Wrestling Internal Demons...
May. 1st, 2005 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAnother gray day, although it has stopped raining, and the sun seems to be breaking into the clouds. Wales called last night wondering if I'd like to hang out today...do brunch, just chat. Considering it. Been a long week, wrestled with my internal demons during most of it.
Not sure what I'm doing here - writing these entries. Are they to myself? I think so, at least in part. What I write is often an internal dialogue, edited for the unseen unknown eyes. I guess if most of the posts you write are locked and you personally know all the people you've friended - writing posts is more akin to writing a mass letter, which makes those of us who know you only peripherally feel like eavesdroppers? Often jealous or envious of those posts that become love letters to the people that the individual is writing to, using the convenience of the livejournal platform as their communication line.
Don't know. Not sure why I feel the desire to write my thoughts and feelings in a quasi-public forum, when I veer away from such things in all other aspects of my life. Deliberately choosing clothing, styles, etc to blend in rather than stand out. Saying little about my interests. I like to hide.
Communication strikes me as a difficult thing. At least for me. As a child I certainly struggled with it. Clumsy both physically and vocally. And people I've found don't like to listen. Or for that matter read. No wait, that's not quite the right way to put it - it's not listening and reading people don't like, it's taking the time to understand, to wrap one's mind around words or sounds that do not make sense or compute. Or click. Or jive. Or fit. So much easier to jump to conclusions, quickly scan a sentence, a phrase, to interupt before the thought is completed. To not take the time to ask what is meant. Part of me wants to retreat from the effort, part of me screams I do not care what others think. But clearly I do care or I would not be posting my internal thoughts on an internet blog, would I? I would not leave the comments option turned on. Part of me does care - perhaps too much?
Wrestling with my demons this week sent me skittering back to my obsessions, which are not melodramatic nor destructive like most people's are. I do not drink, smoke, do drugs, or bing on food. Not addicted to sex. Which makes me incredibly odd to most folks, I suppose. Like an alien from Mars - a la Stranger From A Strange Land - by Heinlein, yet not quite as interesting. No, my obsessions tend to be characters or relationships between characters in books, tv shows or movies. They've ranged from comics to movies. I know why I do it - it's an escape. And until 2002, I never really shared the obsessions, well maybe briefly as a child but got a bit burned doing that. And I certainly have never been a "fan". I am also analytical and self-aware enough to get what it is in the relationship or character that will obsess me. Usually it's an aspect that reminds me of myself, something about that character or relationship echoes an yearning or craving or darkness in me that is not being addressed and can't be. Art is I think our way of dealing with our demons.
The best art anyway. It is also for decoration, comfort, and celebration.
Nothing is ever for just one thing. I don't think. Lately, I fell back into my obsession with the character of Spike and to a degree his relationship with Buffy and as an extension of that the writers and fans relationship with one another - which I sensed on some deep level were all interrelated.
This week I found myself railing internally at the idea of fandom, of how the internet has made such a thing more accessible. Railing at myself for joining in. For giving in to the obsession as fully as I did. Then screaming at myself for not seeing the positive as well. My escape, I realized this week - was not a comforting one any longer. I couldn't go there and seek comfort. I felt pathetic. There was no longer any validation there. No hope. I couldn't write something and have people tell me I was worthwhile or great through doing it. And in looking back, I began to see how transistory, momentary that validation was. And felt guilty for wanting it. Did I, I asked myself, give any of it back? Was it in a sense no different than what Buffy was doing to Spike? "I'm using you to escape my own worries and pain, to feel real, to feel validated, and it works for a little while, but it is weak and selfish, and I should stop now..." Yet, yet - it wasn't just a matter of writing something and having people fawn over it (which great but ewww), as it was the discussion, the interaction that resulted. Interaction. It's never just positive or negative is it? It's both. And when you interact with others - it is impossible not to be changed in some way. It's also impossible not to get burned.
When I get frustrated with myself, my life, my world - I want to lash out at it. Why can't you be the way I want? Why does that person over there have (fill in the blank) and I don't? Why can't it work this way? Why can't I control....and then there's the rage, which burns at times inside like a wildfire. In watching the S7 DVD commentaries and featurettes, I felt the oddest rage at fans. Fans who interfer in the work of the creators they adore.
Tell the creators what should or should not be written. And a rage at the writers for caring. It was the weirdest thing - yet in my examination of it, I began to catch something - it's that whole validation/collaboration thing. Like what I'm doing here - writing this post - knowing someone out there will read it. Half wanting them to, half not. But more than that - wanting the acknowledgment, the proof that they did. And wanting to get the positive response - someone to say, oh, yes I totally get that. I grok you. I'm there. That's so perfectly worded. Or when I write the fanfic and someone replies and I see the reply and think, whoa, that never occurred to me - maybe I should change everything and do it that way - make it better, so that person whomever they may be (better when you have no clue actually), will come back and say - yes, that's it! Exactly. Even if it wasn't what I was intending on doing with the story and is counter to my entire plan. I want to please the audience. Yet at the same time, I despise the audience for that desire.
In watching the commentaries - it hit me that Whedon felt somewhat the same way. Occassionally doing little things here and there to piss off the audience he was being told he had to please. Writing is a solitary sport, which is why it is so difficult. You do not do it with others. It's just you and your word processor. Even now - here, posting in this box, it remains solitary. Most novelists do not share a work in progress with a soul until it is completed.
For fear of someone interfering with the story. A TV writer or comic book writer or serialized magazine writer or internet writer doesn't have that luxury, I guess. People see the first chapter - commment. On the other hand, you do get feedback, you get to know if it is working for the audience. But the question is do you trust your audience? Should you? Is the audience trustworthy? And should one allow that audience's issues to interfer? I guess you need to be able to trust yourself enough to know when to listen to the audience and when not to?
It's all about trust, isn't it? Trusting oneself, trusting others. But until one can trust oneself - one really can't trust anyone else. It's impossible.
So how does one know how to trust oneself. One's own decisions? Own views?
Own feelings? Without constantly judging them? Challenging them?
Not sure what I'm doing here - writing these entries. Are they to myself? I think so, at least in part. What I write is often an internal dialogue, edited for the unseen unknown eyes. I guess if most of the posts you write are locked and you personally know all the people you've friended - writing posts is more akin to writing a mass letter, which makes those of us who know you only peripherally feel like eavesdroppers? Often jealous or envious of those posts that become love letters to the people that the individual is writing to, using the convenience of the livejournal platform as their communication line.
Don't know. Not sure why I feel the desire to write my thoughts and feelings in a quasi-public forum, when I veer away from such things in all other aspects of my life. Deliberately choosing clothing, styles, etc to blend in rather than stand out. Saying little about my interests. I like to hide.
Communication strikes me as a difficult thing. At least for me. As a child I certainly struggled with it. Clumsy both physically and vocally. And people I've found don't like to listen. Or for that matter read. No wait, that's not quite the right way to put it - it's not listening and reading people don't like, it's taking the time to understand, to wrap one's mind around words or sounds that do not make sense or compute. Or click. Or jive. Or fit. So much easier to jump to conclusions, quickly scan a sentence, a phrase, to interupt before the thought is completed. To not take the time to ask what is meant. Part of me wants to retreat from the effort, part of me screams I do not care what others think. But clearly I do care or I would not be posting my internal thoughts on an internet blog, would I? I would not leave the comments option turned on. Part of me does care - perhaps too much?
Wrestling with my demons this week sent me skittering back to my obsessions, which are not melodramatic nor destructive like most people's are. I do not drink, smoke, do drugs, or bing on food. Not addicted to sex. Which makes me incredibly odd to most folks, I suppose. Like an alien from Mars - a la Stranger From A Strange Land - by Heinlein, yet not quite as interesting. No, my obsessions tend to be characters or relationships between characters in books, tv shows or movies. They've ranged from comics to movies. I know why I do it - it's an escape. And until 2002, I never really shared the obsessions, well maybe briefly as a child but got a bit burned doing that. And I certainly have never been a "fan". I am also analytical and self-aware enough to get what it is in the relationship or character that will obsess me. Usually it's an aspect that reminds me of myself, something about that character or relationship echoes an yearning or craving or darkness in me that is not being addressed and can't be. Art is I think our way of dealing with our demons.
The best art anyway. It is also for decoration, comfort, and celebration.
Nothing is ever for just one thing. I don't think. Lately, I fell back into my obsession with the character of Spike and to a degree his relationship with Buffy and as an extension of that the writers and fans relationship with one another - which I sensed on some deep level were all interrelated.
This week I found myself railing internally at the idea of fandom, of how the internet has made such a thing more accessible. Railing at myself for joining in. For giving in to the obsession as fully as I did. Then screaming at myself for not seeing the positive as well. My escape, I realized this week - was not a comforting one any longer. I couldn't go there and seek comfort. I felt pathetic. There was no longer any validation there. No hope. I couldn't write something and have people tell me I was worthwhile or great through doing it. And in looking back, I began to see how transistory, momentary that validation was. And felt guilty for wanting it. Did I, I asked myself, give any of it back? Was it in a sense no different than what Buffy was doing to Spike? "I'm using you to escape my own worries and pain, to feel real, to feel validated, and it works for a little while, but it is weak and selfish, and I should stop now..." Yet, yet - it wasn't just a matter of writing something and having people fawn over it (which great but ewww), as it was the discussion, the interaction that resulted. Interaction. It's never just positive or negative is it? It's both. And when you interact with others - it is impossible not to be changed in some way. It's also impossible not to get burned.
When I get frustrated with myself, my life, my world - I want to lash out at it. Why can't you be the way I want? Why does that person over there have (fill in the blank) and I don't? Why can't it work this way? Why can't I control....and then there's the rage, which burns at times inside like a wildfire. In watching the S7 DVD commentaries and featurettes, I felt the oddest rage at fans. Fans who interfer in the work of the creators they adore.
Tell the creators what should or should not be written. And a rage at the writers for caring. It was the weirdest thing - yet in my examination of it, I began to catch something - it's that whole validation/collaboration thing. Like what I'm doing here - writing this post - knowing someone out there will read it. Half wanting them to, half not. But more than that - wanting the acknowledgment, the proof that they did. And wanting to get the positive response - someone to say, oh, yes I totally get that. I grok you. I'm there. That's so perfectly worded. Or when I write the fanfic and someone replies and I see the reply and think, whoa, that never occurred to me - maybe I should change everything and do it that way - make it better, so that person whomever they may be (better when you have no clue actually), will come back and say - yes, that's it! Exactly. Even if it wasn't what I was intending on doing with the story and is counter to my entire plan. I want to please the audience. Yet at the same time, I despise the audience for that desire.
In watching the commentaries - it hit me that Whedon felt somewhat the same way. Occassionally doing little things here and there to piss off the audience he was being told he had to please. Writing is a solitary sport, which is why it is so difficult. You do not do it with others. It's just you and your word processor. Even now - here, posting in this box, it remains solitary. Most novelists do not share a work in progress with a soul until it is completed.
For fear of someone interfering with the story. A TV writer or comic book writer or serialized magazine writer or internet writer doesn't have that luxury, I guess. People see the first chapter - commment. On the other hand, you do get feedback, you get to know if it is working for the audience. But the question is do you trust your audience? Should you? Is the audience trustworthy? And should one allow that audience's issues to interfer? I guess you need to be able to trust yourself enough to know when to listen to the audience and when not to?
It's all about trust, isn't it? Trusting oneself, trusting others. But until one can trust oneself - one really can't trust anyone else. It's impossible.
So how does one know how to trust oneself. One's own decisions? Own views?
Own feelings? Without constantly judging them? Challenging them?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-01 11:46 am (UTC)dub ;o)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-01 07:07 pm (UTC)For some reason, I find it easier to write here than on paper, as least so far as journaling is concerned--even though it's usually just short, uncomplicated fragments. Despite the fact that you can edit posts after the fact, somehow the fact that someone else can see it makes it more real, hence more permanent, even though I get (and seek) very few actual comments, and for that matter don't advertise the journal around. It's semi-internal, yet the fact that someone else might sometimes see it makes it consistent. Or something.
I'd think if you know what you want to do with a piece of art, it's worth listening to the audience to pick up possible ways to get closer to what you yourself are aiming for. If they want you to do something other than what you want, though--if "This series must focus on Character X, and s/he must get together with Character Y, and if they don't then we think your work is crap!"--then the heck with 'em. Which of course means that I've got a lot of respect for several series that have lost their audiences and died for not adhering to their fans' demands.
I guess one just has to do it, leaping into the dark. Of course, if challenging one's own work makes it better, that's a good thing, but that's not the same thing as judging it.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 09:17 am (UTC)Own feelings? Without constantly judging them? Challenging them?
Well, you've done okay so far, haven't you? You're a functioning, productive member of society, with frinds and family and talents that you explore. You're intelligent, thoughtful, moral and observant--and adult. Your judgements and decisions are as good as anyone else's and better than most. Just think of all the foolish decisions people make every day--why shouldn't you trust yourself?
You still have to constantly judge and challenge your decisions and views because that's how we keep from making some of our more egregarious errors, which is a bummer, but you've done it before and you can do it again. Trust your wisdom, knowledge and experience, and than accept the outcome of your decisions, good or bad. We make our choices as best as we can, and if we accept the fact that we can and do control our actions, we can better accept the outcome. They are your choices, your consequences, your life. Nobody else controls the decisions you makes--and you can't always control the outcome. So we accept responsibility for our decisions, accept we can't control the outcome, and learn to live with the results. Sometimes the results hurt, a lot, but almost any decision has that risk. And if we don't decide, we're not moving forward, not really living. (I think.)