Self-indulgence, bingeing, writing, musing on my flist and btvs

Congratulate me, I made it through my entire correspondence list, after adding another person to it, fannishly after reading an entry that oursin linked me to about Tam Lin. I haven't read Tam Lin, but have read The Secret History and Waking the Moon and more or less agree with fannishly's takes on both. Also she wrote a lovely entry about accepting oneself as one is and not needing to be perfect or be what others want that I identified with. I can't explain to you why I choose some journals to read over others - there's no real method. It's purely intiutive. Gut level. And well, currently speaking, I pick based on the writing. Took me three hours to read correspondence list - course this is partly due to the fact that I became enthralled by a discussion by three separate posters - who appear to be aware of one another, but posted about the topic separately in their journals - about "self-indulgence" in writing. Not sure how I feel about "self-indulgence". I find "the red shoes" take somewhat reassuring since I tend to be very self-indulgent in my writing and consider it one of my greatest flaws.

[Looked "self-indulgence" up in the dictionary to be certain my definition of the word coincides with everyone else's (also to make sure it didn't have more than one definition, it means: " excessive indulgence of one's own appetites and desires." - Hmmm. Sounds like a synonyme for "bingeing". Looked up the word binge - and guess what? It is. "Means a drunken spree" or a period of "uncontrolled self-indulgence." Now that explains the attitudes online about it. Also the emotional reactions. Think about this for a minute. In Catholicism, Judaeism, Islam and pagan cultures - we have a holiday where you have to fast, then you have to binge. We live in a culture of extremes - you either give it all up or you go crazy. If you travel across the US you'll hit all you can eat restaurants - places to binge to your heart's content. On New Year's - people get "drunk", on St. Patrick's day - drunken sprees are encouraged. How you feel about this has a lot to do with who you are and what you are going through. Personally? I cringe at the word self-indulgence and see it as a criticism. Why? Bingeing has hurt me. I can't binge on food anymore. It put me in the hospital. I've had to give up things, things I love in order to get well and as a result, for the first time in six years I feel physically attractive. I actually like my body. I'm at my correct weight, I have a flat stomach. And I don't have heartburn 24/7 or all those other ailments, nor am I physically depressed to the extent that I wanted to just stay home - like I felt way back in Feb and March. Binging on food - made me ill. I lost myself within it. So I stopped. I was self-indulgent and that hurt me. The opposite of self-indulgent is not eating anything at all, not indulging, fasting. And we live in a culture, unfortunately, of extreems. It seems something is either brilliant or horrible, big or small, skinny or fat, beautiful or ugly,nothing in moderation. Or maybe that's just how it feels today. It's Xmas in NY and NY binges on Xmas.]

It can be said, I suppose, that writing, in particular lj writing, is self-indulgent. I know I'm self-indulgent. Also possibly narcissitic, and masturbatory. Then again, I'm not sure we can place "writing", "any writing" into such a neat definitive category. I'm not sure things are as black and white as we'd like to make them. Makes life easier if they are. So many choices, you know, so much easier if we can neatly categorize them. Being human this seems to be our natural tendency - categorize things, define them, make sense of them.

There was another link, this one in matiocalo's post, that took me to a journal entry about "bad reading", then one on "bad writing". Sorry too tired to hunt the link - it's past 1 am, damn it. Must sleep or won't. The bad writing lj entry amused me - partly because it was so poorly written and partly because the example it used of bad writing reminded me of a paragraph from Dorothy Dunnett's novel Game of Kings reproduced in The Red Shoes lj. So, I'm not sure we can neatly categorize anything. I know the publishing industry would like to categorize self-published novels as bad writing - but then the publishing industry, especially the New York Publishing Industry is woefully insecure and possibly a tad on the pretentious/self-important end of the spectrum. You'd be too, if you were surrounded by stock-brokers, movie-producers, high finance, and making next to nothing in a place that considers itself the center of the universe, it's not, but it certainly thinks it is. Ugh. There I go again, categorizing things. See? Natural human tendency. We can't avoid it. But life is messy and everything, I'm beginning to realize, refuses to neatly fit into a box. Doesn't keep me from trying to do it though. Even though things have a messy way of spilling out of the boxes I put them in.

Speaking of categorizing, found myself reading numerous posts on whedoneseque about which BTVS Seasons were the best. Reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend on the same topic. I mentioned off-hand how I prefered the later seasons and even though I watched during the earlier ones and when the show first started, it wasn't until the 6th Season that I went nuts. (ie. become woefully self-indulgent). The friend remarked the only reason this happened was Spike was my sexual fantasy come to life. (no one on lj) Sigh.
Yes, but if that were the case, why the heck would I have written over 50 essays, over 50% having zip to do with Spike? The same friend later admitted, 'say what you will about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it did a very good job of showing what it was like for everyone in high school - showing how tough high school was for all people'. And life, I added. It's one of the few shows that depicts the difficulty of dealing with personal demons across multiple spectrums. Towards the end of the high school years, Buffy realizes and states her realization aloud, that everyone has demons they have to slay, no matter who they are or what they look like - she knows, she's had to slay them. Then at the end of the series, she discovers, having finally slayed her childhood demons, seeing her fears for their actual size, smaller, not towering demons at all, she closes that chapter, and shares her knowledge with the next generation. Those metaphors - are what Veronica Mars and other shows lack.

I can't categorize BTVS or rank the episodes. I can no longer tell you which seasons were the best. Or the worste. I can tell you which ones I prefer now. But I know, being me, that will change. It certainly has changed in the last year. While I watched Season 7 - it was my least favorite, I disliked it. And wrote a scathing review of it. Now, three years after the series has concluded. It has become one of my favorite seasons and I own it on DVD. I'm an oddity. Different from everyone on my flist and on whedonesque. Why? Simple. I own the last three seasons of the series, not the first four. And have no interest in buying the first four. Nor do I feel the need to defend my choice to you or explain it. It just is. Well not completely true. I think the reason is that those are the three seasons that I identify with the most emotionally. They speak to me. They fit with my objective reality. And not for the reasons that my friend suggested above, although that does play a part, Marsters is an actor who acts with his whole body, as opposed to just his mouth, and that is a preference of mine in watching actors. No the reason was that in those last three seasons - I felt the writers were hitting on demons I was internally struggling with. I simply identified. And I think, speaking solely for myself here, that is what attracts me to a story be it a book, play, song, poem, movie, tv show or work of art - an emotional identification - something in that work of art speaks to me. It isn't always something I can explain or give voice to, or even consciously understand, but when it speaks to me - I feel the desire to embrace it, hold it close to my heart, cuddle it, and learn from it. When we speak of self-indulgence - that may be my sin, I get overly self-indulgent about cultural things that speak to me. And like a mother tiger will defend them or a mother sea turtle, pull them inside my shell, out of view. Quiet like.

Was going to post something else...but that feels like the best note to leave off on.
Off to sleep.