Amy Ponds of the 99% (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
allchildren) wrote2010-06-28 04:32 am
allchildren) wrote2010-06-28 04:32 am
Entry tags:
a convenient part of insomnia is that posts start writing themselves in my head
It has just occurred to me that probably part of the reason "I just have a lot of feelings" has become a mantra of this journal, and indeed, my life, is that interacting with the rest of the world has often made me feel (...) like I wasn't feeling enough. [I expect I am not alone in this. Just, er, also not with most people I've ever met. Different strokes, whatevs, I hope we can all learn to live in peace and non-judgmental harmony in our various states of ~emotion & tear duct usage.]
I just finished Mira Grant's Feed, which is truly a great read. It's about politics, and zombies, and disease, and internerds. I recommend it! May soon be tweeting Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright level recommend it! And, as you might guess from the subject matter, some rough shit happens. So on I frolic to her questions-from-the-audience post, and am promptly taken aback by the number of people upset by said rough shit.
Wait, people were crying? I... I enjoyed that part. And the thing is, this is such a familiar sensation -- from the moment Chrissy walked up to me in 7th grade P.E. and said "Did you see The X-Files last night? Mulder died! I cried so much!" as I scoffed, through dozens of run-ins with real friends and fandom, up through last week when we left Toy Story 3 -- that uncomfortable knowledge I had, even as a child, of some cynical fourth-walled remove between me and whatever it was other people didn't, the wondering if there is something wrong with me*, and (as I grew older) the inevitable feeling of defensiveness that followed.
How could I not eventually develop that kneejerk irritation, when inevitably Sadness as handed down on high would come with the motto, "if you didn't cry you have no soul"? Incidentally, I agree. Not believing in God, angels, or an afterlife, I'd have to be more than a goofball than even I'm prepared to be to draw the line at souls. Suck it, circa-2004 roommate Elizabeth. But mainly: fuck you and your emotional fascism, which not only dictates how I should feel, but how I should express that feeling? I wouldn't feel like there was something wrong with me if, you know, the world would stop explicitly telling me there is.
And make no mistake, there are two separate issues, emotion and expression, that are intertwined here. Sometimes it's the wide berth: I laughed when I was supposed to cry, I turned the page eagerly when others couldn't read on, I couldn't even be bothered to watch her death scene since HER NAME IS IN THE SHOW'S TITLE. And sometimes it's the narrow one, that tiny but crucial gulf between feeling quietly crushed and those feelings actually raining on my face.
As to the feeling, I don't know. Maybe I'm broken, or heartless, or maybe I'm just saving up that emotion for the big stuff (because the big moments are gonna come). Certainly my upbringing has a lot to do with it. If my continued "fiction therapy"-style blogging-as-processing I've learned anything it's that I just approach art in a fundamentally personal and maybe selfish way. I don't not appreciate or enjoy or even love the art that doesn't resonate with my history or innermost issues, but that appreciation is totally different than the kind that gets me where I live.
And as to crying, well, I do cry. Actually, sometimes a lot, and I don't actually enjoy* or get anything besides embarrassment out of crying so turns out: that's quite enough for me. It's just that my crying almost never corresponds with just feeling sad. A couple of weeks ago I actualfax had to stop myself from bursting into tears on a Muni train while thinking about redwood trees. (FOR REALS *facepalm*) I wept buckets over "Vincent and the Doctor." I started and stopped waterworks five distinct times throughout The Runaways. Music is always dangerous, though I hide it well unless it's Ani DiFranco and then all bets are off (like clockwork: "Self Evident" and "Grand Canyon.") I cry regularly when River fights the Reavers, when Buffy receives her golden umbrella, and every goddamn time I watch "Glorious" and "155 Girl Revolution." Although curiously dry-eyed this year, I am historically a weepy mess throughout the Olympics -- and that includes, nay, emphasizes THE FREAKING COMMERCIALS. (Adidas' "Perfection is Possible" will someday be the death of me.)
The only fictional death I think I've ever shed a tear for was Walter Blythe, in one of about ten thousand readings of that book. (Also, maybe Kate Winslet in Finding Neverland? what can I say, we all have our off days) The only time "Jurassic Bark" really got me was a) the night before my grandmother's funeral when b) my dog of twelve years was in a long drawn out journey towards death. Real life, real depression, real obstacles: generally no (not anymore*). And you know what? I'm okay.
What I cry for, as best as I can figure out, is not sorrow but grace. People rising up where they were never expected to; beauty or strength or justice winning out, against all odds; the long struggle. I'm okay with that. I think that's a pretty cool reason, if I must engage in this unmanly display of weakness (seriously, take some of this shit up with my dad), to cry. And if I don't feel what you feel, I'm okay with that too. Because I don't know if you noticed, but I have a lot of feelings. I can't be doing all the heavy lifting over here. Sometimes even INFPs fail to get the blues.
I just finished Mira Grant's Feed, which is truly a great read. It's about politics, and zombies, and disease, and internerds. I recommend it! May soon be tweeting Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright level recommend it! And, as you might guess from the subject matter, some rough shit happens. So on I frolic to her questions-from-the-audience post, and am promptly taken aback by the number of people upset by said rough shit.
Wait, people were crying? I... I enjoyed that part. And the thing is, this is such a familiar sensation -- from the moment Chrissy walked up to me in 7th grade P.E. and said "Did you see The X-Files last night? Mulder died! I cried so much!" as I scoffed, through dozens of run-ins with real friends and fandom, up through last week when we left Toy Story 3 -- that uncomfortable knowledge I had, even as a child, of some cynical fourth-walled remove between me and whatever it was other people didn't, the wondering if there is something wrong with me*, and (as I grew older) the inevitable feeling of defensiveness that followed.
How could I not eventually develop that kneejerk irritation, when inevitably Sadness as handed down on high would come with the motto, "if you didn't cry you have no soul"? Incidentally, I agree. Not believing in God, angels, or an afterlife, I'd have to be more than a goofball than even I'm prepared to be to draw the line at souls. Suck it, circa-2004 roommate Elizabeth. But mainly: fuck you and your emotional fascism, which not only dictates how I should feel, but how I should express that feeling? I wouldn't feel like there was something wrong with me if, you know, the world would stop explicitly telling me there is.
And make no mistake, there are two separate issues, emotion and expression, that are intertwined here. Sometimes it's the wide berth: I laughed when I was supposed to cry, I turned the page eagerly when others couldn't read on, I couldn't even be bothered to watch her death scene since HER NAME IS IN THE SHOW'S TITLE. And sometimes it's the narrow one, that tiny but crucial gulf between feeling quietly crushed and those feelings actually raining on my face.
As to the feeling, I don't know. Maybe I'm broken, or heartless, or maybe I'm just saving up that emotion for the big stuff (because the big moments are gonna come). Certainly my upbringing has a lot to do with it. If my continued "fiction therapy"-style blogging-as-processing I've learned anything it's that I just approach art in a fundamentally personal and maybe selfish way. I don't not appreciate or enjoy or even love the art that doesn't resonate with my history or innermost issues, but that appreciation is totally different than the kind that gets me where I live.
And as to crying, well, I do cry. Actually, sometimes a lot, and I don't actually enjoy* or get anything besides embarrassment out of crying so turns out: that's quite enough for me. It's just that my crying almost never corresponds with just feeling sad. A couple of weeks ago I actualfax had to stop myself from bursting into tears on a Muni train while thinking about redwood trees. (FOR REALS *facepalm*) I wept buckets over "Vincent and the Doctor." I started and stopped waterworks five distinct times throughout The Runaways. Music is always dangerous, though I hide it well unless it's Ani DiFranco and then all bets are off (like clockwork: "Self Evident" and "Grand Canyon.") I cry regularly when River fights the Reavers, when Buffy receives her golden umbrella, and every goddamn time I watch "Glorious" and "155 Girl Revolution." Although curiously dry-eyed this year, I am historically a weepy mess throughout the Olympics -- and that includes, nay, emphasizes THE FREAKING COMMERCIALS. (Adidas' "Perfection is Possible" will someday be the death of me.)
The only fictional death I think I've ever shed a tear for was Walter Blythe, in one of about ten thousand readings of that book. (Also, maybe Kate Winslet in Finding Neverland? what can I say, we all have our off days) The only time "Jurassic Bark" really got me was a) the night before my grandmother's funeral when b) my dog of twelve years was in a long drawn out journey towards death. Real life, real depression, real obstacles: generally no (not anymore*). And you know what? I'm okay.
What I cry for, as best as I can figure out, is not sorrow but grace. People rising up where they were never expected to; beauty or strength or justice winning out, against all odds; the long struggle. I'm okay with that. I think that's a pretty cool reason, if I must engage in this unmanly display of weakness (seriously, take some of this shit up with my dad), to cry. And if I don't feel what you feel, I'm okay with that too. Because I don't know if you noticed, but I have a lot of feelings. I can't be doing all the heavy lifting over here. Sometimes even INFPs fail to get the blues.
no subject
(no subject)