Paradoxymoron
Opinions nobody asked for.
Questions no one needs answers to.
Haphazard musings.
Questions no one needs answers to.
Haphazard musings.
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I don't do things by half-measures. Well, okay: I don't love by half measures. When I'm invested, I'm invested. There is no partly or maybe or if or when. So when I got my first boyfriend at age sixteen (yeah, that late), and he was a guy that I'd already been really good friends with for almost two years, I thought that was that. We knew each other, we loved each other, and I'd found The One. Of course I hadn't...but I thought I had. So when he broke up with me, at age seventeen, I thought it was the end of the world. Quite literally. I thought that was it – there would never be anyone else. Untreated clinical depression had more than just a little to do with this, but for now that's beside the point. Anyway, at eighteen years old, still not over my loss but having started college across the country, I took it upon myself to write my own version of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 (How Do I Love Thee?). In other words, I ripped it off. But I was trying for the whole "juxtaposition" thing. So I'm finally going to expose it here, for all the world to see. Or...for anyone at all to see, maybe, someday. Just because damn, I was dramatic. But I guess why wouldn't I be, thinking that my life was over? I'll drop my own version, and then below it I'll leave the original, for comparison's sake. It was the only "sonnet" I ever wrote, and it was a pain in the ass. Did she really write more than 43 of those things?! Elizabeth, I admire your commitment to the craft. Well, enjoy! Or...whatever. How did I love thee? Let me count the ways. I loved thee when the peace and trust and right Thy soul did breach, when reeling in my fright I took thy words to be a sacred praise. I loved thee through the battle and through the phase Of silent pain, and weeping in the night. I loved thee fast, as shadow to the light. I loved thee constant, as night into day. I loved thee with a hope I would not lose In my lost time, or with my battered faith. I loved thee with a pain that I would choose And bear so long. I loved thy every breath – Sleep, wake, my heart was thine; and I, abused, Can't help but love thee better after death. Sonnet 43 Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
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This is gonna be a long one. There’s this thing that people do that has always bothered me. I wrote about it in my diary last year: How do you reconcile your belief in nothing supernatural whatsoever with the fact that people you know and love and trust have seen/heard/experienced things that seem to prove there is something else out there? Do you tell yourself that they must have just imagined whatever it was? How does that work for you? People you’ve known for decades, people you know really well. Do they imagine things a lot? Have you known them to see or hear things that aren’t there? Is this a common occurrence? Are you really happy with that conclusion? Does it really seem “good enough”? Is that really easier to believe than the fact that there might be something out there that you don’t know about and/or don’t understand? It seems to me like it’s actually an even bigger logical leap to believe someone you know and trust is randomly “imagining” or seeing shit that’s not there. Another common line you give is that “there must be some explanation.” What you mean by that isn't that it could be something we don't know yet. You mean that it must be something perfectly normal that we’ve seen before and happens all the time, but for some reason this one time it wasn’t as obvious as usual. Okay yeah, there are times when this is the case. But in certain others, it’s clearly not. Again, when it’s someone whose sanity and intelligence you know and trust, what makes you think you’re so much smarter than they are that you know that whatever it was they experienced was perfectly normal but just seemed odd? That is just so…arrogant. You don’t know. You know how I know you don’t know? Because you can’t provide that explanation. You can provide theories, but you don’t know for sure. So then we’re back at that same place again: where you choose to believe something you don’t know, just because you want to believe it, rather than choosing to believe that there’s something out there that you can’t actually explain. And again, what’s the difference between you and them, supposedly, in this case? There is none. I’m sorry, but there is no difference between you choosing to believe it was something science already knows about and me choosing to believe it’s something science hasn’t shown us yet. You just tell yourself there’s a difference because it seems more “rational” and probably more “intelligent” to you. “Smart” people don’t believe in ghosts! Only idiots would believe in something you can’t see. Like, you know…atoms and molecules. Viruses and bacteria. The kind of stuff that people thought was “magic” until a century or two ago. Why is it so difficult to be open to at least the possibility? Why is it such a challenge to say “I don’t know…could be”? I don’t understand that. I don’t understand that level of arrogance. While perusing reddit a few months later, I found someone else talking about it, and they went into it a little more and said it better than I ever could. I’ve searched, and I can’t find the actual post I took it from. I thought I might have saved it in my account, but apparently I didn’t. I just copied it directly, without usernames, into my diary, because at that time I wasn’t expecting to ever need to credit anyone. Now I feel bad, because I want to give this person credit. If by some miracle you’ve seen this post, or you are this redditor, let me know!!! Not only do I want to give the proper credit, but I want to personally thank this person for so clearly laying out the exact reasons behind my frustration with this behavior. It’s something that has always made me so angry, and I understood why but I could never have put it so clearly. The reddit thread was probably something about “unexplainable” experiences, because those are some of my favorite posts and threads. Someone commented saying they wouldn’t believe such-and-such, and another person countered with the following: You can believe someone when they tell you they saw a ghost/monster without believing said ghost/monsters exist. One is about someone else’s experience, the other is about the existence of paranormal activity. You believe she isn’t lying, you believe she experienced something, and because you support your loved one, you look into what they saw/experienced without doubting them. To do anything otherwise is to value your own experiences and belief system over the person you supposedly love, value, and trust. It’s not rational. It’s ego. Frankly, this would have been enough for me. This would have given me a simple way to pinpoint and explain what exactly it is that makes me so angry and frustrated with people when they do this. But there’s more – way more. And it just gets better. The first person then said, “would you actually believe she saw a monster? Because if [so]...that's not a rational response.” And they got this in reply – the most wonderfully worded, clear, brutally honest retort that breaks it down clearly: It's not an irrational response. It is a response of the ego where you simply value the limitations of your own experiences and belief system vs someone else's. In this particular example, the "someone else" is someone you know well, trust, and love. If you remove the word "monster/ghost" (which is what I'm assuming is the problem here) and replace it with "she saw a kraken/giant squid" ...you would be dismissing that they exist and are very real, simply because you "didn't believe in them" and simply go look at what was hauled in. I'm a scientist. I don't believe in a lot of things too. But we (science) have taken a longer time to "discover" things that are known to local communities/fisherman ...simply because we didn't believe them, thought they were kooks, and didn't look. So I'm applying the same logic to this. If someone (particularly that I know and trust vs a conman!) tells me that they saw the boogeyman, I am going to believe they saw the boogeyman. Now I may find that my beloved suffers from schizophrenia, delusions, carbon monoxide poisoning, sleep paralysis, a number of other possibilities including as yet unknown disorders. I may also find something that I did not know existed, that aptly fits his/her description i.e. the boogeyman himself. "A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well. A summer insect cannot discuss ice, because it knows only its own season. A narrow-minded scholar cannot discuss the Tao, because he is constrained by his teachings.” - Zhuangzi It is not "gullibility", it is being open-minded. It is not being "rational", it is giving into ego. The rational thing to do would be to go look, explore, discover, learn. Science and "fact" result from experimentation, exploration, and discovery. It is fuelled by curiosity of the unknown. Restricting yourself by the limits of "what you believe to be true" is the opposite of rational. That is what is referred to as "faith". I believe people agree with me, because they disagree with your stance on calling people irrational/gullible because your "faith" differs from theirs BEFORE you do the investigative part. This is literally the argument of flat Earthers and science deniers. I "believe" therefore I will not explore the possibility of anything that differs from my beliefs. What you replied in your initial comment was that if someone you TRUST, and know to be sane and compatible enough with your "thinking" to marry (i.e. make a life partner) came to you and said something that did not align with what you hold to be true at that specific point in time, you consider it irrational/gullible to believe them enough to explore the possibility of truth behind what they experienced. That is ego. Critical thinking is thinking critically. Not denial of alternative possibility. THANK YOU. I have a hard time understanding how and why people do this. No, not “a hard time.” I don’t get it at all. If someone I trust tells me something, I believe them. Just like the posts say: If I think the person is sane and compatible enough with my thinking, I will believe them, regardless of my personal opinions or lack of experience with whatever they’re talking about. Yes, there might be an already known, easy explanation for whatever it was, but then again, maybe there’s not. My closest friends don't do it, and there’s a reason for that. You'll never get close to me if you judge me. I just won’t let you in. We might be "friends," but there will be huge aspects of me that you'll never get to see. I was talking with one of them about it recently, and she showed me a clip from a TV show that quoted Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental.” (But he probably spelled it with an E after the G, because that was a long time ago.) I didn’t realize this was a motto I live by, but it definitely is. It’s not that I’m gullible, and that I’ll believe anything. Far from it. But I know there are way more things in the world than I could even hope to understand – that humanity itself can even hope to understand. And I’m okay with that. I actually like it. And I don’t think that what’s right for me – what I do, what I like, what I think, what I believe – is right for everyone. I’m perfectly aware that I’m a frog in a well...for now, anyway. I hope that when I die, my soul will go on and I’ll learn the answers to some of these things that I wonder – and things I can’t even wonder because I can’t even begin to imagine them. Until then, I’ll wonder as deeply as I can about as many things as I can, real or imaginary. Why the hell not? I’m the youngest child in my family, by quite a bit. I have two sisters, who were 7 and 9 years old when I was born. My eldest sister’s bedroom was in the basement, and my other sister’s room was right next to mine. My parents’ room was at the end of the hall — which was really only about 6 feet from my bedroom door. Everyone in my family has memories of waking up in the middle of the night to see this “ghost” standing at the side of their bed, because when I was little I used to put my baby blanket over my head if I needed to leave my room alone for some reason. I would wake up in the middle of the night, scared I guess, and feel the need to go sleep in someone else’s bed with them, for safety. But in order to get to another room, obviously I would have to walk through the dark house. I didn’t put my blanket over my head so that I wouldn’t see whatever scary things were lurking in the dark; I did it so the ghosts that supposedly filled our house at night would just think I was one of them. I can understand why I would brave the few feet to my parents’ or my closer sister’s room, but I can’t figure out, anymore, why I would find it necessary to go down into the freaking basement to my other sister’s room. I do remember, though, that I thought the ghosts congregated down there. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized the “vision” I had of them was that they were having a cocktail party. In my mind, they were all standing around talking in twos and threes. Just kind of milling about, conversing. By making myself look like one of them, I wouldn’t alert them to my presence and cause them to either flee or decide to terrorize me. It didn’t occur to me, in my child brain, that my feet were still sticking out underneath the blanket and that I would be the only ghost in the group with feet. I guess I’m also lucky that no one ever stopped me to talk. “Oh heyyyy! I haven’t seen you in forever. How have you been??” That would have been pretty awkward. Sadly, it's true. For almost my whole life, I’ve had a crush on a rock star. Not the same one the whole time. Rather, I move on but kind of keep that previous crush close to my heart. It took a few before I realized that one of the biggest reasons it happens is because I see something in them (real or imagined) that I need — and I don’t necessarily mean in a partner. I mean as a part of me. Some part of their personality, their outlook on life, their attitude, is something I want to be. So I kind of...study them, and assimilate whatever it is over time. And after using “assimilate,” I’m now imagining myself as one of the Borg.  I guess my very first “rock star” crush (rock star? I mean...I guess) might have just been a plain old crush. I was 9 years old, and it was Davy Jones from the Monkees. He was cute, and had an equally cute British accent. The second one was Donnie Wahlberg from New Kids on the Block, when I was 12 and 13. I would be embarrassed about that but... And I suppose I chose him because he was the “tough” and “cool” one — the two absolute LAST things I was at that age. Or maybe I just thought he was cute. After that, though, it moved on to more respectable guys — at least in my opinion. I went through Bono, David Bowie, Martin Gore, Thom Yorke, James Hetfield, David Draiman. I’m forty-fucking-something years old and yes, I still have crushes on rock stars. It’s what I do. No, really, it is. Everyone knows it. Even my husband knows it. And yes, he definitely knew it before we were married. He’s pretty stoic about it. Like I said, it’s just what I do. But I think I’ve maybe only explained to one person in my life what I think is the biggest reason behind these crushes. Really it’s just easier for everyone involved if I call it a crush and refrain from explaining, in agonizing detail, each trait I find admirable and why. Don’t get me wrong — they’re still “traditional” crushes. I still find joy in ogling them, and I’d still be more than willing to express that joy to them very personally, in a private setting. But it’s so much more than that. It’s even more than that combined with using them as some kind of “mentor.” It’s so complicated that I just leave it at “crush.” People can understand that. Well...I don’t really think I should ever meet any of these guys. One has left this world, so that one’s 100% out of the picture unless he decides to haunt me. Which would be so unnecessary. There are plenty of other people that would deserve (or enjoy) that before I would. But of those remaining, I should never be allowed to speak to them — like, use my mouth to form words. It’s possible that I could be trusted to write a letter. I wrote one to James Hetfield and actually carried it around for over 2 years just in case. Because I knew I’d say “bu...buh...hm...I...uh” and nothing else if I ever did meet him. Or I’d say some stupid shit but not the important shit. I have one example. I’ve only ever met someone once, and that’s all the proof I need that it’s just a bad idea. I once had the opportunity to meet the White Buffalo (real name Jake Smith), who is someone I really admire. I didn’t have this fancy kind of crush on him — really it was just a regular old crush and that I love his music. I don’t know what it is about some people that pushes it past that and into Borg Crush territory, but whatever. So I saw him at a smaller venue, because that’s what he plays, and afterwards we just happened to notice that he had come out and was talking with fans. For once in my life I wasn’t even hoping for that to happen, and that probably gave me more courage than I normally would have had. Which...wasn’t good. We talked to him and I said the dumbest shit. I couldn’t just say “I love your music” or “I never skip any of your songs” or “Thanks for one of the most fun shows I’ve ever been to.” No. Noooooo. Why would I say that, when I could tell him that it seems like he takes little chunks of my soul and somehow makes them into songs? I remember looking into his eyes as I said it, but I have no idea what he was thinking. To his credit, he managed not to laugh, but he was probably like oh no, it’s one of THOSE. Someone save me, quick. If I could take it back, I would. Boy, would I. As we left the building, I started to cry. This, too, is what I do. Someday I’ll write about that really fun aspect of myself. But I was so overwhelmed, I just couldn’t help it. Or maybe just I knew I should’ve said something less freakish, I don’t know. Regardless, the point is that I don’t want to make that mistake with any of these other guys. I never again want to leave a musician going “WTF was that?” Sure, I’d like to be memorable, but not in a bad way. I guess I could write more letters, and keep them on hand...just in case. Or I should just beat it through my thick skull that the only thing I’m allowed to say is that they make me feel less alone, and leave it at that. Then everyone would be happy and no one would be frightened and we could all walk away feeling good about ourselves. I knew a guy that had a framed picture of his grandpa displayed in his living room. His grandpa was wearing a Nazi uniform. When I asked him about it, his reply was “he was a great guy.” That might be true — I can accept that not all Nazis were actually spawned directly from the bowels of hell. Like it or not, there’s a lot of nuance there. But here’s the thing: then put up a different picture of him. There is no reason and no excuse to have a framed picture of a Nazi in your house. Ever. Sorry. I don’t give a flying fuck if he was “a great guy.” Frame a different picture of him then. Keep the Nazi one, even, I don’t care. But tuck it away in an album. Putting it on display is literally just asking for a fight — or at very least asking for uncomfortable and awkward interactions. Not even just asking. Begging. He’s just itching to tell people that his Nazi relative wasn’t a villain. Again: might be true, but. That’s something that should come up in conversation naturally. It’s not something you shove in people’s faces as soon as they step into your house. And if your reason is that you want to open up a discussion, then be ready to do that. Saying “he was a great guy” is not a discussion. It’s a dismissal at best, a flippant justification of some sort at worst. You might say “oh, it’s his own house, he can do what he wants.” Sure, I guess. But then what’s the reason for it? He keeps that picture there for himself, because he likes to wallow in his family’s shameful past? Because any other reason isn’t a good one. Like...does he have any Jewish friends? I mean apparently not. I wouldn’t think they’d appreciate his cavalier attitude about having a framed picture of a literal Nazi in his fucking living room. Forget that — decent humans of any race wouldn’t be too keen on it. Keep your Nazi to yourself, man. I just learned a new term recently. It’s funny how, even as a person who loves words, you can go through life assuming that there isn’t a word for something. I guess that makes sense, because languages are different and it’s actually pretty often that we don’t have a word for some super-specific thing. But anyway, my newly learned term is “cross-dominant.” As a very small child, I switched hands during tasks, pretty arbitrarily. Just...whenever I wanted to. As I grew up a little and moved into school and stuff, though, it became consistent. I don’t know if I was forced to make a choice, as far as writing goes, or if I just chose on my own. I think I just chose at some point, because it seems like (especially with my memory) I’d remember being told to choose. Or maybe if I was told to, it wasn’t a forced kind of thing but more of a suggestion, and I wasn’t offended by the idea and just went with one. Anyway. For writing, I’ve always used my left hand. For eating I remember switching whenever I felt like it up until maybe second grade. I also remember, in first grade, having to search out the “lefty” scissors at school (the ones with the red-dipped handles) because I was officially a “lefty” at school so that’s what I was supposed to do. I don’t know when I switched over to cutting right-handed, but I did. Today I can’t cut with my left hand to save my life, even with fancy lefty scissors. I also remember, even up into my teens, not being able to decide which way to hold a bat in softball. Or a golf club. I finally settled on right-handed in these instances too. I throw and catch right-handed. I’d say my right is my dominant foot. My right is supposedly my dominant eye. So even though I tell people I’m left-handed, I really only eat and write with my left hand. Most everything else is done with my right hand/side. It seems like almost everything except painting. When it comes to painting of any type (art, walls, fingernails), I can switch to either hand depending on what’s most comfortable for whatever angle I need. Or just if one hand/arm gets tired. Oh — makeup. I use both hands equally there, as well. I’ve seen plenty of people who apply both eyes’ eyeliner — and even mascara — with just their right hand. What a pain! You get totally different angles. Because of this weird mishmash, I’ve sometimes referred to myself as ambidextrous, or partially so. I’ve actually only known one other person with this same type of trait. It’s funny, because his is almost the exact opposite of mine. But while watching one of my crime shows just this year, I heard the term “cross-dominant,” and I was intrigued — so of course I went to my trusty friend Google. And I found that that’s what I am. That’s the official term for it! When I looked it up, I found a lot of stuff about how cross-dominant children often have learning disabilities, which I thought was odd. It’s true that my sample group is only two people, but I never had problems like that and neither did the other person I know. When you look it up, it makes it sound like cross-dominant people (or sometimes just lefties, too) are some kind of defective rejects, barely able to survive in the world. Our physical and mental health are lacking, and if we haven’t had any serious problems yet, just you wait. We’re just ticking timebombs. This blog had this to say: Some scientists believe that mixed-handed individuals are of poorer mental and physical health, with lower cognitive parameters and higher rates of dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Mixed-handedness (a change in hand preference depending on the task) has been associated with greater atrophy of the hippocampus and amygdala, brain structures that are strongly associated with dementia and cognitive aging. Also, non-right handers (mixed or left-handed) are at higher risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, epilepsy, and schizophrenia. That’s just great, isn’t it. I take umbrage! I can say that I’ve known a couple stupid lefties. Yup, I’m saying it: STUPID. Like box-o’-rocks stupid. But I’ve known a lot of lefties, and the vast, vast majority are whip-smart. Like, smarter than the average person. I have a feeling right-handers cause these things by being so bumblingly unaware of their own dominance in the world. It’s a challenge to live in a world that’s literally physically designed for people that are the opposite of you. It’s actually true. I’ve heard that more left-handers are seriously injured or die in accidents, and They attribute that to the world being made for right-handers. It’s easier to accidentally maim yourself when you can’t use a tool or machine in the way it was intended. Also, they talk all about brain differences, and how left- and mixed-handers are inferior, and they don’t seem to take into consideration the possibility that learning in general is geared toward right-handers. What we expect from toddlers and babies, what we see as “normal,” might just be seen that way because that’s how right-handed people are, and they’re the damn majority. But that doesn’t mean that if you’re different, because your brain fucking works differently, and you don’t learn things in the exact same way, that you’re OFF in some way. That there’s something Wrong. And I would just like to say that while I do have clinical depression (not mentioned as one of the “defects”), I have never had any of these other problems, including language acquisition or whatever. I’ve always been a word nerd. I’ve always loved writing and language and even grammar. I started talking early — and a LOT. I was in “enhanced” classes in school. And I don’t like outright stating my IQ, but in this case it’s relevant so I find it necessary to at least say that it’s well above average. Okay? So don’t start with me, SCIENTISTS! And these studies are fraught with inconsistent results: one study suggested this, but another found no correlation. Yeah, I think you guys need to go back to the drawing board. Maybe try using your left hands this time. |
