Disconnect

[shadowkat]

Feeling a little blue yesterday evening and tonight, so turned on the computer and scanned through my friends list - which cheered me up a bit or made me feel a little less alone. That is until I attempted to post myself. I think I deleted two attempts last night.

Have thought up numerous posts this week in my head, but either haven't had the time or the guts to really post them. Mostly the guts. Let's face it, if I really wanted to, I could have taken a sheet of paper, wrote it down on the train ride home, and posted it at home. Why? Why am I suddenly shy about posting stuff in my livejournal? Or anywhere?

I think it's a combination of things, to be honest, a feeling of uncertainity about my surroundings, fear, self-consciousness, and well low-self-esteem. A friend told me a little while ago that posting on the internet is akin to speaking over the loud-speaker in your high school. I think for reasons I don't completely understand, I'm feeling very much that way right now. As if I'm speaking my thoughts over a loud-speaker and I'll say something that I'll regret. Like showing up at school with all the wrong clothes, or something. Not sure that makes a whit of sense. That's the other problem - clarity, finding a way somehow to make the busyness in my brain make sense on paper. Because if I can make sense of it on paper, maybe, it won't be so busy in my brain?

Was watching Joan of Arcadia tonight - the season premiere, I missed the season finale and about six or seven episodes prior to it, can't remember why.
Either watching another show or out to dinner with a friend. At any rate,
the episode was about disconnection. Or the inability to explain to others the scars we bear or the ghosts still haunting us or old wounds which may seem relatively minor (in some cases, ie. mine) to an outsider. I mean it's all relative isn't it? We all bring along a shit-load of baggage to every encounter and who we hit it off with, may have a hell of a lot to do with whether or not the baggage matches or clashes as the case may be. Milan Kunedera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being once wrote how the strength of a relationship depended more often than not on the musical history the two people had in common and the extent that history clashed. Wonder if the same should be said of television shows or movies? After reading a thread in buffyannatator journal entitled confessions of a Star Wars fan, I think it might be.

arethusa2 stated the following quote about art/tv/movies:

I wonder if dreams and art are the same thing. Sleeping, we try to process what happens to us, either with familiar shapes and experiences or watching our experiences mutate reality into fantasy. Awake, we do the same. By creating or observing art we seem to tap into our very core. I'm not sure how to express this. When I see BtVS and AtS elicit such a strong response in people, I can tell that it is giving us something that goes far beyond simple amusement, it explains us to us, validates our experiences somehow. Art takes all those things we hide deep inside, that usually come out only in our dreams, and shows us what we feel, what we fear. And that makes it easier to handle.

I think that's it. Art leaves an imprint. Just as music does. Smells do. A dream. Sense memories. And if a movie or tv show reminds us of something wonderful we smile, painful? we cry. I think the same thing could be said about a movie triology like Star Wars. It elicits a response in the viewer. And that response becomes part of a network of memories inside the viewer that evolve and change and well become as Kundera states their emotional history.



As an aside, I tend to fall on the Star Wars end of the debate. You'll never change my mind on this one. So don't try. There's no dialogue to be had here - it's a gut-level emotional thing, an imprint. And a perfect example of the quote above - musical history. Events that just happen to affect us deeply, leave an imprint, which remains. When you meet others who have a similar imprint, no discussion is needed. You instantly understand it.

Not many movies have affected me the way Star Wars did at the age of 12. In fact if you ask me what movies I saw as a child I could probably only name three others that stick: Song of The South, The Treasure of something...(can't remember the name of it, but it was Disney film and a double billing with Song of the South - also was in the Everglades and people got eaten alive by mosquitos which scared me for weeks afterwards), Fun with Dick and Jane (first
PG rated movie I saw and I got in trouble for it). That's it. And none of those are as clearly edged in my consciousness or affected my interests as much as Star Wars did.

I fell in love with Star Wars at the age of 12. (I was the first kid on my block to see it - because my father was obsessed with seeing the movie. We drove out of our way to see it. Stood in a long line. And our next door neighbors declared it would be a bomb and King Kong would do better.)

Prior to Star Wars, I hated science fiction. All science fiction. I despised Star Trek at the age of 12, because every episode I saw had monsters and I hated to be scared at that age. It gave me nightmares. I know, sounds crazy to die-hard horror geeks, but I was a kid with a *vivid* imagination and well the episodes of Trek I caught were the ones that they got a disease that changed them or had some monster in it, which while hokey looking now, to my 8-12 year old self was nightmare inducing. Up until Star Wars, I thought Sci-Fi was scarey. It was not until I was a Junior in College that I began to appreciate the Trek and wonder what the hell was I thinking. Never fell in love in with it, though. As a child, I remember leaving the room whenever Star Trek or Space 1999 came on and believing that all science fiction was scarey. I'd spend the evening instead with my best friend outside telling adventure stories. It took my Dad to convince me otherwise - when he dragged me to Star Wars, and well, the rest is history. If it weren't for Dad, Star Wars, and my Aunt Audrey (who is dead now), I would never have discovered my love for sci-fi and fantasy. So, as far as I'm concerned Star Wars comes first in my heart. Trek? pfft! I never wrote stories in my head about Trek. But Star Wars? Ahhhh. That was my first fanfic. Never written. Just in my head. It holds a place of nostalgia that I'm not sure many people understand. And yes, I read all and owned all the original novelizations of the original series, my mother still has the original action figures (which aren't worth that much because my brother and I played with them - my favorite cat Simon (also dead now) used to drop the Princess Leia action figure in his water dish, we never understood why), and we taped the first television broadcasts of the movies. While the DVD's are tempting - it bugs me a little that Lucas fiddled with them, but only out of nostalgia - it's sort of like a favorite writer going back and rewriting your favorite childhood book. It's no longer how you remembered. Of course things we adored in childhood - are never quite how we remember them, just as that old neighborhood that seemed so large as a kid, is now so small.
Tom Wolf may be right - you really can't go home again. Learned that lesson when I was 17 years old and we journeyed back to my childhood home in Pa. The place we left the year after Star Wars aired. My childhood ended with Star Wars. Adolescence began with Empire Strikes Back, and I was nearing high school when Jedi came out. To me those three movies are part of my historical baggage - the good part. I remember them with fondness. While Star Trek remains mostly a mixed bag - some nasty relationships and memories as well as a couple of good ones. I guess, when it comes down to it, it's how I subconsciously associate stuff in my brain that affects how I respond to it? Trek conjures up negative sense memories - so I may react to a discussion on it with aggression. While Star Wars conjures positive sense memories?



That's a bit deep...I think I'd like to take angela's advice and:
It is entirely likely that I am thinking too much today. I believe I will eat chocolate and read trash for a bit now.

Actually, no...going to bed would be more productive. Since it is nearing one am. And I've slept poorly most of the weak. Can poor sleep affect mood?

Before I stop this horribly long and hopefully coherent ramble - I want to quote a few friends who have managed to express succinctly in their journals the range of feelings I've had this week, far better than I could:



The system at my office has designated Live Journal as "tasteless" and won't let me view! Who's being tasteless? And how could I have missed it? ponygirl2000 Have the same problem. Terrified of going anywhere online at work that is not work or purely news related. The furtherest I've gone is my personal email - which I can access, but am afraid to respond to.


Oh and in fit of picque discontinued emails from Sunnydale U for a reason stated best by:



redredshoes if I read something and get mildly annoyed and then come back to it a day or even a couple of hours later, I'm totally like "Meh. Whatever. Moving on." But if I get stuck in that 15- or 20-minute-long-window it's like Anne Rice on a rampage, oh, man, typetypetypetype and the weird thing about the anger is -- it doesn't burn off, or get channeled into passionate discussion as it might f2f, it just nastily flickers, like an oil fire. And I'm always, always sorry afterwards. Hope she doesn't mind me quoting her out of context, but this was so perfect! I felt like this on Tuesday of this week. And ended up stopping emails from the listserve it happened on. I didn't unsubscribe. But see - you don't have to unsubscribe from yahoonewsgroups, just stop reading them.

Why did I feel this way? Ah got in a tuffel with a writer over whether romance novelists make the mistake of writing unnecessary love scenes.

quoting redredshoes, who is quoting Neil Gaiman:

I suspect that most authors don't really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise, arriving by the shipload every fifteen minutes or so.

For most authors, not being James Branch Cabell, it's probably wisest after reading a particularly stupid or vicious or bad review to mentally compose your letter to the editor, fill it with your sharpest and most cutting and brilliant bon mots, and then, having made it up, to successfully resist the urge to put it to paper, and to return cheerfully to work.

Heh. Truer words were never spoken. Ah the number of times someone has blasted something I wrote either online or off? I've lost count. Trust me it's worse when they do it to you in person. Miserable thin skin - thy name is writer.
Writers as a rule do not take rejection well. And adore praise. Actually, that ain't just writers, that's people, I think. Question is - if we hate rejection so much ourselves, why don't we have more difficulty dishing it out to others?
Are we just naturally sadistic creatures? Is that it? Don't hurt me! But I have no problem slashing at you?

Finally rahael, who gets back to the original point of this post - about the feeling of disconnection, which may lie at the root of my gloominess.



Rahael says it so well...and so beautifully. She also quotes, in another, unrelated post, a little scrap of a poem by Wyatt, about scars which so perfectly spoke to feelings I was having this week, that I almost cried in response. I don't know the poem, but the words clicked somehow.

Here it is:

The wound alas happe in some other place,
From whence no toole away the skar can race.

Rahael's translation:( The wound, alas, hap in some other place,
From whence no tool away the scar can raze.)

Yes, that's it. That's the feeling I've had. The wound happened long ago, but
the scar throbs still. I have a scar on my arm when a doctor removed a discoloration ages ago. While long healed. It throbs at the oddest times. The nerves are fine. So if that happens? Why, I wonder does it astonish me that a far deeper, far more painful, traumatic emotional wound from 18 years ago can still throb? Particularly since no tool or implement has come to alter my perception of it? If anything what comes, reminds me of it? And no, I won't write it here...too silly, too quiet, too embarrassing, too painful to utter aloud to a soul. A paper cut of stupidity that haunts me still.

But my feeling is in no way connected to the reasons rahael wrote her post or to her pain. So back to rahael for the bit on disconnect:

That everything *isn't* connected.

This is not hard for me to remember. However, the ability to connect up, and create resonances between random events seems so deep within me that even when the connections are actively destructive, even when they pull me apart inside, I cannot stop the narrative drive (usually a story of disaster, doom and death).

Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves give us unique insights. Sometimes they cloud our minds and hearts. It's difficult to distinguish which is happening when.

Sometimes there's such liberation in the idea of the meaningless. Your life to live, every day. The things you do don't amount to much, or they unravel. The values you try to live by are constantly challenged by the messiness of real life.

If your personal code is to connect to others, and to integrate, fit in, to discover the hidden treasures in others, what do you end up doing if there is a profound disconnection that has nothing to with any lack of effort on one's own part?

There are always those moments when we are utterly alone, and that is the very point, the very experience that gives meaning to connecting to others. rahael

I hope this is true. It makes me feel better to think so. Don't feel it right now. But it is past 1 am in the morning and I haven't had much sleep.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

(drowned is the reason that should me comfort/
and I remain despairing of the port)

That's lovely, thank you. I feel very much like that right now. Seeking port.


It hurts so much now, as if the accumulated sadness and sense of insecurity of this year has hit me all at once. But i remember something an LJ friend said to me when my grandmother died - that the pain is worse because I loved so much. That everything worth loving is something we risk. And another friend said something to me in a email - he said that my willingness to expect the best of the world was an act of rebellion against it. And I'm trying to hold on to both these thoughts, because they are going to lead me back to the harbour

Ah. Thank you for this. A friend once told me that my problem was that I was *too* trusting. This was something - I've been told before. And I remember responding that I would rather trust and see the good, then trust no one and see the bad. Although I suppose there are graduations within that.

And I remember not being surprised that you fell ill right after you got your job. Things get saved up, for when your body can deal with it, when you've got over an important hurdle.

You know that never occurred to me. I thought it was an allergy flare up. But you are right - I got sick, briefly, once I got the new job...then it melted away after I left the old one. Once before this happened - years ago, when I went through a similar experience and got a new job then instantly came down with the flu. As if my body needed the release.

[rahael.livejournal.com]

It doesn't come across to me that you are "too trusting" but rather that you remain open. And I agree with you, it is better to do this, because one day you may save someone without even knowing you did so.

Here is the whole of the Wyatt sonnet ( it is a translation of a Petrarch sonnet, but Wyatt makes translations into something of an art form - the differences from the orginal have great significance)

My galley chargèd with forgetfulness
Through sharp seas in winter nights doth pass
'Twene rock and rock; and eke mine enemy, alas,
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness.
And every oar a thought in readiness
As though that death were light in such a case;
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace
Of forcèd sighs and trusty fearfulness.
A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain
Hath done the wearied cords great hindrance,
Wreathèd with error and eke with ignorance.
The stars be hid that led me to this pain,
Drownèd is reason that should me comfort,
And I remain despairing of the port.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

It doesn't come across to me that you are "too trusting" but rather that you remain open. And I agree with you, it is better to do this, because one day you may save someone without even knowing you did so.

Open. Interesting word. Years ago, someone told me that I appeared open but was actually closed - the words hurt deeply. But partly because he used them that way. I hope I am open. There are times, I worry that I'm not. But I think perhaps we remain a little open and a little closed? Like a post that we lock for friends only and one that we open to public viewing, and one we delete in it's entirety?

I rather like Wyatt's poetry. This is a poet I do not remember reading before, which is strange since there was a time - over ten-fifteen years ago?, that I awash in poetry. Read all that I could find. But my poetry books reside with my parents miles away from here. Must find more of Wyatt.

This poem in particular, does a perfect job of explaining how I've felt the last two years. Like a boat struggling out at sea hunting a safe harbor.

I think poetry sometimes speaks to the heart, the depth of emotion more than anything else can or does.
Be it visual poetry such as dance, or words across a page.