preferring to engage one on one with the people in the room that matter. But when he is the center of attention of the whole room, usually as a result of someone asking him to be, he is damn sure not going to sanitize his answers to a question. As a writer he considers language to be an important tool, and hence puts in extra effort to use it well, in all circumstances. He is pleased when his friends are entertained by this, but speaks the same way at home to his mother. He is world-weary and has a shortage of close, personal friends, and that has in some ways forged his viewpoints, though he tries to alter them as time goes on. If he is clever it is because he has been exposed to many things in his life, and has made the specific effort, on the lifelong advice of his mother, to always pay attention. (Another reason he likes the corner.)
Ty Unglebower can become "Ty Unglebower" at the drop of a hat. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, I have to say. But the urge to rant because I am "The Ranter", or the sense of expectation that I won't introduce myself to anyone new because I am the "Aloof One" can be pretty large at times, even today.
You don't have to succumb to your role. I have a right to dance any given night I feel I want to. Sally has every right and ability to express her views on the complex subjects that come up. "The Horny One" should certainly expect to be left alone if she is in no mood for interaction tonight. It all starts with the choice to not play ourselves. It all starts with writing own own scene, and not taking all of our cues from the audience.
What role do you play in the production of your life? What is your label? Do you know anybody who has one of these labels I mentioned, and do you ever think if that label is fair?
But that was a play. A unique play under unique circumstances. Yet at times I, like many people, can get caught up in playing "Ty Unglebower" in everyday life off stage as well.
It is a natural and sometimes unfortunate tendency in our society to categorize. Create labels for people. Place them in easily accessible slots. And I don't just mean with strangers. We do it with our friends as well. Perhaps even more so with our friends than with those we do not know.
Here is an example. Think of your "gang." The ones that you will probably be with on a free Saturday night once a month or something. Now be honest with yourself when I ask this; Does that group contain "The Dumb One"? Is "The Horny One" in there somewhere? And I bet there is "The Quiet One". If not these three there has to be "The XYZ One" in your group. See what I mean?
These labels may have had some slight basis on truth in the beginning. "The Quiet One" really isn't worried about working the room. "The Dumb One" probably talks before she thinks more often than others. Yet without anyone truly intending it, consider that those labels have gone from wide descriptions to expectations. That after a few years of adventures and tribulations together as a group, the label has begun to define the person, and not the other way around.
Sally is the "Dumb One". But if you are not careful, her opinions will be dismissed out of hand when the topic is complex. Or they will be skipped over. Or she won't be able to finish her thought. Why? Because she's "The Dumb One". Her role is to be cute and bubbly in the group, not deep. And so if thought is involved, you pat Sally on the head and move on. At least that's how it starts.
But then something even worse happens. At some point Sally doesn't offer anything to the discussion. She accepts that she is the "Dumb One" and starts to believe it. When the group goes out she says dumber and sillier things as time goes on, and never pays attention to the serious side of things, knowing that she should not be taken seriously at such times. Sally has become her label. The group's expectations based on that label have become Sally's own. Sally now plays the role of "The Dumb One" in the play that is your life, instead of being Sally as a whole person. After all, the group won't accept or love her anymore if she starts acting like something other than "The Dumb One". She is now "Sally".
Have you seen this happen? Have you been a part of creating a role for someone you know? Or have you yourself become the victim of your own role? I have.
"Ty Unglebower" stands up near a corner of the room, observing those who are dumber than he is. He wears jeans and golf shirts. He doesn't like to be touched by anyone ever because warmth and affection disgust him. He remains silent until something in the room reminds him of a topic by which he is annoyed or confused, at which point he will lash out loudly in an enthusiastic rant of high vocabulary, much to the uproarious laughter of those nearby. The world pisses him off. People piss him off. And he wants everyone to know just how damn clever he can be in expressing that sentiment.
Ty Unglebower is an introvert who sometimes feels crowded in a small room. He likes to be near the wall sometimes because it is easier to see where everyone and everything is. Jeans and golf-shirts are not only comfortable to him, but fit in with 90% of occasions, thus eliminating the need to have a fashion sense.
He respects the boundaries of other people, and thinks it is only fair that others who do not yet know him respect his.
He doesn't need to be the center of attention very often, preferring to engage one on one with the people in the room that matter. But when he is the center of attention of the whole room, usually as a result of someone asking him to be, he is damn sure not going to sanitize his answers to a question. As a writer he considers language to be an important tool, and hence puts in extra effort to use it well, in all circumstances. He is pleased when his friends are entertained by this, but speaks the same way at home to his mother. He is world-weary and has a shortage of close, personal friends, and that has in some ways forged his viewpoints, though he tries to alter them as time goes on. If he is clever it is because he has been exposed to many things in his life, and has made the specific effort, on the lifelong advice of his mother, to always pay attention. (Another reason he likes the corner.)
Ty Unglebower can become "Ty Unglebower" at the drop of a hat. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, I have to say. But the urge to rant because I am "The Ranter", or the sense of expectation that I won't introduce myself to anyone new because I am the "Aloof One" can be pretty large at times, even today.
You don't have to succumb to your role. I have a right to dance any given night I feel I want to. Sally has every right and ability to express her views on the complex subjects that come up. "The Horny One" should certainly expect to be left alone if she is in no mood for interaction tonight. It all starts with the choice to not play ourselves. It all starts with writing own own scene, and not taking all of our cues from the audience.
What role do you play in the production of your life? What is your label? Do you know anybody who has one of these labels I mentioned, and do you ever think if that label is fair?
Monday, May 23, 2011
Down with Inertia. Sometimes.
I hope to be out of this tiny, ancient apartment by Christmas this year.
I have been here more than two and a half years. Most people stay in this ancient building no more than six months to a year. It is sort of an in-between situations type of building, so I have been here longer than most tenants.
I moved in here as a sort of last minute solution to a problem. My brother lived here before me, and he worked it out with the landlord; if I moved in right away, the rent would stay the same for me as it was for my brother. I wasn't quite ready, but I accepted, thinking that in a year or so, my finances would improve enough to afford something better.
My finances didn't improve, sadly, and still have not. Neither has the apartment. If anything, some of the difficulties are even worse now than they used to be. I won't bore you with the particulars in that regard, but suffice to say if I listed the problems here, you'd wonder why I didn't move out long ago.
The answer to that legitimate question is what makes this topic worthy of this blog. I have not moved out yet because like with many things, I have been Too XYZ to do so.
I have had it in my head that I have not earned the right to move out. I hate the idea of being labeled a flibbertigibbet who runs around living in 12 places a year, so a large part of me has figured that if this place has a roof to keep the rain out, and a heater to keep me warm in the winter, with running water to wash in, I have no right to live anywhere else until I am rich enough to live anywhere. I know it seems weird, but that is how my head works. And since my finances did not improve, I felt obligated to stay here. Even if I could find a place that is the exact same financial burden, I felt I had to stay here until I could make more money. That wasting the time and energy I have been given on moving out, when staying here is still safe, was somehow a sin.
Put more simply, inertia is keeping me in place.
But in recent months, not only have certain things about living here gotten worse, things in my mind have changed as well. I have begUn to believe, or at least force myself to believe, that sometimes change for the sake of change is good, when it comes to venues.
We need not treat venues like people. They have no feelings. We don't have to treat them with particular consideration. They don't care if you stay in them, or leave. They don't care if you are good or bad. They are buildings. It is I that have the feelings, and if mine are not operating at optimum levels because of where I live, I deserve to try something else. Shifting around doesn't require a special invitation or permission. It just requires it being possible, and it is possible, if I don't try to live outside of my humble means in my next apartment.
Nor do I have to justify myself to others. Two and a half years in a less than ideal place should inoculate me from being seen as flippant with my life. Yet even if they do see me as a flibbertigibbet, I shouldn't let that matter. If I can legally, and safely, and responsibly change my venue, I should. Simple as that. Sometimes being somewhere just wears out its usefulness in our lives. Though I am Too XYZ to always feel justified in making a change to benefit my comfort, the place someone lives and spends the lion's share of their time should not be a place of misery. It may not be perfect, and I may not be able to afford luxury, but the law of averages indicates I should be able to at least find something better for me. And in so doing maybe somebody who would find this place perfect for their needs could move in.
Comfort and peace matter, even if it requires a bit of an extra pain in the ass to obtain them.
Have you ever let illogical inertia keep you from doing something, no matter how minor, that would make you feel more at ease with life?
I have been here more than two and a half years. Most people stay in this ancient building no more than six months to a year. It is sort of an in-between situations type of building, so I have been here longer than most tenants.
I moved in here as a sort of last minute solution to a problem. My brother lived here before me, and he worked it out with the landlord; if I moved in right away, the rent would stay the same for me as it was for my brother. I wasn't quite ready, but I accepted, thinking that in a year or so, my finances would improve enough to afford something better.
My finances didn't improve, sadly, and still have not. Neither has the apartment. If anything, some of the difficulties are even worse now than they used to be. I won't bore you with the particulars in that regard, but suffice to say if I listed the problems here, you'd wonder why I didn't move out long ago.
The answer to that legitimate question is what makes this topic worthy of this blog. I have not moved out yet because like with many things, I have been Too XYZ to do so.
I have had it in my head that I have not earned the right to move out. I hate the idea of being labeled a flibbertigibbet who runs around living in 12 places a year, so a large part of me has figured that if this place has a roof to keep the rain out, and a heater to keep me warm in the winter, with running water to wash in, I have no right to live anywhere else until I am rich enough to live anywhere. I know it seems weird, but that is how my head works. And since my finances did not improve, I felt obligated to stay here. Even if I could find a place that is the exact same financial burden, I felt I had to stay here until I could make more money. That wasting the time and energy I have been given on moving out, when staying here is still safe, was somehow a sin.
Put more simply, inertia is keeping me in place.
But in recent months, not only have certain things about living here gotten worse, things in my mind have changed as well. I have begUn to believe, or at least force myself to believe, that sometimes change for the sake of change is good, when it comes to venues.
We need not treat venues like people. They have no feelings. We don't have to treat them with particular consideration. They don't care if you stay in them, or leave. They don't care if you are good or bad. They are buildings. It is I that have the feelings, and if mine are not operating at optimum levels because of where I live, I deserve to try something else. Shifting around doesn't require a special invitation or permission. It just requires it being possible, and it is possible, if I don't try to live outside of my humble means in my next apartment.
Nor do I have to justify myself to others. Two and a half years in a less than ideal place should inoculate me from being seen as flippant with my life. Yet even if they do see me as a flibbertigibbet, I shouldn't let that matter. If I can legally, and safely, and responsibly change my venue, I should. Simple as that. Sometimes being somewhere just wears out its usefulness in our lives. Though I am Too XYZ to always feel justified in making a change to benefit my comfort, the place someone lives and spends the lion's share of their time should not be a place of misery. It may not be perfect, and I may not be able to afford luxury, but the law of averages indicates I should be able to at least find something better for me. And in so doing maybe somebody who would find this place perfect for their needs could move in.
Comfort and peace matter, even if it requires a bit of an extra pain in the ass to obtain them.
Have you ever let illogical inertia keep you from doing something, no matter how minor, that would make you feel more at ease with life?
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Too XYZ Road Show
This weekend was a fun, rewarding, and in many ways an Un-Ty sort of weekend. Perhaps it was exciting because it was so Un-Ty like, and rewarding because it may have in some ways changed what it is to be "Ty-Like."
I am not an advocate of making specific efforts to "get out of your comfort zone". In fact the concept is so oversold online these days that I don't even like to use the term "get outside your comfort zone", but I use it for the sake of making a point.
And that point is you shouldn't be uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable. While many people think doing so is the key to personal evolution, I say it's a mild form of martyrdom complex unless the discomfort is in service to a greater good. In my case, spending time with a friend and showing support for her on her birthday were the good things that far outweighed some of my discomforts.And in so doing, I became comfortable with more things. Hence, a legitimate "outside of your comfort zone" approach.
Here are some examples from this weekend of my being "Un-Ty" like in pursuit of something good.
Being a house guest.
I think I am a bit Too XYZ to be a house guest sometimes. During my stay at someone's house I always feel the need to help clean, or make food, or add a deck to the back of the house. Anything that makes me a full fledged and functional part of whatever household I am in at the time. Most hosts insist I don't worry about any of those things, and my friend was no exception. (Though she did let me squeeze the limes for lime juice she needed for something she was making.) I always feel I need to "earn" the right to be taking up space and consuming food in somebody's home if I am going to be there for more than a few hours. Yet once I just relaxed and reminded myself I was there to celebrate a person, and not be Mr. Belvedere, I was able to feel a little better.
Being a house guest II
I will usually opt to go home late into the night from someone's house instead of sleeping there unless 1) the weather becomes atrocious for driving (frequent around here), 2) I have had too much to drink (rare), or 3) I feel like an honorary member of the family whose home I find myself in. (Has yet to occur.)
This is not to say I have never spent the night in other people's homes of course, because I have, and did this weekend. There is just something in my brain, no matter how nice the accommodations are that says, at least for a while, This is not your home. Your radio is not tuned to this radio station, and sleep is impossible. Ergo, I sleep poorly. I'm okay in hotels, but other people's homes...I don't know. It's a subconscious thing. Even if I know them well.
I got over it this weekend, though. In fact I actually slept pretty good some of the time. Just had to remember I was there by invitation and that I was part of everything, not an invasion upon it. (Though getting up at on Friday at 6:00AM and going to bed at 6:00AM my second night probably helped me crash a bit too.)
Knowing the "Plan"
I am not a control freak. I don't need to control everything that happens around me. But I am sometimes a "knowledge freak". By that I mean that if I am not careful I can get caught up in having to know where I am going, at what time, and for how long. Yet this weekend there was very little of that. I decided I would go with whatever flow my friend created. This was her hometown, her birthday, her deal. And she had to go through enough hoops just to get my sorry ass there and home again because I don't drive long distances. (That much has not changed.) So I felt she was entitled to just go, and I would follow. And that is exactly what I did. I put aside any temptation I had understand everything, and just went with it.
I just did what she did. If she took this flight of steps that seemed to descend into the ancient catacombs, I would be right behind her. (Or try to be, I almost lost her in the shuffle a few times.) I didn't try to reason out the patterns and systems of streets and trains and tracks and so on. Just went.
That got easy after about three seconds. Just going. Abandoning a need to decipher the why and how came faster than I would have thought. Probably because everything moves so fast in situations like that. Plus I learned that if you just trust friends, they can lead you where you need to go. And you get to see and experience a lot on the way. I finally got to see some Non-Postcard New York, which I had never been to before, as well as the more real parts of Jersey City, and Hoboken.
Party!
And I mean party. No joke, it was the second biggest private party I ever attended. And the first place big party was full of friends. I knew exactly one person this weekend, so in a way it was bigger after all.
As I told my friend, I am usually a small informal soiree type, or an outdoor barbecue type. I have many friends in West Virginia who have such events many times throughout the year. A few people, beer, food, talking. Thrown together in a week. There you go. This weekend, I would say this party peaked at 50 people in an average sized apartment. A lot of drink, a lot of food. Not to mention a lot of work on the part of my hostess to put it all together. (Except for the limes. I did that part.) Music, dancing. Lots of shoulder to shoulder super party "epicness" as the kids say these days.
I had a good time, but in this case I was still Too XYZ to fully engage as most of the locals were doing. I am not the most introverted person I know, but I am indisputably on the spectrum. Which meant I spent much of the evening as an observer, in a chair at the food table. (This served two obvious purposes.) Several of the people I met that night wanted to know why I didn't move about, or dance more instead of sitting there watching.
It can be tricky to explain to people I don't know why I need to do this. In fact people who have known me for years still don't quite grasp it. But as an introvert I need to let certain experiences filter into my consciousness in a gradual fashion. There is just too much humanity in a party of that magnitude for someone like me to jump in headlong. Many people are electrified by that, which is great. For me however, exposure to it can be draining under the best of conditions.
It is for the same reason I had to step outside to be alone periodically. Not because I wasn't enjoying myself. Not because the extroverts and seasoned party goers offended me. I just needed to step away sometimes to recalibrate. And even though my friend was going about enjoying herself as she should have been on her birthday, and I didn't see much of her directly during the party portion of my trip, my presence was a way to honor her and thank her for being a friend of mine. Even when I had to get away for a while.
When we make it about someone else and not ourselves we can do all kinds of things we would not normally find ourselves doing, as I said before. It won't change our stripes, as evidenced by my reluctance to dance, or my choice to stop drinking after 1:00 that morning. Those are things about me that remain. But other people make it worth it. True, it's not like I could go home even if I decided to, since I hadn't driven there. But that is not at all the point. The point is I chose of my own free will to attend a party that was larger than I am used to because it wasn't about me. That made even the very Un-Ty atmosphere enjoyable for the most part.
Dancing
Flying totally into the face of what I just mentioned in the previous section, I did dance a bit. I have good rhythm, and back in school I used to dance at the dances a lot. So I am no stranger to it. But there is no way in hell I was going to be able to compete with either the stamina or abandon of some of the party guests. Yes, I realize that dancing at a party is about getting out there, and not about style or form or anything. But that is just the point. Being "out there" is not my strongest suit, and dancing is one of the most "out there" things a person can do in a room full of strangers. A room full of friends would be one thing, maybe, but I didn't know these people, so I was usually disinclined to dance.
But I did a little. It was easier to do when it was just about me dancing for a moment with a single other person who asked me to dance, as opposed to dancing all over the place as the others were. Also easier when I wanted to make sure people knew I didn't consider myself better than them in some way. That was important. You have to sometimes do as the Romans do, as the saying goes. Nothing wrong with that, even for someone that is Too XYZ. But I did sit more than I danced, and had to decline a few times later in the night. But I felt okay about it, because I had let myself wade in the pool, as it were.
Sharing Opinions
Is there anything more insufferable than someone you don't know walking up to you and offering their world perspective or opinions on what you have been discussing? No, "hello" or "My name is Jack." Just walking up to a group at a party and saying something like,
"Actually I find his movies to be so pretentious. He tries to be derivative of Fellini without being obvious about it, which makes it worse."
Okay, thanks for your input. And you are?
But in actual fact, this is more about me being Too XYZ, because I have found in many cases people welcome this. It blows me away sometimes how free people are with their opinions with strangers. More than once this weekend I observed the conversations that were going on around me, but didn't jump in with my own ideas. You see, except around my closest friends, I am built to hold my opinions until asked for them. Even then, I proceed with caution, because when I am the "new guy" as I was this weekend, I think it is my duty to pay attention and know what the conversation is, but not derail or or alter it in anyway. As a guest I feel I should be as unobtrusive on a pre-existing group of people as possible. So I rarely offer anything.
Yet several times this weekend I was asked by people I didn't know for my opinion on something. And I gave it. I still felt a bit like I was trying on somebody else's shoes, but I did it. And I realized that I need to be willing to do that, and in fact probably should have done more of it this weekend. So caught up in experiencing and observing and trying to not be obtrusive was I that I may have painted myself at times into a corner of nothingness to those around me.
My older friends know that I am seldom unaware or uninvolved in what is happening around me, even if I seem totally detached. They know that my ear is to the ground. But I should have remembered that not everyone is going to realize that at first, and that I run the risk of appearing bored, unconcerned or "holier-than thou" by not offering my thoughts on some things. At least minor ones. So I all too late learned that lesson from this weekend. But I did learn it. Or I should say, I was reminded of it, because I have had to learn this lesson more than once. Time for it to stick, I think. But that may be a Too XYZ thing as well. Time will reveal the answer to that one.
In all of these ways, and more, my being Too XYZ showed up this weekend. Sometimes it remained firmly in place, and I wasn't able to change something about myself, regardless. (Stepping outside during the party.) Sometimes I was surprised at how easy it was for me to set aside my more natural tendencies. (Not needing to understand everything that was about to happen.) Most of the time it was an equal blend. Knowing that I am not by default built a certain way, but being willing, for the sake of the people involved, to put in an effort to see and experience things differently than I am used to.
That in the end is the key to it all, isn't it? To know what your boundaries are, and accept what you cannot change about yourself, but at the same time showing a willingness to adapt, change and expand those aspects of you that are not embedded into your very DNA. Not "just because". Not for the sake of change. Not to jump out of your comfort zone because that is what the gurus tell you to do. But in pursuit of getting more out of life in a specific setting. In pursuit of a deeper, richer experience. In pursuit of a greater understanding of not just other people and the world around you, but of yourself. Nobody should be Too XYZ for that, and thanks to my friend, her friends, and a weekend in New Jersey I was reminded of that important truth. And it will stick with me.
And I tried falafel for the first time while I was there. It was good.
Do you go outside of your norms just for the sake of it, or with a purpose in mind? What sort of conditions make it worth it to step outside of your comfort zone? What is a recent example of you doing so for a greater good? How were you affected?
I am not an advocate of making specific efforts to "get out of your comfort zone". In fact the concept is so oversold online these days that I don't even like to use the term "get outside your comfort zone", but I use it for the sake of making a point.
And that point is you shouldn't be uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable. While many people think doing so is the key to personal evolution, I say it's a mild form of martyrdom complex unless the discomfort is in service to a greater good. In my case, spending time with a friend and showing support for her on her birthday were the good things that far outweighed some of my discomforts.And in so doing, I became comfortable with more things. Hence, a legitimate "outside of your comfort zone" approach.
Here are some examples from this weekend of my being "Un-Ty" like in pursuit of something good.
Being a house guest.
I think I am a bit Too XYZ to be a house guest sometimes. During my stay at someone's house I always feel the need to help clean, or make food, or add a deck to the back of the house. Anything that makes me a full fledged and functional part of whatever household I am in at the time. Most hosts insist I don't worry about any of those things, and my friend was no exception. (Though she did let me squeeze the limes for lime juice she needed for something she was making.) I always feel I need to "earn" the right to be taking up space and consuming food in somebody's home if I am going to be there for more than a few hours. Yet once I just relaxed and reminded myself I was there to celebrate a person, and not be Mr. Belvedere, I was able to feel a little better.
Being a house guest II
I will usually opt to go home late into the night from someone's house instead of sleeping there unless 1) the weather becomes atrocious for driving (frequent around here), 2) I have had too much to drink (rare), or 3) I feel like an honorary member of the family whose home I find myself in. (Has yet to occur.)
This is not to say I have never spent the night in other people's homes of course, because I have, and did this weekend. There is just something in my brain, no matter how nice the accommodations are that says, at least for a while, This is not your home. Your radio is not tuned to this radio station, and sleep is impossible. Ergo, I sleep poorly. I'm okay in hotels, but other people's homes...I don't know. It's a subconscious thing. Even if I know them well.
I got over it this weekend, though. In fact I actually slept pretty good some of the time. Just had to remember I was there by invitation and that I was part of everything, not an invasion upon it. (Though getting up at on Friday at 6:00AM and going to bed at 6:00AM my second night probably helped me crash a bit too.)
Knowing the "Plan"
I am not a control freak. I don't need to control everything that happens around me. But I am sometimes a "knowledge freak". By that I mean that if I am not careful I can get caught up in having to know where I am going, at what time, and for how long. Yet this weekend there was very little of that. I decided I would go with whatever flow my friend created. This was her hometown, her birthday, her deal. And she had to go through enough hoops just to get my sorry ass there and home again because I don't drive long distances. (That much has not changed.) So I felt she was entitled to just go, and I would follow. And that is exactly what I did. I put aside any temptation I had understand everything, and just went with it.
I just did what she did. If she took this flight of steps that seemed to descend into the ancient catacombs, I would be right behind her. (Or try to be, I almost lost her in the shuffle a few times.) I didn't try to reason out the patterns and systems of streets and trains and tracks and so on. Just went.
That got easy after about three seconds. Just going. Abandoning a need to decipher the why and how came faster than I would have thought. Probably because everything moves so fast in situations like that. Plus I learned that if you just trust friends, they can lead you where you need to go. And you get to see and experience a lot on the way. I finally got to see some Non-Postcard New York, which I had never been to before, as well as the more real parts of Jersey City, and Hoboken.
Party!
And I mean party. No joke, it was the second biggest private party I ever attended. And the first place big party was full of friends. I knew exactly one person this weekend, so in a way it was bigger after all.
As I told my friend, I am usually a small informal soiree type, or an outdoor barbecue type. I have many friends in West Virginia who have such events many times throughout the year. A few people, beer, food, talking. Thrown together in a week. There you go. This weekend, I would say this party peaked at 50 people in an average sized apartment. A lot of drink, a lot of food. Not to mention a lot of work on the part of my hostess to put it all together. (Except for the limes. I did that part.) Music, dancing. Lots of shoulder to shoulder super party "epicness" as the kids say these days.
I had a good time, but in this case I was still Too XYZ to fully engage as most of the locals were doing. I am not the most introverted person I know, but I am indisputably on the spectrum. Which meant I spent much of the evening as an observer, in a chair at the food table. (This served two obvious purposes.) Several of the people I met that night wanted to know why I didn't move about, or dance more instead of sitting there watching.
It can be tricky to explain to people I don't know why I need to do this. In fact people who have known me for years still don't quite grasp it. But as an introvert I need to let certain experiences filter into my consciousness in a gradual fashion. There is just too much humanity in a party of that magnitude for someone like me to jump in headlong. Many people are electrified by that, which is great. For me however, exposure to it can be draining under the best of conditions.
It is for the same reason I had to step outside to be alone periodically. Not because I wasn't enjoying myself. Not because the extroverts and seasoned party goers offended me. I just needed to step away sometimes to recalibrate. And even though my friend was going about enjoying herself as she should have been on her birthday, and I didn't see much of her directly during the party portion of my trip, my presence was a way to honor her and thank her for being a friend of mine. Even when I had to get away for a while.
When we make it about someone else and not ourselves we can do all kinds of things we would not normally find ourselves doing, as I said before. It won't change our stripes, as evidenced by my reluctance to dance, or my choice to stop drinking after 1:00 that morning. Those are things about me that remain. But other people make it worth it. True, it's not like I could go home even if I decided to, since I hadn't driven there. But that is not at all the point. The point is I chose of my own free will to attend a party that was larger than I am used to because it wasn't about me. That made even the very Un-Ty atmosphere enjoyable for the most part.
Dancing
Flying totally into the face of what I just mentioned in the previous section, I did dance a bit. I have good rhythm, and back in school I used to dance at the dances a lot. So I am no stranger to it. But there is no way in hell I was going to be able to compete with either the stamina or abandon of some of the party guests. Yes, I realize that dancing at a party is about getting out there, and not about style or form or anything. But that is just the point. Being "out there" is not my strongest suit, and dancing is one of the most "out there" things a person can do in a room full of strangers. A room full of friends would be one thing, maybe, but I didn't know these people, so I was usually disinclined to dance.
But I did a little. It was easier to do when it was just about me dancing for a moment with a single other person who asked me to dance, as opposed to dancing all over the place as the others were. Also easier when I wanted to make sure people knew I didn't consider myself better than them in some way. That was important. You have to sometimes do as the Romans do, as the saying goes. Nothing wrong with that, even for someone that is Too XYZ. But I did sit more than I danced, and had to decline a few times later in the night. But I felt okay about it, because I had let myself wade in the pool, as it were.
Sharing Opinions
Is there anything more insufferable than someone you don't know walking up to you and offering their world perspective or opinions on what you have been discussing? No, "hello" or "My name is Jack." Just walking up to a group at a party and saying something like,
"Actually I find his movies to be so pretentious. He tries to be derivative of Fellini without being obvious about it, which makes it worse."
Okay, thanks for your input. And you are?
But in actual fact, this is more about me being Too XYZ, because I have found in many cases people welcome this. It blows me away sometimes how free people are with their opinions with strangers. More than once this weekend I observed the conversations that were going on around me, but didn't jump in with my own ideas. You see, except around my closest friends, I am built to hold my opinions until asked for them. Even then, I proceed with caution, because when I am the "new guy" as I was this weekend, I think it is my duty to pay attention and know what the conversation is, but not derail or or alter it in anyway. As a guest I feel I should be as unobtrusive on a pre-existing group of people as possible. So I rarely offer anything.
Yet several times this weekend I was asked by people I didn't know for my opinion on something. And I gave it. I still felt a bit like I was trying on somebody else's shoes, but I did it. And I realized that I need to be willing to do that, and in fact probably should have done more of it this weekend. So caught up in experiencing and observing and trying to not be obtrusive was I that I may have painted myself at times into a corner of nothingness to those around me.
My older friends know that I am seldom unaware or uninvolved in what is happening around me, even if I seem totally detached. They know that my ear is to the ground. But I should have remembered that not everyone is going to realize that at first, and that I run the risk of appearing bored, unconcerned or "holier-than thou" by not offering my thoughts on some things. At least minor ones. So I all too late learned that lesson from this weekend. But I did learn it. Or I should say, I was reminded of it, because I have had to learn this lesson more than once. Time for it to stick, I think. But that may be a Too XYZ thing as well. Time will reveal the answer to that one.
In all of these ways, and more, my being Too XYZ showed up this weekend. Sometimes it remained firmly in place, and I wasn't able to change something about myself, regardless. (Stepping outside during the party.) Sometimes I was surprised at how easy it was for me to set aside my more natural tendencies. (Not needing to understand everything that was about to happen.) Most of the time it was an equal blend. Knowing that I am not by default built a certain way, but being willing, for the sake of the people involved, to put in an effort to see and experience things differently than I am used to.
That in the end is the key to it all, isn't it? To know what your boundaries are, and accept what you cannot change about yourself, but at the same time showing a willingness to adapt, change and expand those aspects of you that are not embedded into your very DNA. Not "just because". Not for the sake of change. Not to jump out of your comfort zone because that is what the gurus tell you to do. But in pursuit of getting more out of life in a specific setting. In pursuit of a deeper, richer experience. In pursuit of a greater understanding of not just other people and the world around you, but of yourself. Nobody should be Too XYZ for that, and thanks to my friend, her friends, and a weekend in New Jersey I was reminded of that important truth. And it will stick with me.
And I tried falafel for the first time while I was there. It was good.
Do you go outside of your norms just for the sake of it, or with a purpose in mind? What sort of conditions make it worth it to step outside of your comfort zone? What is a recent example of you doing so for a greater good? How were you affected?
Monday, May 2, 2011
The Death of Bin Laden and Our Reactions to Reactions
Last night was a big night for America in many ways. At least a big night for many Americans, and indeed those throughout the world. Osama Bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was killed by American special forces Pakistan. Crowds gathered outside the White House, at Ground Zero, and several other places to celebrate this fact. (Though from the footage it seems most of the crowd started to deteriorate into drunken debauchery after an hour or so in most locations.)
I, like I imagine everyone else, am still processing this. I don't know exactly how I feel now, and I may never. But I know for certainty that not everyone is celebrating this. And I don't refer to Al-Qaeda.
Yes, there are many reasons that good people have for not being happy about last night's celebrations of news that the most wanted man on Earth had been shot through the head and killed. I don't yet know if I share any of those concerns or not, but the point is that is we are not careful, we can lose sight of the truth about people. That they are very complex creatures.
Between the chants of "USA!" at baseball stadiums, spontaneous performances of The Star Spangled Banner in Times Square, and the eerie solemnity of the echoed voice of the President of the United States in an empty East Room that announced this death to the world, we must remember that the exuberance is not universal among decent people.
In the coming weeks much will be said about those who were quiet in the bars. Those who didn't post anything on Facebook, or more "dangerously", posted thoughts of sadness and mercy. Thoughts and emotions unfairly deemed by the masses as almost seditious. We must remain vigilant against this just as much as we must remain vigilant against a retaliatory strike against us.
My point does not apply only to the Bin Laden news, however. But the story serves as a stark reminder that each of us must not judge anyone by the nature of their visible reactions to something. No matter how universal a particular sentiment may seem, we cannot allow ourselves to forget, as we go about our day and our lives that each person deserves to be evaluated by their individual, inward motivations and moral compass, and not necessarily by their outward expressions and projections. Evil people exist. But do we dare make that determination based on a few moments observing their outward behavior?
The majority, and even the vast majority of sentiments about an event does not determine de facto appropriateness anymore than the rarity of a response determines de facto inappropriateness. Look deep into people when you can, and if you cannot, don't assign motivations to them. You're a better person than that.
I, like I imagine everyone else, am still processing this. I don't know exactly how I feel now, and I may never. But I know for certainty that not everyone is celebrating this. And I don't refer to Al-Qaeda.
Yes, there are many reasons that good people have for not being happy about last night's celebrations of news that the most wanted man on Earth had been shot through the head and killed. I don't yet know if I share any of those concerns or not, but the point is that is we are not careful, we can lose sight of the truth about people. That they are very complex creatures.
Between the chants of "USA!" at baseball stadiums, spontaneous performances of The Star Spangled Banner in Times Square, and the eerie solemnity of the echoed voice of the President of the United States in an empty East Room that announced this death to the world, we must remember that the exuberance is not universal among decent people.
In the coming weeks much will be said about those who were quiet in the bars. Those who didn't post anything on Facebook, or more "dangerously", posted thoughts of sadness and mercy. Thoughts and emotions unfairly deemed by the masses as almost seditious. We must remain vigilant against this just as much as we must remain vigilant against a retaliatory strike against us.
My point does not apply only to the Bin Laden news, however. But the story serves as a stark reminder that each of us must not judge anyone by the nature of their visible reactions to something. No matter how universal a particular sentiment may seem, we cannot allow ourselves to forget, as we go about our day and our lives that each person deserves to be evaluated by their individual, inward motivations and moral compass, and not necessarily by their outward expressions and projections. Evil people exist. But do we dare make that determination based on a few moments observing their outward behavior?
The majority, and even the vast majority of sentiments about an event does not determine de facto appropriateness anymore than the rarity of a response determines de facto inappropriateness. Look deep into people when you can, and if you cannot, don't assign motivations to them. You're a better person than that.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Still Too XYZ After All These Years
This post is angry. With reason. Yet, if you are one of those who feel anger is not an acceptable emotion, do me a favor and simply opt not to read this. For today I am angry. Tomorrow I won't be. Today I am weary. I one day will not be. My life is complicated, and if yours is not, or if you feel mine need not be, read no further. And certainly click away now if you judge an entire person by the days, weeks, or sometimes months of unhappiness with which they must sometimes deal as they try to find meaning in anything.
Too XYZ continues to be a very apt name for this blog, as the concept continues to very much apply to me in just about everything I do. There are very specific elements to my psyche that prevent me from doing specific things. Like the color blind attempting to interior decorate, or the tone deaf opting to offer singing lessons, there are things which no matter how valuable, I cannot do.
And I cannot do them because I am either missing something, or something is damaged, or atrophied within my being. Now former friends and supporters of my work have often climbed upon the highest of horses and declared from their lofty position that unless I suffer from a disease that is documented somewhere in the annals of either psychology or medicine, I have no right to claim occasional crippling difficulties with my life. That in the absence of such a diagnosis, any problems, difficulties, or obstacles I have faced as I try ferociously to succeed in a contrary world are 100% my own making. And hence unless I can prove otherwise, I can and must fix everything all by myself.
It is as though they were the principal in the school of life demanding from me a note from my doctor proving to them that I cannot come into school that day (a rather condescending requirement if you ask me).
Yet in some ways, Too XYZ has been my attempt at such a letter. Addressed not to the individual, but to the world, and ideally, those who share my view of same. Those with the same issues, whether or not there is a Latin term out there to describe them.
This blog is a place for me to be frank about my obstacles, internal and external. A place to express perceptions, plans, strategies and simple observations. A place to seek advice, and gain perspective.
Yet, as I have oft written about in previous posts, I usually just get the same perspective over and over again. And that perspective can be summed up in one tidy sentence.
Change what you are and what you do, because it currently isn't good enough.
The type of blog this is. My content. The way I market. The questions I ask. The help I seek, and the people from which I seek it. The problems I face and the solutions I offer. Even down to the font of my business cards, the nature of my profile picture, and the articles on which I choose to comment. No matter what I share with people, or no matter what of other people's advice I observe passively (by going to their blog, or reading their articles), it can just about all be summed up by that italicized sentence I posted above.
I guess if I had a response it would be "Easy for you to say."
Because to tell you the truth, whether it be the big gurus like Godin, or the CopyBlogger guy, or some of the people I have encountered personally in my social media travels over the last two years, I have noticed a pattern; basically none of them had to start what they are doing from Absolute Zero. I don't mean the lowest temperature in the universe, but having zero resources, zero friends, zero experience and zero money when they set off. That is the place I am coming from, and still struggling to get out of. I have not yet succeeded. That isn't to say I won't. Just that I haven't, and that I still don't know how.
Oh I know. Each of the people I am thinking of, whether familiar or famous, (and I am sick to realize that some of the people with which I am familiar are becoming famous by being great at being fake) will quickly point out just how hard it was when they started out. They had to have a big scary cry over quitting their 80K a year job when they started freelancing. "Could this work? What was I doing? Am I crazy?" But their 100K a year spouse reminded them to believe in themselves, and they pressed on. And they will tell you the horror stories of just how dumb they were at first. How they didn't know code, but learned it quickly because they had to. Or hated the idea of marketing but learned to love it. How they were introverted once, but became extroverted, and now can work the room with the best of them and make their fucking millions.
I have called it before, and I will again. Bullshit.
In each of the cases I am thinking of, the "rock star" in question, (whose ass everyone on the internet is happy to kiss in hopes of the magic rubbing off on their lips) had some kind of lucky break, or some kind of helping hand. And I don't mean advice, or a referral.
I am talking about, nobody surviving was based on their need to freelance. They were not in the poor house when they started up their business. They didn't deal with people who viewed them as unpleasant, cold, mean, or not worth the investment at every turn. They didn't have difficulty making people interested in them. Something within them or something about their situation over which they had no control put them ahead.
Now they don't like to think about it that way, because that means god forbid that perhaps they are not ninjas after all. That their own powers might not have brought the world to its knees before them. That they may not be quite as charming or "epic" as they need to believe they are to get through the day.
No, they may not say it, because they may not believe it on the inside, but they had some form of luck or circumstances to help them along. And for good measure they'll throw in an officially diagnosed eating disorder as the grand Deschapelles Coup of their own magnificence.
It is why I have all but stopped reading the blogs I used to read when I first entered the social media landscape on a regular basis. I was at one time subscribed to about 15 blog feeds or so, each of them it seems packed with advice for the freelance writer, the self improvement minded, the spiritually bent and the artistic. I have since canceled all of these feeds. Not just because they became boring (they did), but because I finally realized that despite the language used, such sites really are rather elitist in nature. They are for the most part not worried about helping you, so much as they are interested in making sure people succeed in the same way that they did. (Or at least the version of the way they did that they entertain in their own heads.)
In short, if you don't think you can do it their way, the advice is, "You have to. That's the world, bub."
And when you try to learn from them by asking them how you can be more like what they are, without changing what you are? When you get any response at all, (which I usually do not, regardless of how humble my approach), you get bitchy emails back that mock they very audacity you have shown in even suggesting that you are coming anywhere near their own level of commitment. Arrogant, bile ridden correspondence which made it clear that after reading the first three questions you asked them, they had no desire to even read the rest of your email until you "grow up and learn the ways of the world".
That's networking, to me, folks. Happens all the time. And the previous example is culled from my actual life, not hyperbole. It really happened in much the way I describe. And this wasn't even one of the gurus. Not yet anyway. This ass was a "friend" of mine. But like so many before her in this social media misadventure of mine, she was high on talk and low on action when it came to helping people. Very much willing to bend over backward to take what I had to offer her, but was too busy making her millions and rubbing elbows with the other internet elite to take a moment to offer me something of which I was in desperate need when I came to her.
Typical one-sided "what have you done for me lately" networking hypocrisy. And all because, as far as I can tell, I couldn't do what she had done. Or he. Or they. Or perhaps you? Because to tell you the truth, I shy away from advice these days. Even when I seek it, it is almost out of reflex. Because there is only so much of that sort of "tough love" a person like me can take. And if people only really want to reach out and help those that can in some way help them, that isn't help. That's bartering services.
Whether it be marketing, social media, freelance writing, contracts, fiction, networking, I can't do what everyone says I must. Why? Because I don't have the resources, the knowledge, or the resources to obtain the knowledge. So I seek to do it my own way. That is the message I have gotten from all the big wigs and self help types, and positive thinkers and creative visualizers, and the friendly extroverts. That I just don't have enough of whatever it takes to become whatever it is they say I need to become. And since there is only one narrow way they can think of that can bring about success, (their own), they just don't bother to reply to my questions in a prompt fashion, as they would for people who do it their way. Or they throw up their hands and say, "Don't know what to tell you. You are on your own." You're damn right I am.
I am not inspired by the success of other people, and I am baffled by those who are. This sharing in the joy song and dance is a front. My life is not improved because someone who started blogging a year after I started is already making 5,000 dollars a month blogging, when I make zero. I am not happy when "friends" become famous, because I know what it is they had to do in order to become so. Deep inside, I can't replicate it. Not because I am afraid. But because I simply am not built that way. I was, am, and shall remain, Too XYZ forthat narrow definition of "going after your dream."
I don't know how to do what all of you do. And I was fine with not knowing. And fine with learning what I could learn, and adapting to the rest. But that gets very lonely, and who wants to do everything alone? And if people can't advise those that are Too XYZ, must they spend their energy criticizing us too? Don't take out your obvious frustrations on not knowing the answers to any of my unique questions by scolding me for asking them in the first place. Stop assuming that my obstacles and handicaps make me less of a person, less deserving of success, simply because I don't have a note from the doctor.
I am trying to start this from nothing people. And I am probably not the only one. Take a minute out of your hardworking, successful, Seth Godin reading, friend cheering, article tweeting, extroverted networking, walking on sunshine sort of lives and remember that. We, the ones in the storm need help too. And if you can't provide it, at least have the decency to get the hell out of the way while we try to outrun the lightening.
Too XYZ continues to be a very apt name for this blog, as the concept continues to very much apply to me in just about everything I do. There are very specific elements to my psyche that prevent me from doing specific things. Like the color blind attempting to interior decorate, or the tone deaf opting to offer singing lessons, there are things which no matter how valuable, I cannot do.
And I cannot do them because I am either missing something, or something is damaged, or atrophied within my being. Now former friends and supporters of my work have often climbed upon the highest of horses and declared from their lofty position that unless I suffer from a disease that is documented somewhere in the annals of either psychology or medicine, I have no right to claim occasional crippling difficulties with my life. That in the absence of such a diagnosis, any problems, difficulties, or obstacles I have faced as I try ferociously to succeed in a contrary world are 100% my own making. And hence unless I can prove otherwise, I can and must fix everything all by myself.
It is as though they were the principal in the school of life demanding from me a note from my doctor proving to them that I cannot come into school that day (a rather condescending requirement if you ask me).
Yet in some ways, Too XYZ has been my attempt at such a letter. Addressed not to the individual, but to the world, and ideally, those who share my view of same. Those with the same issues, whether or not there is a Latin term out there to describe them.
This blog is a place for me to be frank about my obstacles, internal and external. A place to express perceptions, plans, strategies and simple observations. A place to seek advice, and gain perspective.
Yet, as I have oft written about in previous posts, I usually just get the same perspective over and over again. And that perspective can be summed up in one tidy sentence.
Change what you are and what you do, because it currently isn't good enough.
The type of blog this is. My content. The way I market. The questions I ask. The help I seek, and the people from which I seek it. The problems I face and the solutions I offer. Even down to the font of my business cards, the nature of my profile picture, and the articles on which I choose to comment. No matter what I share with people, or no matter what of other people's advice I observe passively (by going to their blog, or reading their articles), it can just about all be summed up by that italicized sentence I posted above.
I guess if I had a response it would be "Easy for you to say."
Because to tell you the truth, whether it be the big gurus like Godin, or the CopyBlogger guy, or some of the people I have encountered personally in my social media travels over the last two years, I have noticed a pattern; basically none of them had to start what they are doing from Absolute Zero. I don't mean the lowest temperature in the universe, but having zero resources, zero friends, zero experience and zero money when they set off. That is the place I am coming from, and still struggling to get out of. I have not yet succeeded. That isn't to say I won't. Just that I haven't, and that I still don't know how.
Oh I know. Each of the people I am thinking of, whether familiar or famous, (and I am sick to realize that some of the people with which I am familiar are becoming famous by being great at being fake) will quickly point out just how hard it was when they started out. They had to have a big scary cry over quitting their 80K a year job when they started freelancing. "Could this work? What was I doing? Am I crazy?" But their 100K a year spouse reminded them to believe in themselves, and they pressed on. And they will tell you the horror stories of just how dumb they were at first. How they didn't know code, but learned it quickly because they had to. Or hated the idea of marketing but learned to love it. How they were introverted once, but became extroverted, and now can work the room with the best of them and make their fucking millions.
I have called it before, and I will again. Bullshit.
In each of the cases I am thinking of, the "rock star" in question, (whose ass everyone on the internet is happy to kiss in hopes of the magic rubbing off on their lips) had some kind of lucky break, or some kind of helping hand. And I don't mean advice, or a referral.
I am talking about, nobody surviving was based on their need to freelance. They were not in the poor house when they started up their business. They didn't deal with people who viewed them as unpleasant, cold, mean, or not worth the investment at every turn. They didn't have difficulty making people interested in them. Something within them or something about their situation over which they had no control put them ahead.
Now they don't like to think about it that way, because that means god forbid that perhaps they are not ninjas after all. That their own powers might not have brought the world to its knees before them. That they may not be quite as charming or "epic" as they need to believe they are to get through the day.
No, they may not say it, because they may not believe it on the inside, but they had some form of luck or circumstances to help them along. And for good measure they'll throw in an officially diagnosed eating disorder as the grand Deschapelles Coup of their own magnificence.
It is why I have all but stopped reading the blogs I used to read when I first entered the social media landscape on a regular basis. I was at one time subscribed to about 15 blog feeds or so, each of them it seems packed with advice for the freelance writer, the self improvement minded, the spiritually bent and the artistic. I have since canceled all of these feeds. Not just because they became boring (they did), but because I finally realized that despite the language used, such sites really are rather elitist in nature. They are for the most part not worried about helping you, so much as they are interested in making sure people succeed in the same way that they did. (Or at least the version of the way they did that they entertain in their own heads.)
In short, if you don't think you can do it their way, the advice is, "You have to. That's the world, bub."
And when you try to learn from them by asking them how you can be more like what they are, without changing what you are? When you get any response at all, (which I usually do not, regardless of how humble my approach), you get bitchy emails back that mock they very audacity you have shown in even suggesting that you are coming anywhere near their own level of commitment. Arrogant, bile ridden correspondence which made it clear that after reading the first three questions you asked them, they had no desire to even read the rest of your email until you "grow up and learn the ways of the world".
That's networking, to me, folks. Happens all the time. And the previous example is culled from my actual life, not hyperbole. It really happened in much the way I describe. And this wasn't even one of the gurus. Not yet anyway. This ass was a "friend" of mine. But like so many before her in this social media misadventure of mine, she was high on talk and low on action when it came to helping people. Very much willing to bend over backward to take what I had to offer her, but was too busy making her millions and rubbing elbows with the other internet elite to take a moment to offer me something of which I was in desperate need when I came to her.
Typical one-sided "what have you done for me lately" networking hypocrisy. And all because, as far as I can tell, I couldn't do what she had done. Or he. Or they. Or perhaps you? Because to tell you the truth, I shy away from advice these days. Even when I seek it, it is almost out of reflex. Because there is only so much of that sort of "tough love" a person like me can take. And if people only really want to reach out and help those that can in some way help them, that isn't help. That's bartering services.
Whether it be marketing, social media, freelance writing, contracts, fiction, networking, I can't do what everyone says I must. Why? Because I don't have the resources, the knowledge, or the resources to obtain the knowledge. So I seek to do it my own way. That is the message I have gotten from all the big wigs and self help types, and positive thinkers and creative visualizers, and the friendly extroverts. That I just don't have enough of whatever it takes to become whatever it is they say I need to become. And since there is only one narrow way they can think of that can bring about success, (their own), they just don't bother to reply to my questions in a prompt fashion, as they would for people who do it their way. Or they throw up their hands and say, "Don't know what to tell you. You are on your own." You're damn right I am.
I am not inspired by the success of other people, and I am baffled by those who are. This sharing in the joy song and dance is a front. My life is not improved because someone who started blogging a year after I started is already making 5,000 dollars a month blogging, when I make zero. I am not happy when "friends" become famous, because I know what it is they had to do in order to become so. Deep inside, I can't replicate it. Not because I am afraid. But because I simply am not built that way. I was, am, and shall remain, Too XYZ forthat narrow definition of "going after your dream."
I don't know how to do what all of you do. And I was fine with not knowing. And fine with learning what I could learn, and adapting to the rest. But that gets very lonely, and who wants to do everything alone? And if people can't advise those that are Too XYZ, must they spend their energy criticizing us too? Don't take out your obvious frustrations on not knowing the answers to any of my unique questions by scolding me for asking them in the first place. Stop assuming that my obstacles and handicaps make me less of a person, less deserving of success, simply because I don't have a note from the doctor.
I am trying to start this from nothing people. And I am probably not the only one. Take a minute out of your hardworking, successful, Seth Godin reading, friend cheering, article tweeting, extroverted networking, walking on sunshine sort of lives and remember that. We, the ones in the storm need help too. And if you can't provide it, at least have the decency to get the hell out of the way while we try to outrun the lightening.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Extreme Moderation and How to Avoid It
One of my good friends had a birthday this week. The following day on her Facebook status, she mentioned that there were so many baked goods laying around the house from the celebration, and that she was very tempted to have many of them. Her status ended with, "Moderation!"
I responded by saying that moderation was relative, and that if she considered the span of her entire life on Earth, and how the vast majority of that time she would not be eating cake, she could make the argument that having several today would not counteract her desire to be moderate.
This response received several "likes" from people, including the birthday girl herself. (Whether or not she actually had more of the baked goods that day, I don't know. I didn't ask.)
My response was a joke, but only partially. Because I have come to determine a very interesting, and perhaps mind-bending irony; everything should be pursued in moderation, including moderation itself.
What the hell am I talking about? It's not quite as bizarre as it sounds.
The entire point of adopting a moderate lifestyle, whether it be the "Nothing in Excess" model of the ancient Greeks, or The Middle Way of the Buddhists, is to avoid extremes. In thought, word, and deed.
But suppose one becomes ultra-committed to moderation? So preoccupied with the idea of falling right in the middle of every spectrum, that they obsess over it? Every drink they grab, every party they attend, every item they purchase, every lover they take, their first thought is, "is this extreme?" They are in a constant state of examining every thing they say, think, do, or own, to make sure it does not fall into any of the extremes of life. And should they feel tempted to, or heaven forbid actually engage in one of the extremes? Well, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a good second place is how obsessive moderates treat themselves when they go off the wagon of something.
Doesn't all of that sound a bit, well, extreme?
So, as crazy as it sounds, we have to moderate our moderation, just as much as we moderate everything else.
If we moderate our alcohol intake, we don't get drunk and puke every time it is served. If we moderate our eating habits, we do not eat only kale 24/7. And if we moderate our moderation, what does that mean? It means that moderation is a standard we apply over the course of an entire lifetime, and not to every moment of every day.
To be "middle of the road moderates", we need to splurge. Sometimes. Break our diets. Get a little tipsy. Laugh too loud at the restaurant. By letting ourselves be somewhat extreme in any given circumstance, we maintain the value of moderation as a way of life in general.
Maintaining the balance is still a tricky endeavor for us. Both because it can be tempting to just say "to hell with it" and go nuts, but also because the middle of any spectrum isn't often easy to identify. But we get a step closer to clarity on such things, when we take a step away and don't crucify ourselves for our innocent moments of extremity.
Do you allow yourself to be extreme sometimes?
I responded by saying that moderation was relative, and that if she considered the span of her entire life on Earth, and how the vast majority of that time she would not be eating cake, she could make the argument that having several today would not counteract her desire to be moderate.
This response received several "likes" from people, including the birthday girl herself. (Whether or not she actually had more of the baked goods that day, I don't know. I didn't ask.)
My response was a joke, but only partially. Because I have come to determine a very interesting, and perhaps mind-bending irony; everything should be pursued in moderation, including moderation itself.
What the hell am I talking about? It's not quite as bizarre as it sounds.
The entire point of adopting a moderate lifestyle, whether it be the "Nothing in Excess" model of the ancient Greeks, or The Middle Way of the Buddhists, is to avoid extremes. In thought, word, and deed.
But suppose one becomes ultra-committed to moderation? So preoccupied with the idea of falling right in the middle of every spectrum, that they obsess over it? Every drink they grab, every party they attend, every item they purchase, every lover they take, their first thought is, "is this extreme?" They are in a constant state of examining every thing they say, think, do, or own, to make sure it does not fall into any of the extremes of life. And should they feel tempted to, or heaven forbid actually engage in one of the extremes? Well, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a good second place is how obsessive moderates treat themselves when they go off the wagon of something.
Doesn't all of that sound a bit, well, extreme?
So, as crazy as it sounds, we have to moderate our moderation, just as much as we moderate everything else.
If we moderate our alcohol intake, we don't get drunk and puke every time it is served. If we moderate our eating habits, we do not eat only kale 24/7. And if we moderate our moderation, what does that mean? It means that moderation is a standard we apply over the course of an entire lifetime, and not to every moment of every day.
To be "middle of the road moderates", we need to splurge. Sometimes. Break our diets. Get a little tipsy. Laugh too loud at the restaurant. By letting ourselves be somewhat extreme in any given circumstance, we maintain the value of moderation as a way of life in general.
Maintaining the balance is still a tricky endeavor for us. Both because it can be tempting to just say "to hell with it" and go nuts, but also because the middle of any spectrum isn't often easy to identify. But we get a step closer to clarity on such things, when we take a step away and don't crucify ourselves for our innocent moments of extremity.
Do you allow yourself to be extreme sometimes?
Monday, April 4, 2011
Charlie Sheen in Detroit: Did He Bomb, or Did We?
Charlie Sheen's opening stop for his "Torpedo of Truth" tour in Detroit on Saturday has been almost universally declared a disaster. Late start time, terrible opening act. Incoherent meanderings, pointless video clips. Booing, walk-outs, demands for refunds.
He even reminded the increasingly hostile audience at one point that they had agreed to pay money for tickets to a show before they knew anything about it. Indeed they had. I'll get into that point in a moment.
In response, during the the second stop on the tour in Chicago the following night, the "show" was revamped completely. The entire show was now Sheen being interviewed by a DJ. And so, it would seem, the audience, (some of whom showed up with the hopes of seeing a Detroit style train wreck) was far more accepting. Though it seems Sheen himself was a bit unhappy with the change of format at times.
I don't know what Sheen's deal is. Drugs. Mental illness. Or a genius for marketing by use of a grand hoax ala Joaquin Phoenix. I think there is ample evidence for any of the above options, frankly. But based on the nature of the Detroit show at least, I don't consider the evidence for lunacy to be overwhelming yet. Frankly, I don't even think, as many seem to, that Detroit proves he has no idea how to put on a show. We can easily read about what happened and throw what we consider some truth right back at the "Torpedo of Truth", assured in our knowledge that what he did was bound to fail. But was it?
I think the whole thing really is an excellent field study on the entertainment consumption habits of our society.
To begin with, I think Sheen, in whatever state of mental health he is in, honestly had every right to assume that people who paid all that money to see "Torpedo" would love what he was doing. Even if it was half-assed and thrown together at last minute. It was after all basically the same sort of thing he has been doing since this alleged meltdown began. Weird rambling monologues. Women making out. YouTube videos. It seems that the stage show was in fact a visual, live reproduction of the frantic stream of consciousness of Sheen's mind that caused so many people to watch his internet streams, and follow him on Twitter. The very same sort of thing that led people to buy a ticket to "Torpedo" in the first place. Why shouldn't people have loved it? If Sheen is asking this question now, I can't say as I blame him much.
Let's face it; people enjoy paying money for some weird and lame, and even hostile garbage. Andy Kaufman made a career of pulling antagonistic, at times rambling and certainly nonsensical stunts on stage and people booed and yet loved him for it. Snooki's book is a best seller. There are the inexplicable cult followings of trash like The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, a movie so obviously inept, unprofessional and void of story, purpose, theme, structure, coherence, and at times even proper lighting, that it does not in the strictest definition even qualify as a movie.
So I think the line between Charlie Sheen's opening of "Torpedo" in Detroit, which was vilified, and the examples I give above which are lauded by considerable numbers of people, is a very thin one. Obviously "Torpedo" was torpedoed. Yet I have to think that in an alternate universe not too far from our own, (as in perhaps just one universe over) Sheen's opening in Detroit would have been a smash hit. If he hadn't been late, they might have loved it. If he had opened in say, Austin instead of Detroit, they may have loved it. If any one single random thing had been different, the entire affair may have caught the very same invisible wave of mass audience adoration that carries people like Dane Cook into inexplicable stardom.
In other words, it is easy to say the show was absurd, now that it has failed. But we, the American public have foisted similar or even worse fare into our collective greatest hits album. And just when we think we can define what is and is not likely to be a blockbuster, something comes along and changes the game again. Either because it failed, or because it succeeded.
The truth is, we really have no idea why the media/arts/entertainment consuming masses propel one book, act, scandal, celebrity or stage show into oblivion, and another into immortality. We haven't the slightest clue what we want. At times I think the best anyone can do is watch what people follow, and then either follow the pack, or run fast enough to get to the head of same. And even once there, you may get trampled.
I am no fan of the crap Charlie Sheen has been doing the last few months, whatever its cause. I wouldn't have paid money for his live show. I wouldn't have enjoyed it. However I am withholding the tiniest amount of judgment about the show's flopping, because society has proven over and over again that there was every reason to believe the show could have worked without the slightest alteration.
Sheen is reported to have yelled back at a heckler in Detroit,
"I've already got your money, dude!"
That may be the most significant and telling observation of the entire thing.
He even reminded the increasingly hostile audience at one point that they had agreed to pay money for tickets to a show before they knew anything about it. Indeed they had. I'll get into that point in a moment.
In response, during the the second stop on the tour in Chicago the following night, the "show" was revamped completely. The entire show was now Sheen being interviewed by a DJ. And so, it would seem, the audience, (some of whom showed up with the hopes of seeing a Detroit style train wreck) was far more accepting. Though it seems Sheen himself was a bit unhappy with the change of format at times.
I don't know what Sheen's deal is. Drugs. Mental illness. Or a genius for marketing by use of a grand hoax ala Joaquin Phoenix. I think there is ample evidence for any of the above options, frankly. But based on the nature of the Detroit show at least, I don't consider the evidence for lunacy to be overwhelming yet. Frankly, I don't even think, as many seem to, that Detroit proves he has no idea how to put on a show. We can easily read about what happened and throw what we consider some truth right back at the "Torpedo of Truth", assured in our knowledge that what he did was bound to fail. But was it?
I think the whole thing really is an excellent field study on the entertainment consumption habits of our society.
To begin with, I think Sheen, in whatever state of mental health he is in, honestly had every right to assume that people who paid all that money to see "Torpedo" would love what he was doing. Even if it was half-assed and thrown together at last minute. It was after all basically the same sort of thing he has been doing since this alleged meltdown began. Weird rambling monologues. Women making out. YouTube videos. It seems that the stage show was in fact a visual, live reproduction of the frantic stream of consciousness of Sheen's mind that caused so many people to watch his internet streams, and follow him on Twitter. The very same sort of thing that led people to buy a ticket to "Torpedo" in the first place. Why shouldn't people have loved it? If Sheen is asking this question now, I can't say as I blame him much.
Let's face it; people enjoy paying money for some weird and lame, and even hostile garbage. Andy Kaufman made a career of pulling antagonistic, at times rambling and certainly nonsensical stunts on stage and people booed and yet loved him for it. Snooki's book is a best seller. There are the inexplicable cult followings of trash like The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, a movie so obviously inept, unprofessional and void of story, purpose, theme, structure, coherence, and at times even proper lighting, that it does not in the strictest definition even qualify as a movie.
So I think the line between Charlie Sheen's opening of "Torpedo" in Detroit, which was vilified, and the examples I give above which are lauded by considerable numbers of people, is a very thin one. Obviously "Torpedo" was torpedoed. Yet I have to think that in an alternate universe not too far from our own, (as in perhaps just one universe over) Sheen's opening in Detroit would have been a smash hit. If he hadn't been late, they might have loved it. If he had opened in say, Austin instead of Detroit, they may have loved it. If any one single random thing had been different, the entire affair may have caught the very same invisible wave of mass audience adoration that carries people like Dane Cook into inexplicable stardom.
In other words, it is easy to say the show was absurd, now that it has failed. But we, the American public have foisted similar or even worse fare into our collective greatest hits album. And just when we think we can define what is and is not likely to be a blockbuster, something comes along and changes the game again. Either because it failed, or because it succeeded.
The truth is, we really have no idea why the media/arts/entertainment consuming masses propel one book, act, scandal, celebrity or stage show into oblivion, and another into immortality. We haven't the slightest clue what we want. At times I think the best anyone can do is watch what people follow, and then either follow the pack, or run fast enough to get to the head of same. And even once there, you may get trampled.
I am no fan of the crap Charlie Sheen has been doing the last few months, whatever its cause. I wouldn't have paid money for his live show. I wouldn't have enjoyed it. However I am withholding the tiniest amount of judgment about the show's flopping, because society has proven over and over again that there was every reason to believe the show could have worked without the slightest alteration.
Sheen is reported to have yelled back at a heckler in Detroit,
"I've already got your money, dude!"
That may be the most significant and telling observation of the entire thing.
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