I hear people complaining about how "everyone has a mental illness these days" and people try to explain why this is the case. (For the curious - you might know this statistic, but from what I understand, 25% of the adult population lives with a diagnosable mental illness. So now you know what is meant by "everyone".)
People want to explain this fact, why everyone has mental illnesses, and why they have it now, as opposed to how it was in previous times, where mental illness was often seen as a horrible, inherently life-crushing thing, for which there wasn't much information or treatment. Some people want to think it's because "the modern life" is making people insane. Because of computers and technology and our busy lives, we're getting bipolar disorder and depression and schizophrenia and stuff.
I honestly don't think that's a very convincing argument. While "the modern life" does have its drawbacks and can cause legitimate stress (and worsen disorders that people already had), it seems highly improbable if not impossible that it's causing people's brains to resemble a certain way so that the parts that "should" work simply don't. It's not giving us actual legitimate medical problems. Unless it's capable of actually rewriting your DNA so that your brain's structure is different and that, in some cases, it's possibly developed differently for your entire life, I don't think anything can "give" people mental illnesses.
As technology gets better, our sphere of knowledge gets bigger, and our ignorance as a culture grows smaller, we find out that some things are more common than we previously thought they were, and we can better understand what some things are. What I'm trying to say is that I think people are just realizing that mental illnesses have always been this common but we didn't have the tools to understand it or the tolerance to accept it.
"But wait," you might say. "Mental illnesses are really that common? No, that's absurd. I am unwilling to believe that that many people really have these things."
As though mental illness were something you could reserve for a select few people who are (un)lucky enough to be cursed? blessed? burdened? somethinged with them. As if there was only so much crazy to distribute throughout the human race.
I think it's like allergies. I really think it's like allergies. Lots of people are allergic to things (milk, latex, cats); lots of people have mental health problems that make them unable to cope with certain parts of life. There exist allergies to all sorts of things; there are all sorts of ways that mental illness can interfere with or just alter someone's life. Some allergies are more severe than others, with effects ranging from mild irritation to death; mental illnesses come in all ranges of severity, and this doesn't mean that any of them are "less real" or "less valid" than others. Sometimes, you can find ways to cope with or treat allergies; since mental illness is biological in nature, you can treat it medically, too.
It's not that mental illness has suddenly become "more common". Likely it's always been this common. Like the commonness of allergies, so is mental illness an oddly common thing. And since we're slowly becoming better at diagnosing and accepting mental illness, we're coming closer to understanding that mental illness is common and ultimately not that big of a deal. Certainly not as big or bad of a deal as some people make of it.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Friday, May 31, 2013
Acts of Human Kindness
The best part of my day happened not thirty minutes ago. I know it's the best part of my day because it involved one of my favorite things in the whole world: small acts of human kindness.
It happened in a restaurant with my grandpa. I came over to my grandparents' house to spend the day there (as I sometimes do; my grandparents really like me and I really like them so it's all good). And my grandpa often takes me out to lunch at a particular restaurant we both like, and that's where we were this afternoon. Since we go to the restaurant frequently together, I think the people who work there are beginning to know us as "the old guy and his grandkid who come to eat sometimes on weekdays". My grandpa finds it kind of amusing, in his way, that they recognize us, and today he did something that will definitely leave an impression in their minds.
I should explain something about what the restaurant is like. You go in, you order your food with a waiter or waitress standing behind a counter, who gives you a number and later brings your food to you. It's that kind of place. People normally don't leave tips in those kinds of places, and my grandpa and I have never left tips until today, when we were getting up to go and our waitress started taking our plates away. In an action unanticipated by the waitress and myself, he pulled two dollars out of his wallet and gave them to her.
This made the waitress really happy. Two dollars isn't much, and it was probably less than what you'd tip someone in a "regular restaurant", but she was really happy because she probably doesn't get tips very much. A man whom I presume was the manager even came out after hearing the semi-commotion and thanked my grandpa, giving both him and myself a handshake. If they didn't know us before, they know us now as the old guy and his grandkid who happened to tip the waitress.
Things like that - small acts of human kindness - are my favorite kinds of things in the world. No matter how awful I say humans are by nature, even I can't deny that they have the capacity for kindness. What makes this so? Probably it's because some humans (and I could even go so far as to say many or even most humans) have taken on the idea, whether through deliberate instruction, personal searches for morality, or even just observation, that it's a good idea to do nice things for others. Maybe it's because they've been instructed to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Maybe it's because they've gotten it into their heads that doing nice things for other people is just the thing you're supposed to do. Maybe it's because some people are actually "naturally good" and just feel compelled to do these sorts of things because it's "who they are". Probably, though, it's because a lot of people have come to understand that being nice just makes things go smoother and is likely to lead to a happier, more productive society (and I think everyone, or at least most people, are at least faintly aware of this, even if they never become entirely cognizant of it).
This reminds me of the one time I was on the bus, riding home from school, when an old lady was getting on. There weren't any seats left, so I was about to get up and offer her mine, but some other guy beat me to it. I was just really happy the rest of the way home because that little event meant that at least two people on the bus were willing to give up their seats for an old lady. Neither the guy nor I had anything to gain from it, but we both knew it would be the nice thing to do, the right thing to do.
Little examples of human kindness, like giving money to a waitress you didn't have to get money to or offering your seat to an old person when there are no seats left, are things that show me that, while humanity on the whole is pretty crummy, humans have the ability to rise above their crummy natures and do nice things for each other and perhaps even make a habit of that, and that is beautiful.
It happened in a restaurant with my grandpa. I came over to my grandparents' house to spend the day there (as I sometimes do; my grandparents really like me and I really like them so it's all good). And my grandpa often takes me out to lunch at a particular restaurant we both like, and that's where we were this afternoon. Since we go to the restaurant frequently together, I think the people who work there are beginning to know us as "the old guy and his grandkid who come to eat sometimes on weekdays". My grandpa finds it kind of amusing, in his way, that they recognize us, and today he did something that will definitely leave an impression in their minds.
I should explain something about what the restaurant is like. You go in, you order your food with a waiter or waitress standing behind a counter, who gives you a number and later brings your food to you. It's that kind of place. People normally don't leave tips in those kinds of places, and my grandpa and I have never left tips until today, when we were getting up to go and our waitress started taking our plates away. In an action unanticipated by the waitress and myself, he pulled two dollars out of his wallet and gave them to her.
This made the waitress really happy. Two dollars isn't much, and it was probably less than what you'd tip someone in a "regular restaurant", but she was really happy because she probably doesn't get tips very much. A man whom I presume was the manager even came out after hearing the semi-commotion and thanked my grandpa, giving both him and myself a handshake. If they didn't know us before, they know us now as the old guy and his grandkid who happened to tip the waitress.
Things like that - small acts of human kindness - are my favorite kinds of things in the world. No matter how awful I say humans are by nature, even I can't deny that they have the capacity for kindness. What makes this so? Probably it's because some humans (and I could even go so far as to say many or even most humans) have taken on the idea, whether through deliberate instruction, personal searches for morality, or even just observation, that it's a good idea to do nice things for others. Maybe it's because they've been instructed to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Maybe it's because they've gotten it into their heads that doing nice things for other people is just the thing you're supposed to do. Maybe it's because some people are actually "naturally good" and just feel compelled to do these sorts of things because it's "who they are". Probably, though, it's because a lot of people have come to understand that being nice just makes things go smoother and is likely to lead to a happier, more productive society (and I think everyone, or at least most people, are at least faintly aware of this, even if they never become entirely cognizant of it).
This reminds me of the one time I was on the bus, riding home from school, when an old lady was getting on. There weren't any seats left, so I was about to get up and offer her mine, but some other guy beat me to it. I was just really happy the rest of the way home because that little event meant that at least two people on the bus were willing to give up their seats for an old lady. Neither the guy nor I had anything to gain from it, but we both knew it would be the nice thing to do, the right thing to do.
Little examples of human kindness, like giving money to a waitress you didn't have to get money to or offering your seat to an old person when there are no seats left, are things that show me that, while humanity on the whole is pretty crummy, humans have the ability to rise above their crummy natures and do nice things for each other and perhaps even make a habit of that, and that is beautiful.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Why I identify as Lawful Good
If you are familiar with the "character alignment system" proposed by the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying games, you will understand what I mean when I say I am "Lawful Good". And if you don't know what I mean, I highly suggest you familiarize yourself with "character alignment". Look it up online; I love explaining it to people in person, but this is the internet, where such things are easy to find.
Basically, though, the character alignment system suggests that there are nine "alignments" for characters, based on the ideas of "good vs. evil" and "law vs. chaos". A Lawful character either believes that laws and rules are necessary or else has a system of rules they follow. A Chaotic character either actively breaks laws and rules or else just doesn't follow rules. A Neutral character doesn't care about law vs. chaos. And I'm pretty sure we all understand the differences between Good, Neutral, and Evil. The nine alignments, then, would be Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, and Chaotic Evil.
I identify as Lawful Good: that is, someone who believes in rules and order and who uses the law (depending on how "law" is defined) in the pursuit of goodness, believing following the law is how one does good. This is all very interesting, but what does Lawful Good mean for me?
Well, let me explain what I mean by "lawful". I do not mean I strictly adhere to what is considered lawful by my legal system's standards. While I personally don't do anything illegal, I might not be afraid to if it meant I was doing the right thing, and I believe that doing the "lawful" thing is not always the "legal" thing. Rather, I adhere to a system of rules I have synthesized for myself (based in religion and an observation of what seems to work in practice). And by "system of rules", I mean "something that I actually have written up if I need to consult it" (which usually I don't because they're so internalized). These rules are meant to give my life and actions some structure (under which I function the best) and aid me in doing what's best for other people and (often) myself.
So that's why I identify as lawful, but why good? I used to identify as Lawful Neutral for some time, but now I consider myself good. It was because I was a little confused about what made someone "good". When you hear about "good" people, there tends to be a sense of emotion carried with it. "Good" people have an excess of empathy/sympathy and are compelled to help others for emotional reasons. I would describe myself as "emotionally-impaired", mostly where it concerns positive emotions. I have limited empathy (and was told this by my psychologist, with whom I agreed) and there is seldom an emotional impetus or result in regards to my acts of goodness.
I decided I was good because people told me I was good. I know that, depending on your system of morality (or lack thereof), that good acts or behavior can look very different depending on who you ask, but if you do believe in good, chances are your definition includes helping people and doing things that benefit others. Consider the Golden Rule, which is basically the same in all major religions: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." While this doesn't always work when applied literally (not every single person wants to be treated in a way that is consistent with the Golden Rule's intent), surely its intent includes helping people.
The reason I needed other people to tell me I was good was because I needed other people to point out that I was indeed helpful to them and thus doing things that are considered "good". Things I had done without intending to be good (but still following my personal rules) had nevertheless helped people tremendously (to the point where I have talked people out of suicide and self-harm without even knowing it). Had people not told me the tremendous benefit my actions had produced in them, I wouldn't have known that anything I did was worth calling "good". In other words, people told me I was good, and I realized they were correct. And the reason I was good was because I had rules I followed that led me to do good things.
And that is why I identify as Lawful Good.
Basically, though, the character alignment system suggests that there are nine "alignments" for characters, based on the ideas of "good vs. evil" and "law vs. chaos". A Lawful character either believes that laws and rules are necessary or else has a system of rules they follow. A Chaotic character either actively breaks laws and rules or else just doesn't follow rules. A Neutral character doesn't care about law vs. chaos. And I'm pretty sure we all understand the differences between Good, Neutral, and Evil. The nine alignments, then, would be Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, and Chaotic Evil.
I identify as Lawful Good: that is, someone who believes in rules and order and who uses the law (depending on how "law" is defined) in the pursuit of goodness, believing following the law is how one does good. This is all very interesting, but what does Lawful Good mean for me?
Well, let me explain what I mean by "lawful". I do not mean I strictly adhere to what is considered lawful by my legal system's standards. While I personally don't do anything illegal, I might not be afraid to if it meant I was doing the right thing, and I believe that doing the "lawful" thing is not always the "legal" thing. Rather, I adhere to a system of rules I have synthesized for myself (based in religion and an observation of what seems to work in practice). And by "system of rules", I mean "something that I actually have written up if I need to consult it" (which usually I don't because they're so internalized). These rules are meant to give my life and actions some structure (under which I function the best) and aid me in doing what's best for other people and (often) myself.
So that's why I identify as lawful, but why good? I used to identify as Lawful Neutral for some time, but now I consider myself good. It was because I was a little confused about what made someone "good". When you hear about "good" people, there tends to be a sense of emotion carried with it. "Good" people have an excess of empathy/sympathy and are compelled to help others for emotional reasons. I would describe myself as "emotionally-impaired", mostly where it concerns positive emotions. I have limited empathy (and was told this by my psychologist, with whom I agreed) and there is seldom an emotional impetus or result in regards to my acts of goodness.
I decided I was good because people told me I was good. I know that, depending on your system of morality (or lack thereof), that good acts or behavior can look very different depending on who you ask, but if you do believe in good, chances are your definition includes helping people and doing things that benefit others. Consider the Golden Rule, which is basically the same in all major religions: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." While this doesn't always work when applied literally (not every single person wants to be treated in a way that is consistent with the Golden Rule's intent), surely its intent includes helping people.
The reason I needed other people to tell me I was good was because I needed other people to point out that I was indeed helpful to them and thus doing things that are considered "good". Things I had done without intending to be good (but still following my personal rules) had nevertheless helped people tremendously (to the point where I have talked people out of suicide and self-harm without even knowing it). Had people not told me the tremendous benefit my actions had produced in them, I wouldn't have known that anything I did was worth calling "good". In other words, people told me I was good, and I realized they were correct. And the reason I was good was because I had rules I followed that led me to do good things.
And that is why I identify as Lawful Good.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Humans and their enthusiasm
Even though I say that I quote-unquote "hate everything" (or use similar terms to express the same basic meaning), this is a blatant lie, and anyone who knows me in any capacity will be aware of this. I feel towards some things a less-advanced state of hatred that barely resembles hatred at all. Dogs, for instance. Dogs produce a nice sort of feeling in me whenever I see them, because I enjoy them. It's not a huge sense of enjoyment. I don't go away from petting an unexpected stranger's dog thinking, "That was fulfilling. Since the universe has dogs in it, it can't be all that bad." I just don't work like that. But I still enjoy dogs, and thus when I say I "hate" everything, it's only a loose approximation of how I feel about the universe-at-large.
Therefore, it is very fascinating and a bit frightening whenever something makes me truly excited. I had one such experience today. Of the relatively short list of things I actively enjoy, food is on that list. Even I, hater of a lot of things, like food, and to be honest, I'd be extremely uncomfortable if I met someone who didn't feel the same.
One of the foods I like is pie. I have liked pie for a very long time and to a very high degree. I am not so inordinately fond of it to the point where I can't function for having thoughts overtaken by this high-calorie, crust-and-filling dessert, but I like it nonetheless. Pie is brilliant, but it tends not to excite me. The event in which I do something like yelling, "PIE! PIE IS GREAT! I HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO PIE AND A SENSE OF HUGE, OVERWHELMING ENTHUSIASM HAS BEEN INSTILLED IN ME! YAAAAAAY!!!" would be highly unusual.
And yet something very much like this occurred recently. I am currently in the mountains with my friend and a lot of my family (meaning my sister, father, aunt and uncle, and their three small children). The aforementioned aunt indicated that she might have some sort of plan involving giving me pie (that is, she texted me the other day, asking what my favorite kind of pie was - I said it was a tie between chocolate and apple). She didn't, however, say that she was actually going to give me pie, nor when and where she would give it to me.
This made the event of finding not one but two Marie Calendars' pie boxes in the kitchen while making sandwiches for my friend and I a very unexpected event. I did that thing my sister claims I do when I get excited, back when I still got visibly excited (which involves widening my eyes, opening my mouth, turning my feet inward and waving my hands excitedly). I grabbed for the pie boxes to try to open them as hurriedly as possible without showing signs of tampering. Sure enough, they were chocolate and apple. My aunt had gotten the pies, and this delicious food made me excited.
I then found myself in the odd situation of having to explain to myself why I was so excited by the pie. Was there really something so magnificent about the presence of the dessert or the fact that someone had gotten it for me so as to induce such an over-the-top reaction? No. Not really. But some small, beautiful factors (surprise, thoughtfulness, deliciousness, etc.) had all intersected in this event, and the combination was enough to make me excited.
People get excited. It's a fact of humans. Even the most negative or non-excitable of us will (generally) have something that makes us outwardly show our approval of something. Maybe that's one of the great things about the human species, that we are capable of appreciating things so much that we can't help but express it. And there are all sorts of small aspects that situations can have and that have the potential to get people excited. Enough of these in the same place can excite people who normally don't get excited about things. Apparently, I am not so unhumanlike as to be immune to these facts.
What was the point of this? Humans. Humans was the point of this. Humans get excited, and they are capable of getting excited, and even if this isn't common to an individual's personality, it can still happen, and that's brilliant.
Therefore, it is very fascinating and a bit frightening whenever something makes me truly excited. I had one such experience today. Of the relatively short list of things I actively enjoy, food is on that list. Even I, hater of a lot of things, like food, and to be honest, I'd be extremely uncomfortable if I met someone who didn't feel the same.
One of the foods I like is pie. I have liked pie for a very long time and to a very high degree. I am not so inordinately fond of it to the point where I can't function for having thoughts overtaken by this high-calorie, crust-and-filling dessert, but I like it nonetheless. Pie is brilliant, but it tends not to excite me. The event in which I do something like yelling, "PIE! PIE IS GREAT! I HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO PIE AND A SENSE OF HUGE, OVERWHELMING ENTHUSIASM HAS BEEN INSTILLED IN ME! YAAAAAAY!!!" would be highly unusual.
And yet something very much like this occurred recently. I am currently in the mountains with my friend and a lot of my family (meaning my sister, father, aunt and uncle, and their three small children). The aforementioned aunt indicated that she might have some sort of plan involving giving me pie (that is, she texted me the other day, asking what my favorite kind of pie was - I said it was a tie between chocolate and apple). She didn't, however, say that she was actually going to give me pie, nor when and where she would give it to me.
This made the event of finding not one but two Marie Calendars' pie boxes in the kitchen while making sandwiches for my friend and I a very unexpected event. I did that thing my sister claims I do when I get excited, back when I still got visibly excited (which involves widening my eyes, opening my mouth, turning my feet inward and waving my hands excitedly). I grabbed for the pie boxes to try to open them as hurriedly as possible without showing signs of tampering. Sure enough, they were chocolate and apple. My aunt had gotten the pies, and this delicious food made me excited.
I then found myself in the odd situation of having to explain to myself why I was so excited by the pie. Was there really something so magnificent about the presence of the dessert or the fact that someone had gotten it for me so as to induce such an over-the-top reaction? No. Not really. But some small, beautiful factors (surprise, thoughtfulness, deliciousness, etc.) had all intersected in this event, and the combination was enough to make me excited.
People get excited. It's a fact of humans. Even the most negative or non-excitable of us will (generally) have something that makes us outwardly show our approval of something. Maybe that's one of the great things about the human species, that we are capable of appreciating things so much that we can't help but express it. And there are all sorts of small aspects that situations can have and that have the potential to get people excited. Enough of these in the same place can excite people who normally don't get excited about things. Apparently, I am not so unhumanlike as to be immune to these facts.
What was the point of this? Humans. Humans was the point of this. Humans get excited, and they are capable of getting excited, and even if this isn't common to an individual's personality, it can still happen, and that's brilliant.
Monday, May 20, 2013
In which the concept of birthdays is explored
Most of the people reading this probably do not know that my birthday is coming up. (It's on May 27, so it's exactly a week from now. I'm turning nineteen.)
Therefore, most of the people reading this probably do not know that I am not looking forward to my birthday. I frankly do not see a reason for me to look forward to it. It is not a celebration of any success of mine, unless you consider "not dying" to be a "success". There is nothing particularly interesting about the fact that I have traveled around the sun nineteen times. It doesn't help that I don't have friends or even acquaintances who I see with anything resembling frequency with whom I can "party" and "enjoy myself". (I'm trying to host an event in which a bunch of people and I go do something, but I'm not hugely looking forward to it because 1. it was poorly-planned and there's no way to change it at this point, and 2. it'll feel terribly awkward to try to "party" with people I haven't seen for a long time, which is the case for practically everyone who will be present at the event.)
However, I was communicating via internet to a former acquaintance with mine with whom I don't talk terribly frequently (and who, incidentally, is probably not going to the aforementioned attempts at celebrating my birthday), and he said this interesting thing in regards to how I don't think celebrating my birthday is a particularly worthwhile or useful thing:
"The thing with things, though, is...well, most things are useless. The color green, for instance, is largely useless. (Even plants don't need it, which is why we see so much of it in photosynthetic life.) Yet, the color green has the potential to make someone happy, or maybe just content. I don't know, I like sitting around and thinking, 'The color green is a thing that exists, and it's sort of pleasant and doesn't really hurt anyone'.
"I see other people's birthdays as an opportunity to show them that I think they're swell, and I appreciate them...Like the color green, it has positive potential, and I hope that you'll end up enjoying it to some small degree, even if it's just the acknowledgement that it's a thing that exists."
Sometimes, the only thing you can do about a thing, especially if you're having less positive feelings towards it than you'd like, is to acknowledge that it exists. You can't bring yourself to acknowledge that it's positive or even that you're glad it exists without breaking honesty. But you can acknowledge the fact that it exists, and (probably) doesn't hurt you, and if it's a pleasant fact, you can possibly even enjoy this fact about it, even if it doesn't feel personally give you pleasant feelings.
I am going to make my best attempt to approach the events of a week from now with this mindset. Or something.
Therefore, most of the people reading this probably do not know that I am not looking forward to my birthday. I frankly do not see a reason for me to look forward to it. It is not a celebration of any success of mine, unless you consider "not dying" to be a "success". There is nothing particularly interesting about the fact that I have traveled around the sun nineteen times. It doesn't help that I don't have friends or even acquaintances who I see with anything resembling frequency with whom I can "party" and "enjoy myself". (I'm trying to host an event in which a bunch of people and I go do something, but I'm not hugely looking forward to it because 1. it was poorly-planned and there's no way to change it at this point, and 2. it'll feel terribly awkward to try to "party" with people I haven't seen for a long time, which is the case for practically everyone who will be present at the event.)
However, I was communicating via internet to a former acquaintance with mine with whom I don't talk terribly frequently (and who, incidentally, is probably not going to the aforementioned attempts at celebrating my birthday), and he said this interesting thing in regards to how I don't think celebrating my birthday is a particularly worthwhile or useful thing:
"The thing with things, though, is...well, most things are useless. The color green, for instance, is largely useless. (Even plants don't need it, which is why we see so much of it in photosynthetic life.) Yet, the color green has the potential to make someone happy, or maybe just content. I don't know, I like sitting around and thinking, 'The color green is a thing that exists, and it's sort of pleasant and doesn't really hurt anyone'.
"I see other people's birthdays as an opportunity to show them that I think they're swell, and I appreciate them...Like the color green, it has positive potential, and I hope that you'll end up enjoying it to some small degree, even if it's just the acknowledgement that it's a thing that exists."
Sometimes, the only thing you can do about a thing, especially if you're having less positive feelings towards it than you'd like, is to acknowledge that it exists. You can't bring yourself to acknowledge that it's positive or even that you're glad it exists without breaking honesty. But you can acknowledge the fact that it exists, and (probably) doesn't hurt you, and if it's a pleasant fact, you can possibly even enjoy this fact about it, even if it doesn't feel personally give you pleasant feelings.
I am going to make my best attempt to approach the events of a week from now with this mindset. Or something.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
True Familial Respect
I like David Bowie. Or at least, I like his music. I'm not a tremendous Bowie fan, but his music's pretty cool, especially when it's playing on the car radio on what my favorite radio station calls "Triple Play Thursday" (in which they play three consecutive songs by the same artist on Thursdays).
I mention all this because, earlier today, I was in the car with my aunt (who was taking me home from my meeting with my psychologist, but this is beside the point), and we had the radio on, and it was Triple Play Thursday, and the artist who was being triply-played at the moment was, as you might guess, David Bowie.
I did a thing that was interesting. I did not yell, "Yay Bowie!" or begin to jam out or even make any sort of indicator that the Bowie music was coming.
I changed the station.
This is because I know my aunt, while not having an outright known dislike of David Bowie, does not enjoy his sort of music, and I did not want to bother her with it. So I changed it to some music she'd like better. I didn't announce that I was doing this. She didn't say anything. I'm pretty sure she didn't think anything of my sudden station-changing (I frequently vacillate between two stations when we're in the car listening to the radio together). I just...changed the station.
As I did so, I thought, "Changing the radio station when David Bowie is on, and when it's Triple Play Thursday, and not drawing attention to your random act of goodness. Wow, that's what true familial love is."
But I realized that wasn't entirely true. Because I don't love my aunt. Not really. Call me a heartless monster, but I don't love anyone. Even my friends and acquaintances (relationships which I have in the past defined as "people you chose to love") - I don't really love them. I mean, the person who is probably my best friend and with whom I have a pretty close relationship says "I love you" all the time to me, and I have to respond to, "I love you, too, in my high functioning sociopath not-actually-love way". (Fortunately, she accepts this and my reference to BBC Sherlock, and this is why we are friends.)
I don't experience familial love, though. I've been incapable of it for a long time (i.e. ever since I was a tiny child; I have distinct memories of not understanding what my parents meant when they said they "loved" me and knowing I didn't return the feeling). The closest thing I feel for my family could be described as "respect". My family does things that I should respect, partly because they're just my family, partly because they're actually pretty respectable people in a number of ways. Furthermore, they somehow still go out of their way to do things for me (like taking me to my psychologist, letting me live in their houses, allowing me to eat their food, etc.) even though I am almost nineteen and they are thus no longer legally required to do so. I can't love them for it. My lack of emotions (with which there is nothing wrong) won't allow me. But I respect them. And if you literally can't love someone, respect is the next-best thing, pretty much.
I didn't realize this about familial respect, though, until I got back home and, some hours later, so did my father. He had spent a very long time at work (he's a music teacher and a very hard worker - obviously I have respect) and he was tired and hungry. I was in the kitchen when he came in, and he looked in the freezer for some food. A frozen microwavable beef pot pie was the thing he selected.
I like pot pie. I like pot pie even more than I like David Bowie. And given that my fondness for David Bowie is not very extreme, this probably sounds like "I kind of like pot pie". But the thing is, I love pot pie. I find pot pie delicious. I sometimes get excited at the mere suggestion that I am going to consume it in the relatively near future. A threat against my pot pie is a threat against the deepest core of my being.
As you might have guessed, the beef pot pie my father procured from the freezer was mine. My aunt (knowing me and being a good, respectable family member) had once bought me a frozen microwaveable beef pot pie, which I was going to consume at a later date. Except now I never would, because my tired, hard-working, hungry father had gotten to it before me.
The inevitable question escaped his lips as he looked at the box. "Does this pot pie belong to anyone?"
If you think my answer was, "NO YOU CAN'T HAVE IT THAT POT PIE IS MINE FOREVER IT IS NOT YOURS" or anything remotely like that, you would be mistaken.
My answer was, instead, "No. You can have it."
Probably my father suspected that I was lying. (I think it was because he was just as aware of my love for pot pie as much as you are now.) He said, "This pot pie isn't yours?"
And I gave the truthful answer of, "Well, it was supposed to be, but you can have it. Really, you can."
There came that little thought again. "Giving your father your pot pie when he's hungry. Wow, that's what..."
My brain did not fill in with "true familial love" this time, because I had been over that earlier and I knew that "love" was not the correct word.
I reexamined my feelings for my father. He is a good man, a hard worker, an excellent father, and very much worthy of that pot pie. An ordinary person with ordinary feelings (i.e. love) might have loved him. And that would have been good, because my father is a man who ought to be loved. I don't love him. My lack of emotions (with which there is nothing wrong) won't allow me. But I respect him. And if you literally can't love someone, respect is the next-best thing, pretty much.
I said, "Dad, you can have that pot pie, because that's true familial respect."
If you think the next thing he did was say something that translated roughly to "good for you, true familial respect is a wonderful thing", you would be mistaken.
He said, "So how long do you put this in the microwave for?"
I told him (nine minutes - I am well-versed in the ways of microwaving frozen pot pies) and, with a smile, he thanked me and put the beef pot pie in the microwave. I'm pretty sure his smile was over the fact that he was about to eat some dinner and had found something suitable, for which he would only have to wait nine minutes to eat.
With a smile, I you're-welcomed him and went off to my room. I'm pretty sure my smile was because I had figured out what had produced the motivations behind my actions today and I now had a name for it.
I mention all this because, earlier today, I was in the car with my aunt (who was taking me home from my meeting with my psychologist, but this is beside the point), and we had the radio on, and it was Triple Play Thursday, and the artist who was being triply-played at the moment was, as you might guess, David Bowie.
I did a thing that was interesting. I did not yell, "Yay Bowie!" or begin to jam out or even make any sort of indicator that the Bowie music was coming.
I changed the station.
This is because I know my aunt, while not having an outright known dislike of David Bowie, does not enjoy his sort of music, and I did not want to bother her with it. So I changed it to some music she'd like better. I didn't announce that I was doing this. She didn't say anything. I'm pretty sure she didn't think anything of my sudden station-changing (I frequently vacillate between two stations when we're in the car listening to the radio together). I just...changed the station.
As I did so, I thought, "Changing the radio station when David Bowie is on, and when it's Triple Play Thursday, and not drawing attention to your random act of goodness. Wow, that's what true familial love is."
But I realized that wasn't entirely true. Because I don't love my aunt. Not really. Call me a heartless monster, but I don't love anyone. Even my friends and acquaintances (relationships which I have in the past defined as "people you chose to love") - I don't really love them. I mean, the person who is probably my best friend and with whom I have a pretty close relationship says "I love you" all the time to me, and I have to respond to, "I love you, too, in my high functioning sociopath not-actually-love way". (Fortunately, she accepts this and my reference to BBC Sherlock, and this is why we are friends.)
I don't experience familial love, though. I've been incapable of it for a long time (i.e. ever since I was a tiny child; I have distinct memories of not understanding what my parents meant when they said they "loved" me and knowing I didn't return the feeling). The closest thing I feel for my family could be described as "respect". My family does things that I should respect, partly because they're just my family, partly because they're actually pretty respectable people in a number of ways. Furthermore, they somehow still go out of their way to do things for me (like taking me to my psychologist, letting me live in their houses, allowing me to eat their food, etc.) even though I am almost nineteen and they are thus no longer legally required to do so. I can't love them for it. My lack of emotions (with which there is nothing wrong) won't allow me. But I respect them. And if you literally can't love someone, respect is the next-best thing, pretty much.
I didn't realize this about familial respect, though, until I got back home and, some hours later, so did my father. He had spent a very long time at work (he's a music teacher and a very hard worker - obviously I have respect) and he was tired and hungry. I was in the kitchen when he came in, and he looked in the freezer for some food. A frozen microwavable beef pot pie was the thing he selected.
I like pot pie. I like pot pie even more than I like David Bowie. And given that my fondness for David Bowie is not very extreme, this probably sounds like "I kind of like pot pie". But the thing is, I love pot pie. I find pot pie delicious. I sometimes get excited at the mere suggestion that I am going to consume it in the relatively near future. A threat against my pot pie is a threat against the deepest core of my being.
As you might have guessed, the beef pot pie my father procured from the freezer was mine. My aunt (knowing me and being a good, respectable family member) had once bought me a frozen microwaveable beef pot pie, which I was going to consume at a later date. Except now I never would, because my tired, hard-working, hungry father had gotten to it before me.
The inevitable question escaped his lips as he looked at the box. "Does this pot pie belong to anyone?"
If you think my answer was, "NO YOU CAN'T HAVE IT THAT POT PIE IS MINE FOREVER IT IS NOT YOURS" or anything remotely like that, you would be mistaken.
My answer was, instead, "No. You can have it."
Probably my father suspected that I was lying. (I think it was because he was just as aware of my love for pot pie as much as you are now.) He said, "This pot pie isn't yours?"
And I gave the truthful answer of, "Well, it was supposed to be, but you can have it. Really, you can."
There came that little thought again. "Giving your father your pot pie when he's hungry. Wow, that's what..."
My brain did not fill in with "true familial love" this time, because I had been over that earlier and I knew that "love" was not the correct word.
I reexamined my feelings for my father. He is a good man, a hard worker, an excellent father, and very much worthy of that pot pie. An ordinary person with ordinary feelings (i.e. love) might have loved him. And that would have been good, because my father is a man who ought to be loved. I don't love him. My lack of emotions (with which there is nothing wrong) won't allow me. But I respect him. And if you literally can't love someone, respect is the next-best thing, pretty much.
I said, "Dad, you can have that pot pie, because that's true familial respect."
If you think the next thing he did was say something that translated roughly to "good for you, true familial respect is a wonderful thing", you would be mistaken.
He said, "So how long do you put this in the microwave for?"
I told him (nine minutes - I am well-versed in the ways of microwaving frozen pot pies) and, with a smile, he thanked me and put the beef pot pie in the microwave. I'm pretty sure his smile was over the fact that he was about to eat some dinner and had found something suitable, for which he would only have to wait nine minutes to eat.
With a smile, I you're-welcomed him and went off to my room. I'm pretty sure my smile was because I had figured out what had produced the motivations behind my actions today and I now had a name for it.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
In which I teach my grandpa what poetry is.
My grandpa and I went out for pie today. We had a conversation in which I told him about how I was writing poetry now, and he wanted to know what exactly I meant by that. He, being an old person (and I can't blame him for this), asked if I meant I write rhyming sing-songy stuff.
I told him no, I wrote completely different things, and then I had to define poetry for him. I don't think I've ever tried to define poetry for someone else before. After some awkward attempts at calling it "lyrical, metrical writing" (I realized that this was obviously false) and "creative not-fiction broken up with lines", I pulled a little scrap of paper from the notebook I was writing in, and wrote this:
This is an example
of a poem. It doesn't
rhyme and
it has no identifiable
meter, but it is a
poem.
Poetry belongs everywhere,
even (especially)
amongst the
artificial sweeteners.
I then placed the poem amongst the artificial sweeteners on the table in the hopes that whoever sat there next would find it and be interested in what it had to say. I have no way of knowing what happened to that tiny poem, but I'd like to imagine it made the other person's day a little more surreal and that they possibly learned something from it.
My grandpa and I left immediately after that. I like to think he learned something from it, and I like to think I benefited from having to explain my craft and discovering I was unable to do without using it to explain itself.
I told him no, I wrote completely different things, and then I had to define poetry for him. I don't think I've ever tried to define poetry for someone else before. After some awkward attempts at calling it "lyrical, metrical writing" (I realized that this was obviously false) and "creative not-fiction broken up with lines", I pulled a little scrap of paper from the notebook I was writing in, and wrote this:
This is an example
of a poem. It doesn't
rhyme and
it has no identifiable
meter, but it is a
poem.
Poetry belongs everywhere,
even (especially)
amongst the
artificial sweeteners.
I then placed the poem amongst the artificial sweeteners on the table in the hopes that whoever sat there next would find it and be interested in what it had to say. I have no way of knowing what happened to that tiny poem, but I'd like to imagine it made the other person's day a little more surreal and that they possibly learned something from it.
My grandpa and I left immediately after that. I like to think he learned something from it, and I like to think I benefited from having to explain my craft and discovering I was unable to do without using it to explain itself.
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