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Contemplating monsters..
Dec. 5th, 2005 05:04 pmSomewhat aggravated today, sinuses making me crazy - god hope not coming down with anything. Bad taste in back of my mouth, slight fullness in the ears, and on and off sinus head-ache all weekend. I think and pray it is merely allergies since I'm getting my flu shot tomorrow - first one ever, tad nervous about it. Almost cancelled it twice. Hasn't helped matters that heat is either on full blast or off completely, ie. I'm either freezing or hot.
Note to self do not try to read and respond to livejournal correspondence while battling a sinus headache - you are bound to misread stuff. Heck, I'm bound to misread stuff in any event, which is why it takes me so long to read books to counter that possibility. I probably should adopt the same process to reading internet posts, but, sigh, who has the time? I admit it, I skim and scan like everyone else. And the eye skips over things, sometimes important things, I suppose. Have gotten into more than one heated debate with someone online, only to discover later that we were arguing at cross-purposes and one or both of us had somehow misread the other one. The majority of disagreements appear to arise over the inability to interpret what someone else is saying, ie. bad reading. Quite embarrassing when one figures it out, or at least it is for me. Some people have very high embarrassement thresholds - ie. very little seems to phase them, I envy these people. Must be nice to be thick-skinned, makes human interaction so much easier. My skin is thicker than it was when I was younger, but considering it was practically translucent back then that's not saying much. Working on thickening it. Not sure the extent that writing online aids or hinders that?
At any rate, was contemplating monsters on the subway tonight, while reading The Samuari's Garden. The book was talking about a leper colony in Japan. One of the characters was relating her tale of how she came to join the colony and how she feared turning into a monster like the other lepers. In some regards, she tells the narrator, I would have honored my family more if I had killed myself. The writer describes this character as beautiful - one side of her face is horribly scarred, portion of her nose missing, her eyelid almost sealed shut, while the other is beautiful. The description reminds me of a Dali painting - which are in my opinion beautiful and ugly at the same time. What struck me while reading the woman's story was how much emphasis her culture placed on looks. Those whose faces are ravaged by the disease are considered monsters. Reminded me also of a few Japanese Anime films I've seen - one still haunts, it was about people who turned into horrendous monsters if they were given a certain drink. Or exposed to something. The idea of a disease or outside agent transforming one's physical aspect into a monsterous visage has always frightened me. Yet at the same time intrigued me. Franz Kafka wrote an excellent short story contemplating how we handle the monsterous or rather transforming into something we consider monsterous. It was called The Metamphorsis and has been analyzed every way imaginable. Literature majors still debate its themes. Yet I wonder about the simple interpretation - the idea that once the man becomes a monster - hideous to look at, a giant cockroach, no one can quite deal with him and his isolated, much like Frankenstein's Monster or the Phantom of the Opera. Except in Franstein and Phantom those monsters are considered threats.
In TV, movies, books - monsters are often shown as evil. If something is ugly or wretched - it is a monster. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer all the ugly monsters, with the possible exception of Clem, were evil. I wondered today if people would have watched the show if the Angel character had looked more like the Master in Season 1? Ugly, batlike? While the beautiful David Boreanze played the evil mastermind instead? Switch them. OR what would have happened if the character of Spike was less pretty, if he was mangled in some way? Would we have been intrigued?
Or Riley looked like Adam and Adam looked like Riley. If you've never watched Buffy, I've probably lost you completely. So will switch tracks - in The Social Animal by Eliot Aronson, Aronson states that social psychologists have determined that people are nicer to "attractive" individuals. They seek them out. Small children were shown pictures of ugly people and pretty people and smiled at the pretty people, screamed at the ugly ones. And when an "attractive" person screws up they are often given the benefit of the doubt over a less "attractive" person. How sad. Considering physical attractiveness really does not show us what lies beneath the surface. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, is a perfect example of an attractive person who was a complete monster. (And if you are a Buffy fan you might argue well Spike and Angel are sort of like Ted Bundy, attractive and pretty but monsters. Not really. When they weren't in vampire face - human they weren't monsterous. Their most monsterous acts were often done when they looked horrendous - in vampire face. Whedon deliberately made their vamps faces ugly when they committed horrible crimes. Why? Why not do it the other way around? In reality, the beautiful person can be evil.)
How do we define a monster? I wondered this when reading The Samurai's Garden. What makes someone monsterous? I feel monsterous when I'm at my most aggravated and selfish. When I am annoyed with people.
And want to kick things. Like now - with a sinus headache coming on. Again. Wish the heat would radiate on.
Sort of chilly. Not cold. More like 58 or 62 in here. In life, the people who scare me the most aren't the ones who necessarily look ugly but the ones I can't read, who care for no one but getting ahead by any means possible. The sociopathic personality. The Ted Bundy's of the world. Yet, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't follow what my senses told me. That if I saw a person with no nose or a deformed face - yes I'd recoil in horror and hate myself a little the next day. Wondering who is the monster, me or the person with the deformed face?
Not sure where this is going. I think this may be a case where the title is more interesting than the entry. Hands are cold. Getting a sweater and going to fix dinner...and maybe take an antihisteme...hopefully find a way to buy theater tickets for my parents without going broke in the process...signing off now.
PS: Anyone know of way to clean a PC hard drive? I want to get rid of my old PC, but have to clean the hard drive first for security reasons.
Note to self do not try to read and respond to livejournal correspondence while battling a sinus headache - you are bound to misread stuff. Heck, I'm bound to misread stuff in any event, which is why it takes me so long to read books to counter that possibility. I probably should adopt the same process to reading internet posts, but, sigh, who has the time? I admit it, I skim and scan like everyone else. And the eye skips over things, sometimes important things, I suppose. Have gotten into more than one heated debate with someone online, only to discover later that we were arguing at cross-purposes and one or both of us had somehow misread the other one. The majority of disagreements appear to arise over the inability to interpret what someone else is saying, ie. bad reading. Quite embarrassing when one figures it out, or at least it is for me. Some people have very high embarrassement thresholds - ie. very little seems to phase them, I envy these people. Must be nice to be thick-skinned, makes human interaction so much easier. My skin is thicker than it was when I was younger, but considering it was practically translucent back then that's not saying much. Working on thickening it. Not sure the extent that writing online aids or hinders that?
At any rate, was contemplating monsters on the subway tonight, while reading The Samuari's Garden. The book was talking about a leper colony in Japan. One of the characters was relating her tale of how she came to join the colony and how she feared turning into a monster like the other lepers. In some regards, she tells the narrator, I would have honored my family more if I had killed myself. The writer describes this character as beautiful - one side of her face is horribly scarred, portion of her nose missing, her eyelid almost sealed shut, while the other is beautiful. The description reminds me of a Dali painting - which are in my opinion beautiful and ugly at the same time. What struck me while reading the woman's story was how much emphasis her culture placed on looks. Those whose faces are ravaged by the disease are considered monsters. Reminded me also of a few Japanese Anime films I've seen - one still haunts, it was about people who turned into horrendous monsters if they were given a certain drink. Or exposed to something. The idea of a disease or outside agent transforming one's physical aspect into a monsterous visage has always frightened me. Yet at the same time intrigued me. Franz Kafka wrote an excellent short story contemplating how we handle the monsterous or rather transforming into something we consider monsterous. It was called The Metamphorsis and has been analyzed every way imaginable. Literature majors still debate its themes. Yet I wonder about the simple interpretation - the idea that once the man becomes a monster - hideous to look at, a giant cockroach, no one can quite deal with him and his isolated, much like Frankenstein's Monster or the Phantom of the Opera. Except in Franstein and Phantom those monsters are considered threats.
In TV, movies, books - monsters are often shown as evil. If something is ugly or wretched - it is a monster. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer all the ugly monsters, with the possible exception of Clem, were evil. I wondered today if people would have watched the show if the Angel character had looked more like the Master in Season 1? Ugly, batlike? While the beautiful David Boreanze played the evil mastermind instead? Switch them. OR what would have happened if the character of Spike was less pretty, if he was mangled in some way? Would we have been intrigued?
Or Riley looked like Adam and Adam looked like Riley. If you've never watched Buffy, I've probably lost you completely. So will switch tracks - in The Social Animal by Eliot Aronson, Aronson states that social psychologists have determined that people are nicer to "attractive" individuals. They seek them out. Small children were shown pictures of ugly people and pretty people and smiled at the pretty people, screamed at the ugly ones. And when an "attractive" person screws up they are often given the benefit of the doubt over a less "attractive" person. How sad. Considering physical attractiveness really does not show us what lies beneath the surface. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, is a perfect example of an attractive person who was a complete monster. (And if you are a Buffy fan you might argue well Spike and Angel are sort of like Ted Bundy, attractive and pretty but monsters. Not really. When they weren't in vampire face - human they weren't monsterous. Their most monsterous acts were often done when they looked horrendous - in vampire face. Whedon deliberately made their vamps faces ugly when they committed horrible crimes. Why? Why not do it the other way around? In reality, the beautiful person can be evil.)
How do we define a monster? I wondered this when reading The Samurai's Garden. What makes someone monsterous? I feel monsterous when I'm at my most aggravated and selfish. When I am annoyed with people.
And want to kick things. Like now - with a sinus headache coming on. Again. Wish the heat would radiate on.
Sort of chilly. Not cold. More like 58 or 62 in here. In life, the people who scare me the most aren't the ones who necessarily look ugly but the ones I can't read, who care for no one but getting ahead by any means possible. The sociopathic personality. The Ted Bundy's of the world. Yet, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't follow what my senses told me. That if I saw a person with no nose or a deformed face - yes I'd recoil in horror and hate myself a little the next day. Wondering who is the monster, me or the person with the deformed face?
Not sure where this is going. I think this may be a case where the title is more interesting than the entry. Hands are cold. Getting a sweater and going to fix dinner...and maybe take an antihisteme...hopefully find a way to buy theater tickets for my parents without going broke in the process...signing off now.
PS: Anyone know of way to clean a PC hard drive? I want to get rid of my old PC, but have to clean the hard drive first for security reasons.
