I recently had an acquaintance call me a "wonderful, imperfect human being". I thanked her because it was a compliment and then told her it was interesting she had called me imperfect. People call me "perfect" very frequently - I don't say this to sound narcissistic but because it's actually true - and this was the first time I could remember anyone calling me "imperfect". Not that I minded it (it was actually quite refreshing) but I just wasn't expecting it.
She explained that we call people "perfect" so often when we just mean "really good", and this is not only inaccurate because people simply are not perfect but potentially damaging when people are people and do something less than perfect.
I thought about that and realized she was quite right, especially on that second point. As we all know, "perfect" and "people" are mutually exclusive, but as a person who is frequently called "perfect", I realized how damaging it can be when you're used to being perfect and then realize you're a person.
I've come to have very high standards of myself, and this is fueled when people call me "perfect". People tell me I wrote a perfect poem, I handled something perfectly, I have a perfect face, I said something perfect. Unfortunately, I believe them.
Perhaps I can't help it; I tend to believe things that are believed by a fairly large number of other people, not because I'm interested in following a crowd mentality or incapable of independent thought but because if I'm the only one who believes something or one of the only ones who believes it, I'm more likely to doubt something. If something's true, it stands to reason that a lot of people would believe it. When something is true and people don't believe it, there tends to be a reason (either they haven't had it proven to them, it conflicts with what they were taught was true, it hasn't entered into their personal experience, etc.) It's not that everything widely believed is true so much as that, if a lot of people believe something, there's certainly something to the idea that it might be true. And if you have no way of knowing whether or not it's true by using your own judgment, or if it's something you'd like to believe, you're more likely to believe what everyone else believes.
I have no way of really judging my own worth or the quality of what I do. Again, very high standards, and I'll never meet them. I'd like to think I'm acceptable, and when people tell me I'm not just acceptable but the pinnacle of acceptability, the most acceptable anything can ever be - because that is what perfect means, after all - it makes sense why I go along with it.
But then I had an acquaintance explicitly tell me that I wasn't the most acceptable thing imaginable but still pretty great, and that was what I needed to hear.
She told me she was trying to stop referring to Simon Pegg (an actor she's come to really like) as "a perfect human" and instead call him "fantastic". Even if she doesn't mean she thinks he has literally nothing wrong with him, she's still saying it, and she's so used to saying it because people are so used to saying it. Realizing the implications of what you're doing and figuring out how to remove those implications so they're more in-line with your intent is a good way to make things better.
Maybe when people call me "perfect", they don't mean I'm literally flawless so much as they use the word because they've heard it so often and think it's an acceptable thing to say when they think someone or something is good. Reminds me of when C.S. Lewis said, "Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite." Don't say "perfect" when you mean "good". Otherwise, "perfect" will become a word that just means "good" and what'll you do when you realize that none of the things you were calling "perfect" were perfect after all?
I thanked my acquaintance for the compliment and her explanation. It's not all the time that someone gives you a compliment and a good piece of wisdom at the same time.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Why I stopped writing my last novel and why this was an important mental health decision.
I'm writing a new novel.
I had gotten about 50,000 words in on what was my last novel before giving up. Well, I didn't give up so much as put it on hold in favor of things I thought were better ideas for the time being, but the point is, I got rather far on it before saying, "No, I'm going to do something else, regardless of these 50,000 words."
I had told people that I was not going to give up on this one. "I'm going to complete this one," I said. "I'm actually going to do it." I had explicitly said I wouldn't do things like the thing I am doing now.
I still think this was a good decision, though. And you know why?
It's because I value my mental health.
Let me explain. I was writing a certain scene in the novel that made me rather uncomfortable for whatever reason. After taking the time to get through writing it (and being not a little bit uncomfortable, both whilst writing and whilst doing my regular life, during this time), I realized it was because of some of the things that were going on in that scene. They included but were not limited to manipulation, toxic relationships, people trying to become close to each other but not succeeding, and antagonistic characters with worldviews similar to twisted versions of my own.
This was very good to know, but I thought further and realized that my whole novel was like this. This was not exactly good for me. These things, while important and worthy things for people to write about, make me uncomfortable, and while I can get into the world of a story that features these things, I'm not exactly in the best mental health while being in such a world.
I thought even further and realized that the vast most of my writing is like this. That is, I naturally gravitate towards writing stories with themes like manipulation, toxic relationships, mental illness, alienation - things that, while important and worthy things for people to write about, make me uncomfortable and do not exactly put me in the best of mental health.
In fifteen minutes, I came up with no less than seven detailed examples of stories I had come up with that featured things like these. I then wondered if there were any themes that pop up in my writing a lot that aren't inherently unpleasant or detrimental to my mental health. In fifteen minutes, I came up with two. They were 1. the idea of places (like houses, spacecraft, planets, etc.) having souls or personifications, and 2. odd or whimsical occurrences happening for no apparent reason, especially in the same place.
The revelation that there are only two things about which I frequently write that don't inherently take a toll on my mental health was disheartening to say the least, and I think it says a lot about who I fundamentally am as a person. However, the bright side is that it didn't take me long to formulate a story idea featuring these two themes, and after making some notes about such an idea, I came up with something and I've begun writing it. (I've made a pretty good amount of progress in a relatively short amount of time, and the writing itself is not only tolerable but even enjoyable.)
The even brighter side is that, now that I've identified the problem, I'm going to make steps towards a solution. I know what I write about that makes my bad mental health even worse. I'm figuring out how to not write about them, or at least how to write something that isn't fundamentally based around them. Maybe, after I'm done with a project that demonstrates my ability to write something that isn't fundamentally based around these things, I'll find a way to write something that incorporates my typical themes and still isn't detrimental to my mental health. I have no idea how this would be even possible, but that's part of the process - figuring out how to make the impossible possible.
So that's why I'm abandoning (at least temporarily) a project on which I had come so far. I realized it just wasn't good for me and that most of my writing wasn't good for me and it was time to make a change. And so far, this change has been working really really well. I'm glad I made it.
I had gotten about 50,000 words in on what was my last novel before giving up. Well, I didn't give up so much as put it on hold in favor of things I thought were better ideas for the time being, but the point is, I got rather far on it before saying, "No, I'm going to do something else, regardless of these 50,000 words."
I had told people that I was not going to give up on this one. "I'm going to complete this one," I said. "I'm actually going to do it." I had explicitly said I wouldn't do things like the thing I am doing now.
I still think this was a good decision, though. And you know why?
It's because I value my mental health.
Let me explain. I was writing a certain scene in the novel that made me rather uncomfortable for whatever reason. After taking the time to get through writing it (and being not a little bit uncomfortable, both whilst writing and whilst doing my regular life, during this time), I realized it was because of some of the things that were going on in that scene. They included but were not limited to manipulation, toxic relationships, people trying to become close to each other but not succeeding, and antagonistic characters with worldviews similar to twisted versions of my own.
This was very good to know, but I thought further and realized that my whole novel was like this. This was not exactly good for me. These things, while important and worthy things for people to write about, make me uncomfortable, and while I can get into the world of a story that features these things, I'm not exactly in the best mental health while being in such a world.
I thought even further and realized that the vast most of my writing is like this. That is, I naturally gravitate towards writing stories with themes like manipulation, toxic relationships, mental illness, alienation - things that, while important and worthy things for people to write about, make me uncomfortable and do not exactly put me in the best of mental health.
In fifteen minutes, I came up with no less than seven detailed examples of stories I had come up with that featured things like these. I then wondered if there were any themes that pop up in my writing a lot that aren't inherently unpleasant or detrimental to my mental health. In fifteen minutes, I came up with two. They were 1. the idea of places (like houses, spacecraft, planets, etc.) having souls or personifications, and 2. odd or whimsical occurrences happening for no apparent reason, especially in the same place.
The revelation that there are only two things about which I frequently write that don't inherently take a toll on my mental health was disheartening to say the least, and I think it says a lot about who I fundamentally am as a person. However, the bright side is that it didn't take me long to formulate a story idea featuring these two themes, and after making some notes about such an idea, I came up with something and I've begun writing it. (I've made a pretty good amount of progress in a relatively short amount of time, and the writing itself is not only tolerable but even enjoyable.)
The even brighter side is that, now that I've identified the problem, I'm going to make steps towards a solution. I know what I write about that makes my bad mental health even worse. I'm figuring out how to not write about them, or at least how to write something that isn't fundamentally based around them. Maybe, after I'm done with a project that demonstrates my ability to write something that isn't fundamentally based around these things, I'll find a way to write something that incorporates my typical themes and still isn't detrimental to my mental health. I have no idea how this would be even possible, but that's part of the process - figuring out how to make the impossible possible.
So that's why I'm abandoning (at least temporarily) a project on which I had come so far. I realized it just wasn't good for me and that most of my writing wasn't good for me and it was time to make a change. And so far, this change has been working really really well. I'm glad I made it.
Friday, February 21, 2014
The power of "is"
It has come to my attention that a number of schools, when assigning essays for their students to write, do not allow usage of the word "is".
I had always been vaguely aware that there were schools that wanted their students to use more "creative" vocabulary, but it really hit home for me some months ago when my 8th-grader sister was trying to write essays without using the word "is". When I asked her why she couldn't use that word, she explained that it was because her teacher had told her not to, with the reason being something to the effect that it wasn't good or smart enough.
Then, somewhat more recently, I had a conversation with my 9th-grader cousin who reported the same problem. Her teachers didn't want her to use "is", either, citing reasons pretty similar to those of my sister's teacher. At least her teachers had been kind enough to tell their students what words they could use - "remains" was a popular one. But even that was inadequate, we both decided. A lot of the time, things are, and they don't remain because they didn't change, nor was there any ability and/or likelihood of them changing.
Take the sentence "God is love", for example - a popular phrase amongst Christians such as my cousin and her teachers (she attends a Christian school). I know some readers might not agree with that statement due to particular religious beliefs or lack thereof, but let's for a moment assume this statement is true. My cousin and I believe it, anyway, and that's the sentence she brought up for the purpose of example.
"You'd have to say 'God remains love'," she said. "Doesn't that sound awkward?"
It certainly did sound awkward. Awkward and inaccurate, for the belief that God is love also involves the belief that God can't not be love and that God has always been love. To say that God "remains" love is not only clunky, it carries with it the implication that, at one point, God was not love, which is almost certainly not what anyone saying "God is love" wants to imply.
I tried for a bit to find a sentence that meant the same thing but didn't carry any troublesome implications - just some way to convey, in a sentence, the idea that God, being the root of love, was love Himself. But it just didn't work. I made up things like "Love comes from God", "God is equivalent to love", "God and love are the same", but they either didn't convey the exact message (as in the case of the first attempt) or contained some derivative of the word "is", which was also disallowed (as in the cases of the next two attempts).
Perhaps religious equivalency statements aren't quite your thing, though. That's fine. Let's say that I'm telling you, "I am human", which contains a derivative of "is". Alright, there are some people who have contested that point as well, but let's again assume that I am indeed human. This statement doesn't carry with it nearly as many strong connotations as the Christian belief "God is love", but if I can't use a simple two-letter verb to show equivalency and state of being, how else am I going to tell you that I am human and not, say, a robot or a Hobbit or a semi-sentient piece of cheese? I've spent a good ten minutes trying to think up similar sentences, and everything I've come up includes the word "is" or one of its derivatives.
Teachers and other such people say they don't want us to use the word "is" because it's not as "strong" a choice as other words, but if you think about it, "is" is potentially the strongest word in the English language. It equates things. What's another word that you can use to equate things with each other, dictate things' very nature, and confirm something's existence, either as something in particular or just the fact thereof? I don't know one, either.
Now, it is true that the word "is" can be unnecessary - sentences like "The ball was thrown by him" could be re-worded into "He threw the ball", which avoids passive speech and, according to my sister, is the reason her teacher puts a universal ban on "is" and its derivatives). It's true that you can often use more interesting or more accurate word choice - I could say "That film is boring" or "That film bores me", and while both are acceptable, I find the second one slightly more interesting.) It's true that it's common - who knows how many times I've used it in this blog entry alone?
But maybe it's common for a reason, and maybe the reason isn't because people are lazy but because it's necessary to use that powerful little two-letter verb.
I had always been vaguely aware that there were schools that wanted their students to use more "creative" vocabulary, but it really hit home for me some months ago when my 8th-grader sister was trying to write essays without using the word "is". When I asked her why she couldn't use that word, she explained that it was because her teacher had told her not to, with the reason being something to the effect that it wasn't good or smart enough.
Then, somewhat more recently, I had a conversation with my 9th-grader cousin who reported the same problem. Her teachers didn't want her to use "is", either, citing reasons pretty similar to those of my sister's teacher. At least her teachers had been kind enough to tell their students what words they could use - "remains" was a popular one. But even that was inadequate, we both decided. A lot of the time, things are, and they don't remain because they didn't change, nor was there any ability and/or likelihood of them changing.
Take the sentence "God is love", for example - a popular phrase amongst Christians such as my cousin and her teachers (she attends a Christian school). I know some readers might not agree with that statement due to particular religious beliefs or lack thereof, but let's for a moment assume this statement is true. My cousin and I believe it, anyway, and that's the sentence she brought up for the purpose of example.
"You'd have to say 'God remains love'," she said. "Doesn't that sound awkward?"
It certainly did sound awkward. Awkward and inaccurate, for the belief that God is love also involves the belief that God can't not be love and that God has always been love. To say that God "remains" love is not only clunky, it carries with it the implication that, at one point, God was not love, which is almost certainly not what anyone saying "God is love" wants to imply.
I tried for a bit to find a sentence that meant the same thing but didn't carry any troublesome implications - just some way to convey, in a sentence, the idea that God, being the root of love, was love Himself. But it just didn't work. I made up things like "Love comes from God", "God is equivalent to love", "God and love are the same", but they either didn't convey the exact message (as in the case of the first attempt) or contained some derivative of the word "is", which was also disallowed (as in the cases of the next two attempts).
Perhaps religious equivalency statements aren't quite your thing, though. That's fine. Let's say that I'm telling you, "I am human", which contains a derivative of "is". Alright, there are some people who have contested that point as well, but let's again assume that I am indeed human. This statement doesn't carry with it nearly as many strong connotations as the Christian belief "God is love", but if I can't use a simple two-letter verb to show equivalency and state of being, how else am I going to tell you that I am human and not, say, a robot or a Hobbit or a semi-sentient piece of cheese? I've spent a good ten minutes trying to think up similar sentences, and everything I've come up includes the word "is" or one of its derivatives.
Teachers and other such people say they don't want us to use the word "is" because it's not as "strong" a choice as other words, but if you think about it, "is" is potentially the strongest word in the English language. It equates things. What's another word that you can use to equate things with each other, dictate things' very nature, and confirm something's existence, either as something in particular or just the fact thereof? I don't know one, either.
Now, it is true that the word "is" can be unnecessary - sentences like "The ball was thrown by him" could be re-worded into "He threw the ball", which avoids passive speech and, according to my sister, is the reason her teacher puts a universal ban on "is" and its derivatives). It's true that you can often use more interesting or more accurate word choice - I could say "That film is boring" or "That film bores me", and while both are acceptable, I find the second one slightly more interesting.) It's true that it's common - who knows how many times I've used it in this blog entry alone?
But maybe it's common for a reason, and maybe the reason isn't because people are lazy but because it's necessary to use that powerful little two-letter verb.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Adventures in chapbook submission
Sometime back, I submitted a poetry chapbook I wrote (entitled People, Places, Things) to a publisher called Maverick Duck Press. I was hopeful that they'd accept the book, though I knew they probably wouldn't.
They didn't.
After being unreasonably unhappy about this (where being unhappy at all is admittedly unreasonable), I determined I'd send it someplace else. Hence I spent most of this week researching different places to send it. Tonight, I found a place called Unicorn Press, which seems pretty good.
I'll submit the manuscript somewhere between tomorrow and...next week, probably. The only reason I don't send it right away is because they take paper submissions, and it's a little inconvenient for me to print out something and send it to the post office right now. I'll do it later, when it's more convenient.
They say they send back in two to three months, which is really nice because they don't do simultaneous submissions, so as soon as they send it back and if/when it's a rejection, I can send it elsewhere as soon as possible.
There are submissions to be made. We mustn't harbor on the rejections. We must move on until we get acceptances.
They didn't.
After being unreasonably unhappy about this (where being unhappy at all is admittedly unreasonable), I determined I'd send it someplace else. Hence I spent most of this week researching different places to send it. Tonight, I found a place called Unicorn Press, which seems pretty good.
I'll submit the manuscript somewhere between tomorrow and...next week, probably. The only reason I don't send it right away is because they take paper submissions, and it's a little inconvenient for me to print out something and send it to the post office right now. I'll do it later, when it's more convenient.
They say they send back in two to three months, which is really nice because they don't do simultaneous submissions, so as soon as they send it back and if/when it's a rejection, I can send it elsewhere as soon as possible.
There are submissions to be made. We mustn't harbor on the rejections. We must move on until we get acceptances.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Professional Writer
Right, something exciting happened recently.
See this thing? The thing that's in the picture? For those who can't see it for some reason, it's a smallish yellow piece of paper with "Poets & Writers" in big letters at the top, "About your rate reduction" in smaller letters below, and an explanation of how they're giving me a discount on their thing because I'm a professional writer below it.
Well, this thing came from a magazine called Poets & Writers (as one might expect), and they're giving me a discount on their thing because I'm a professional writer. I was in the mountains with my family over the weekend, and when we came back, this had come in the post. I didn't send off for this. This came in the mail, entirely unbidden by anything I'd done. And it was addressed specifically to me. On another piece of paper, there's an explanation of what exactly this is, and it's got my name on it. Multiple times! They sent it specifically to me!
The magazine, they explained, is for poets and writers (naturally) and it's got information about editors, writing, agents, submitting, the writer business. Naturally, anyone who's trying to be a Professional Writer should have the sort of information it has, and since I'm a Professional Writer (apparently - note the definition of "professional writer" is "someone who has been formally paid to write at least once"), I get these sorts of things much cheaper than Non-Professional Writers.
For those who think it's suspicious that they sent this to me out of nowhere, I don't think it's too suspicious at all because they likely got my address from one of the magazines that's published my work before (since you send those people your address and things like that). And I looked it up, and it's an actual publication that appears to be pretty legit and well-known, meaning it's likely not a scam.
The discount they sent me is pretty brilliant - normally a subscription is something over $30, but I got it for $9.95. Because I'm a professional writer. Because they want professional writers to have access to good information. And apparently I'm a professional writer! (Yes, I know I'm being too excited over this, and it's not like I'm an actual professional writer who can write for a living or anything, but still.)
I don't know which to be most excited about - the fact that they sent this to me when I didn't request it (thus meaning they somehow must have known about me and wanted to give me this), the fact that I'm going to have access to a bunch of probably useful information, or the fact that someone I don't even know acknowledged my status as a Professional Writer.
See this thing? The thing that's in the picture? For those who can't see it for some reason, it's a smallish yellow piece of paper with "Poets & Writers" in big letters at the top, "About your rate reduction" in smaller letters below, and an explanation of how they're giving me a discount on their thing because I'm a professional writer below it.
Well, this thing came from a magazine called Poets & Writers (as one might expect), and they're giving me a discount on their thing because I'm a professional writer. I was in the mountains with my family over the weekend, and when we came back, this had come in the post. I didn't send off for this. This came in the mail, entirely unbidden by anything I'd done. And it was addressed specifically to me. On another piece of paper, there's an explanation of what exactly this is, and it's got my name on it. Multiple times! They sent it specifically to me!
The magazine, they explained, is for poets and writers (naturally) and it's got information about editors, writing, agents, submitting, the writer business. Naturally, anyone who's trying to be a Professional Writer should have the sort of information it has, and since I'm a Professional Writer (apparently - note the definition of "professional writer" is "someone who has been formally paid to write at least once"), I get these sorts of things much cheaper than Non-Professional Writers.
For those who think it's suspicious that they sent this to me out of nowhere, I don't think it's too suspicious at all because they likely got my address from one of the magazines that's published my work before (since you send those people your address and things like that). And I looked it up, and it's an actual publication that appears to be pretty legit and well-known, meaning it's likely not a scam.
The discount they sent me is pretty brilliant - normally a subscription is something over $30, but I got it for $9.95. Because I'm a professional writer. Because they want professional writers to have access to good information. And apparently I'm a professional writer! (Yes, I know I'm being too excited over this, and it's not like I'm an actual professional writer who can write for a living or anything, but still.)
I don't know which to be most excited about - the fact that they sent this to me when I didn't request it (thus meaning they somehow must have known about me and wanted to give me this), the fact that I'm going to have access to a bunch of probably useful information, or the fact that someone I don't even know acknowledged my status as a Professional Writer.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
New Year, (Unintentionally) New Me
It's so far been a week into the new year of 2014. It is too early for me to tell how this year will go, but if what's happened so far is any indicator, it looks like it's going to go much as previous years have gone, but more so, and with the good, the bad, and the unusual spread out pretty much evenly.
It could be me reacting to a fairly unusual set of circumstances that I don't wish to get into, but I feel as though, this year, my personality's going to undergo a relative reset in which I become someone else. Well, not really someone else. Because I'm still me. Because everyone becomes someone else at some point in their life. Actually, at a lot of points in their life. That's what happens. But I feel as though a particular becoming-someone-new is going on now.
Sometimes my memories as well as my personality undergo a reset, and I forget certain things. Or, rather, it's not that I forget certain things as it is the knowledge and understanding of certain things just aren't accessible to me for a while. It's like someone's hidden several pairs of socks I'd forgotten I had and I don't realize it until I go to my sock drawer, realize something's a bit off, and realize what's missing, and I go on like that for a while until I find the socks where I least expect them, like under my bathroom sink or in the dishwasher or in another sock drawer. Particular memories that have been taken away from me like socks from my sock drawer include memories of what my personality was really like before around the last week of December. I think this is for the better, though, because it lets me examine the me of 2014 with a bit more objectivity.
It's a constant habit of mine to compare things. I think it keeps me from enjoying things for what they are because I continually compare them to things they are not. While I remember things about myself from before - I know my name, I know my age, who my family is, what year of college I'm in, what my major is, my interests and hobbies and life plans - I don't remember the things that made up the person I am.
I won't bother trying to bring back to the surface the person I was. If I did, I'd probably just compare new me to old me. I don't want to do that. I want to see who I am now for who I am now, not in regards to who I was once. I want to see new me for new me.
New me is a writer.
New me is a student.
New me is an English major and plans to become an English teacher for high school students.
New me wants to be able to make a living off of writing before this plan can happen and thus before being locked into a non-writerly life. New me also knows this is very unrealistic.
New me is a Christian.
New me likes making jokes and having fun at other people's expense.
New me would stop it in an instant if the person at whose expense the fun was had wanted it to stop. New me would not antagonize this person again.
New me likes doing strange things for their own sake, such as dressing up in a bathrobe and not taking it off until noon, or drinking soda out of a wineglass.
New me likes Monty Python.
New me likes The Hunger Games.
New me likes They Might Be Giants.
New me likes making cookies for fictional characters' birthdays.
New me doesn't always make sense. New me does this on purpose as a means of distraction from taking everything too seriously and thus overthinking things to death and sucking the joy out of life.
New me remembers that old me used to overthink things because they wanted to understand everything fully and make logical sense out of absolutely everything. New me also remembers that, when old me did that, it usually didn't end well because old me saw how horrible many things are.
New me knows there's a difference between ignorance for the sake of self-preservation and ignorance that's just plain ignorance.
New me describes a lot of things as "self-preservation".
New me remembers things.
New me is a narcissist.
New me requires the approval and (positive) attention of others. This is because new me is almost entirely incapable of holding a self-opinion without other people being able to confirm it.
New me is almost but not entirely incapable of holding a self-opinion without other people being able to confirm it.
New me loves animals, especially dogs.
New me will take any opportunity to pet someone's dog.
New me is diligent.
New me generally has things under control.
New me always does what needs to be done, even if it takes a while. Unlike old me, new me doesn't have to do things right away to ensure they'll get done at all.
New me gets overly emotional when writing. It's because of the characters. New me gets emotional about the characters.
New me tends to handle these situations by texting friends whilst writing, telling them about the characters and their problems, and sitting back and laughing when said friends get emotional over the characters.
New me writes because new me likes watching people suffer. This is in reference to the fictional people in the stories and the real people who read and are emotionally affected by said stories.
New me is good at handling family.
New me is able to shed tears, sometimes. New me also knows when and when not to let others see those tears.
New me has problems with empathy, interpersonal relationships, and being emotionally sincere with others.
New me still tries.
New me is good at accidentally understanding others.
New me is insightful and good at saying true things.
New me can answer the question, "Who are you?"
It could be me reacting to a fairly unusual set of circumstances that I don't wish to get into, but I feel as though, this year, my personality's going to undergo a relative reset in which I become someone else. Well, not really someone else. Because I'm still me. Because everyone becomes someone else at some point in their life. Actually, at a lot of points in their life. That's what happens. But I feel as though a particular becoming-someone-new is going on now.
Sometimes my memories as well as my personality undergo a reset, and I forget certain things. Or, rather, it's not that I forget certain things as it is the knowledge and understanding of certain things just aren't accessible to me for a while. It's like someone's hidden several pairs of socks I'd forgotten I had and I don't realize it until I go to my sock drawer, realize something's a bit off, and realize what's missing, and I go on like that for a while until I find the socks where I least expect them, like under my bathroom sink or in the dishwasher or in another sock drawer. Particular memories that have been taken away from me like socks from my sock drawer include memories of what my personality was really like before around the last week of December. I think this is for the better, though, because it lets me examine the me of 2014 with a bit more objectivity.
It's a constant habit of mine to compare things. I think it keeps me from enjoying things for what they are because I continually compare them to things they are not. While I remember things about myself from before - I know my name, I know my age, who my family is, what year of college I'm in, what my major is, my interests and hobbies and life plans - I don't remember the things that made up the person I am.
I won't bother trying to bring back to the surface the person I was. If I did, I'd probably just compare new me to old me. I don't want to do that. I want to see who I am now for who I am now, not in regards to who I was once. I want to see new me for new me.
New me is a writer.
New me is a student.
New me is an English major and plans to become an English teacher for high school students.
New me wants to be able to make a living off of writing before this plan can happen and thus before being locked into a non-writerly life. New me also knows this is very unrealistic.
New me is a Christian.
New me likes making jokes and having fun at other people's expense.
New me would stop it in an instant if the person at whose expense the fun was had wanted it to stop. New me would not antagonize this person again.
New me likes doing strange things for their own sake, such as dressing up in a bathrobe and not taking it off until noon, or drinking soda out of a wineglass.
New me likes Monty Python.
New me likes The Hunger Games.
New me likes They Might Be Giants.
New me likes making cookies for fictional characters' birthdays.
New me doesn't always make sense. New me does this on purpose as a means of distraction from taking everything too seriously and thus overthinking things to death and sucking the joy out of life.
New me remembers that old me used to overthink things because they wanted to understand everything fully and make logical sense out of absolutely everything. New me also remembers that, when old me did that, it usually didn't end well because old me saw how horrible many things are.
New me knows there's a difference between ignorance for the sake of self-preservation and ignorance that's just plain ignorance.
New me describes a lot of things as "self-preservation".
New me remembers things.
New me is a narcissist.
New me requires the approval and (positive) attention of others. This is because new me is almost entirely incapable of holding a self-opinion without other people being able to confirm it.
New me is almost but not entirely incapable of holding a self-opinion without other people being able to confirm it.
New me loves animals, especially dogs.
New me will take any opportunity to pet someone's dog.
New me is diligent.
New me generally has things under control.
New me always does what needs to be done, even if it takes a while. Unlike old me, new me doesn't have to do things right away to ensure they'll get done at all.
New me gets overly emotional when writing. It's because of the characters. New me gets emotional about the characters.
New me tends to handle these situations by texting friends whilst writing, telling them about the characters and their problems, and sitting back and laughing when said friends get emotional over the characters.
New me writes because new me likes watching people suffer. This is in reference to the fictional people in the stories and the real people who read and are emotionally affected by said stories.
New me is good at handling family.
New me is able to shed tears, sometimes. New me also knows when and when not to let others see those tears.
New me has problems with empathy, interpersonal relationships, and being emotionally sincere with others.
New me still tries.
New me is good at accidentally understanding others.
New me is insightful and good at saying true things.
New me can answer the question, "Who are you?"
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
2013
I spent the last few moments of 2013 with my aunt and uncle and sister. We stood outside their (my aunt's and uncle's) house, counting down 'til 2014 officially began.
The first words I spoke in 2014 were, "Goodbye, 2013, you miserable sod! Hello, 2014, which hasn't had a chance to betray us yet!" This tells you a great deal about what 2013 was like for me.
The main reason I think 2013 was a miserable sod was because it was the year my mother died, and having a parent die is basically a miserable event. Even though I had an underwhelming emotional reaction to it (my lack of feelings made one of my psychologists realize that I lack empathy and view people as animate objects), I had a tremendous mental reaction to it, and the chaos that ensued in my life soon thereafter (which involved me spending a lot of time sleeping at other people's houses, writing poems about these little sporadic flashes of memory and feeling that hadn't really happened until now, and wanting to write a novel but not being able to concentrate on any one thing long enough to do so) is probably still affecting me.
My lack of an emotional response to my mother's death (and my unintentional insensitivity towards the suffering of my family members around me) made me realize just how unempathetic I was, and it gave me yet another thing to be unhappy about in regards to myself. (I wasn't unempathetic or messed-up enough to be a sociopath, but there still wasn't a term for what I was, and it's always irritating when you're definitely Not Quite Right but there's not a term that accurately covers it or that you can't use without a disclaimer.)
It didn't help that my ability to feel good about myself went significantly downhill in 2013. I've never particularly liked myself (although I've had grandiose expectations of myself, which could be connected to my recent suspicions that I have narcissistic personality disorder, which might be something I'll talk about later). But 2013 somehow just gave me more to hate. I went through a math class that was particularly difficult. I got out with a B, but I didn't feel like a B was good enough for me, and I'm still trying to deal with how dissonant my family's pride over this B is.
The only thing about 2013 that was really at all good was in my writing. And it wasn't that writing was a refuge or an emotional safe-haven or anything, because it wasn't. I've been writing too much and too long for me to find solace in it. By this point, it's just what I do, and sometimes I enjoy it, but I can't just suddenly have my heart healed by something I "just do". Finding comfort in writing, to me, makes about as much sense as finding comfort in myself, because, by this point, I am writing and writing is me. But I do find something that's not exactly comfort in writing but rather purpose, a sense of accomplishment, affirmation. I find these things in the fact that I have something to work on and that I'm doing things.
I had a lot of poems and fiction accepted, and I got paid very well for much of it. Notably, I got paid $25 for a poem, which was accepted by Southern Pacific Review (which is from South America - Africa is now the only inhabited continent on which I have not had work accepted, aw yesss). $25 is actually a bit of an astounding amount to be paid for a single poem, and I felt very good about it.
I also started writing a novel. I don't want to talk too much about it on this blog, because the last few times I really talked about my novels on this blog, they didn't get finished, but this one really does look like it'll get done, given that 1. I'm extremely invested in it and its characters and 2. I've gotten my friends extremely invested in it and its characters. (Fun fact: I've got a friend whom I text about the novel while I write it. I tell her what's happening to the characters and what aspects of character development are going on so far. She cries, I laugh.) The novel is essentially one of the things that's keeping me going at this time, because it makes me feel like I'm doing something slightly worth doing, and it gives me a fictional world and set of people to obsess over. I mean, it gives me a fictional world and set of people to obsess over while being productive. Because I naturally obsess over fictional things and people (this is why I'm in so many fandoms), but being a writer gives me the ability to do so while being productive and doing something that society more or less thinks is cool.
I don't have a proper set of New Years Resolutions, but I do intend to finish writing my current novel (my intent's to get it finished in January, actually, during my winter break). Also, I'm going to do more poem and fiction submissions and try to get more acceptances. These are the sorts of things I would be normally doing, but I'm going to keep doing them. In 2014, I'm going to try to keep doing my usual business and do it well. And given that 2013 was a pretty mad year, I honestly think doing my regular thing this year is an improvement from what I did last year.
The first words I spoke in 2014 were, "Goodbye, 2013, you miserable sod! Hello, 2014, which hasn't had a chance to betray us yet!" This tells you a great deal about what 2013 was like for me.
The main reason I think 2013 was a miserable sod was because it was the year my mother died, and having a parent die is basically a miserable event. Even though I had an underwhelming emotional reaction to it (my lack of feelings made one of my psychologists realize that I lack empathy and view people as animate objects), I had a tremendous mental reaction to it, and the chaos that ensued in my life soon thereafter (which involved me spending a lot of time sleeping at other people's houses, writing poems about these little sporadic flashes of memory and feeling that hadn't really happened until now, and wanting to write a novel but not being able to concentrate on any one thing long enough to do so) is probably still affecting me.
My lack of an emotional response to my mother's death (and my unintentional insensitivity towards the suffering of my family members around me) made me realize just how unempathetic I was, and it gave me yet another thing to be unhappy about in regards to myself. (I wasn't unempathetic or messed-up enough to be a sociopath, but there still wasn't a term for what I was, and it's always irritating when you're definitely Not Quite Right but there's not a term that accurately covers it or that you can't use without a disclaimer.)
It didn't help that my ability to feel good about myself went significantly downhill in 2013. I've never particularly liked myself (although I've had grandiose expectations of myself, which could be connected to my recent suspicions that I have narcissistic personality disorder, which might be something I'll talk about later). But 2013 somehow just gave me more to hate. I went through a math class that was particularly difficult. I got out with a B, but I didn't feel like a B was good enough for me, and I'm still trying to deal with how dissonant my family's pride over this B is.
The only thing about 2013 that was really at all good was in my writing. And it wasn't that writing was a refuge or an emotional safe-haven or anything, because it wasn't. I've been writing too much and too long for me to find solace in it. By this point, it's just what I do, and sometimes I enjoy it, but I can't just suddenly have my heart healed by something I "just do". Finding comfort in writing, to me, makes about as much sense as finding comfort in myself, because, by this point, I am writing and writing is me. But I do find something that's not exactly comfort in writing but rather purpose, a sense of accomplishment, affirmation. I find these things in the fact that I have something to work on and that I'm doing things.
I had a lot of poems and fiction accepted, and I got paid very well for much of it. Notably, I got paid $25 for a poem, which was accepted by Southern Pacific Review (which is from South America - Africa is now the only inhabited continent on which I have not had work accepted, aw yesss). $25 is actually a bit of an astounding amount to be paid for a single poem, and I felt very good about it.
I also started writing a novel. I don't want to talk too much about it on this blog, because the last few times I really talked about my novels on this blog, they didn't get finished, but this one really does look like it'll get done, given that 1. I'm extremely invested in it and its characters and 2. I've gotten my friends extremely invested in it and its characters. (Fun fact: I've got a friend whom I text about the novel while I write it. I tell her what's happening to the characters and what aspects of character development are going on so far. She cries, I laugh.) The novel is essentially one of the things that's keeping me going at this time, because it makes me feel like I'm doing something slightly worth doing, and it gives me a fictional world and set of people to obsess over. I mean, it gives me a fictional world and set of people to obsess over while being productive. Because I naturally obsess over fictional things and people (this is why I'm in so many fandoms), but being a writer gives me the ability to do so while being productive and doing something that society more or less thinks is cool.
I don't have a proper set of New Years Resolutions, but I do intend to finish writing my current novel (my intent's to get it finished in January, actually, during my winter break). Also, I'm going to do more poem and fiction submissions and try to get more acceptances. These are the sorts of things I would be normally doing, but I'm going to keep doing them. In 2014, I'm going to try to keep doing my usual business and do it well. And given that 2013 was a pretty mad year, I honestly think doing my regular thing this year is an improvement from what I did last year.
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