In My Defense

     I’ve mentioned that I’ve been reading Young Adult fiction lately, which is probably surprising to anybody who has an inkling of who I am.  Let’s be honest here, I can be a pretty pretentious douche sometimes (usually.)  Though not with fiction, I can be supportive of any kind of fiction.  You want to have a magic sword?  Go for it.  The most beautiful woman of all time falls hopelessly in love with the fat nerd?  Fantastic.  Just beware my wrath if you’re overly optimistic about real life.  I enjoy lying for a purpose, I abhor lying to yourself on purpose.

        I’m not sure why I’ve been on such a Young Adult kick lately, other than I look at it as candy fiction.  It’s nice to be able to read a book in a day or two, and not have to wonder if there is deeper meaning.  There always is deeper meaning, but I think we give authors entirely too much credit.  If you describe someone’s hand as being a big paw, you are not necessarily trying to invoke the idea of the character as a bear.  It may just be a convenient way to say “big hand.”  But I digress (damn you English teachers for ruining books!)

        The other thing that I’ve been thinking about is the emotionality of the teenage characters.  We’re all pretty stupid growing up because we think our world is overly important.  Once I was listening to someone younger than me complain about some life experience and they got mad at me for telling them what was really going on.  Quite common: “you don’t know what it’s like.”  Yes I do.  And so does everybody else.  Life experiences do not separate people from one another, they bring us together.  We go through most of the same growing pains (similar enough for comparison anyway,) so we can relate.  I went through it, she went through it before me, he went through it before her, on and on through perpetuity.  An individual may be a unique little snowflake, but you’re still part of the pile of snow.

That’s all true, but it also unfair.  Let’s get back to being a teenager or writing from their point of view.  The reason they think what they are going through is deeper, stronger, or more important than it was for anybody else is because it is.  Experience dulls our sentimentality by teaching us to know better.  This is a good thing.  But firsts are still more important at the time.  Your first kiss is a big deal, and also probably bad.  Your first concert is a big deal, and again, probably bad.  So when an actual person (or fictional person) goes through these things, they are feeling it stronger than we remember.  Time is a game changer, and dangerous in its subtlety.

I think that’s why I am enjoying reading these stories, because it harkens to the days when everything was more important.  I certainly don’t want to be as naive ever again, I still have plenty of that to sort through.  However, looking back on the idea of that time, being an emotional black hole, is a bit refreshing.  Because things are a bigger deal the first time and it’s important to remember that.  It gives the fiction a hyperbolic quality that real life (fortunately) no longer has.

And that’s my defense for being a wuss.

Fixing "The Sexy"

      What’s the deal with married women wanting to fix me?  I mean, I would understand if the single ladies want to spruce me up to get some more sexiness into their lives.  But that’s pretty uncommon, oddly.  The only thing these women have in common is being married.  Some are happy-ish marriages (my highest compliment,) others unhappy-ish (the mean.)  Some are young wives, some are a bit older.  But for some reason married women have this absurd compulsion to fix me.

        Perhaps the oddest of the oddities is that there really isn’t that much wrong with me.  Relative to the population I’m actually only moderately maladjusted.  I’m certainly not some puppy at their laps looking for attention.  You would think that they were still trying to fix their husbands.  I thought that was ⅔ of the reason to get married, so he can’t get away while you work.

        Before the XX’s get mad at me, yes, women have this odd compulsion to fix their man.  Everyone knows that single women look to the formula:  (Asshole Quotient)2 + (Fixability Ratio) + (Finances) + (Vanity) - (Daddy Issues)3 = Datability/Marriage Material.  This is fine, illogical and idiotic, but fine.  It’s the fact that women who are not pursuing the sexy are still trying to fix me.  I mean, damn it.

There are a few techniques out there, but I think my favorite is : You’re really not like you are.  Now, I’m no grammarian, but that just seems off to me.  In my fruitless queries, I’ve learned that the fact that I act a certain way (and have always acted that way) is nonetheless irrelevant to the person I actually am.  Let me give you a different context for an example.  If I wore t-shirts everyday, and said that I like wearing t-shirts, you can disregard my history to say that really deep down I’m a button up kind of cat.  It’s the estrogen version of “if it walks like a duck...” i.e. the exact opposite.  I just have to find someone/something special and it’ll turn me all around.  Apparently my personality is just play-acting and doesn’t count.  And if that’s the case, I’m not going to apologize about anything anymore because my whole life is apparently a trial run.  I like that part.

There’s no moral to this story because, well, it’s not really a story.  You should have noticed that the lack of characters and plot points usually indicates no story.  But by all means wives of the world, feel free to plot my ascension.  Just leave me out of it.

And people wonder why I’m single.

Devastation

So I’ve read a couple books in a row that dealt with death.  And not only death, but death of fairly young people.  I know that sounds like a bit of a downer, and I suppose it is.  But I’ve always like the downer mood, because I’m good at it.  Most people don’t think of that as impressive, but how many people do you know who are good at it?

        Anyway, it got me thinking about devastation.  True devastation, the one thing that is incomparable to all other things.  If there is one situation from which you could forgive anything, what would it be?  Is there any kind of tragedy that excuses a lifetime of poor behavior?  Are there a few?  I can only think of one.

        I think the death of a child is the only truly devastating thing that can happen where I would excuse all future behavior.  You want to be a drunk?  Go for it.  Mean spirited and cruel?  Yeah, I get it.  But I need to clarify here a bit, because most parents think of the offspring as their child.  But for this situation I’m actually referring to a child.

        The books I recently read (John Green’s A Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska [YA fiction]) were focused on the unfortunate deaths of teenagers.  For me that doesn’t count.  The death of a teenager is epically tragic, but that’s the death of a full person.  The death of an adult child even more so.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, the death of an infant doesn’t count here either.  When you’re still translating a belch into a word, it’s not a person yet.  It’s the miraculous beginning of a person, but it’s not formed yet.

        The only truly devastating thing I can think of is the death of a child who is becoming a person.  Not only is it the death of someone who you don’t fully know yet (that happens all the time,) but it’s the death of someone who doesn’t fully know themselves yet.  At a certain point, and probably younger than we’d like to believe, we are who we are.  Our experiences will mold us, but we’re a full person.  But in that 4-10ish range, those parts of us are growing.  The evolution process during this time is astounding.   Losing your own child when you are just beginning to know who they are is the most soul ravaging thing that I can think of.

        I don’t want to make light of other kinds of tragedies, death or otherwise.  But to me, this is the only situation with a blank check on my sympathies.  I don’t expect you to be okay, and to a certain extent I don’t want you to be okay.  If you lose a friend or lover or family member, you have memories of them to fall back on.  The death of a small child only results in memories of what might of been.  It’s difficult to express how appalling I find it.

Why?

     “Why?” is an important question.  It is quite possibly the important question.  I could argue that it is quite likely that the key to human civilization is our ability to ask “why.”

        “Why” is the beginning of “how.”  Why do these berries grow here?  How can I grow them there?  That’s the power of “why,” without it humankind would still be wondering around aimlessly.  Or perhaps extinct from our absurd gestation cycle and ungodly worthlessness as newborns.  But “why” has saved us from the darkness, and we have flourished and called it good.

        But “why” is not done with it’s awesomeness, not by a long shot!  “Why” is the question of kings and queens, philosophers, poets, and priests!  Whether it’s your God, gods, or spirituality you refuse to name, “why” is the name of the game.  If you live with 1st world problems, the question of “why” becomes the future.  First it brought us out of the darkness, and now it will move us into the light!

        The question is immortal.  If you contemplate ‘why?” you are working with Plato and Aristotle, Jung and Kant, Peter and Buddha...  It’s the eternal question.

        And the answer, of course, is “why not?”  A little disappointing, I’ll admit.

Win-Win

     Do you ever wonder about what’s wrong with you? And I don’t mean to insinuate that something is wrong with you. I mean to clearly say that there is something wrong with you. I’m astounded by the sheer volume of things wrong with. Welcome to the club.

      Don’t worry, there are also things that aren’t wrong with you, perhaps even right with you.

      Well, I have been known for self-reflective moments and on occasion do contemplate my faults. I have a goodly number, many of which involve self-. Self-destructive, self-aggrandizing, self-ish, serf-ish, and so on. But none of those have caught my attention recently. Maybe I’m just getting older and miss having potential, but I think my biggest fault is that I hate to lose.

      That’s true and misleading, because I do hate to lose, but not because I hate it. I’m afraid to lose, and I hate being scared. I prefer hate to fear, I’ve always found it to be more useful.

      Let’s get one thing out of the way; of course I like to win. Everybody likes winning, and many people love it. I don’t love winning, but it does give temporary relief. Once upon a time I was a real bad sport about losing. I’d whine when my grandmother was kicking my rear in a board game until she finally allowed me to win. Turns out my stubbornness at age 4 was an adversary to be reckoned with. I’m no longer that bad. I’m never mad at other people for winning, I’m simply mad at myself for losing. Being that I’m no longer 4, bitching doesn’t seem to help anymore.

      I hate bitching.

      I’d like to say that I use my hatred of losing as motivation to succeed. Isn’t that the lie professional athletes tell before signing multi-million dollar contracts? It’s all about winning? Not for me, it’s only about not losing. Losing is the operative term, as it were. And the easiest way not to lose is not to play. And that’s the shame of it all, because the easy road is... well... easy. And I never lose.