Your Mileage May Vary
Aug. 29th, 2009 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSeveral years ago on the All Things Philosophical About BTVS and ATS Board, a poster used to finish all of his posts with the sign-off : YMMV of course. or just YMMV.
I finally asked him - what does YMMV mean?
He responded: Your Mileage May Vary. Then explained that it was car speedometer term, how mileage varies per car and while we're all on the same highway so to speak, our car speedometers will have completely different mileage based on fuel consumption, make of the car, who is driving it, etc. He stated it was used here - because we are metaphorically speaking corresponding on the information superhighway but with completely different takes on the topic. Often contradictory ones.
Today, well not just today, but the past few days reading posts on my live journal correspondence list and responses...this statement "your mileage may vary" seems fitting. One responder even used it.
My hands shake. Every time someone sees them shake - they ask if I am nervous, is there something wrong, am I okay. If their hands shook - it is because they are nervous or low blood sugar, or upset, or sick. Mine shake because it is hereditary. It is caused by something deep inside my brain and I take medication for it. A tick if you will. It's not harmful. Quite a few other people have it. And doctors call it an essential tremor - meaning as one doctor explained, they have no better word for it. Each person who sees the tremor responds differently - based on their own speedometer, or what that speedometer states.
I'm willing to bet that 85% of the disagreements that occur online are due to that little phrase above - your mileage may vary. Except when we interact with each other - we have a tendency to think it doesn't. How can it. We are all driving at 30 miles an hour. We are all driving the same distance. But we are driving different cars, of different makes, and different models. And we ourselves are different.
Have you ever had the experience of seeing a movie with a friend, where you laughed the whole way through and your friend didn't? They left the film angry and offended, while you were grinning and happy? You saw the same movie. In the same theater. At the same time. Neither read reviews. You both chose to see it. But what you perceived was not the same at all. When you entered the movie theater you brought all your baggage with you. Every experience you've had. Every boy or girl you dated. Every job. Every family member. Your body. Heck, you may have been feeling sick that morning.
When you think about it - it would be miraculous if you and your friend both left the movie laughing at the same jokes and loving it. Or maybe not, since we do tend to gravitate towards those who share our perspective on things. Who we have things in common with. And drift away from or exclude or shut-out those who don't. It is not right or wrong, it is human nature. I'm not judging it. Human beings are tribal creatures, cliquish. We want to be around people who share our worldview, who like what we like, who for the most part laugh at the same jokes we laugh at. We don't want to be around someone who is going to criticize us for say laughing at Seinfeild. At least not while we are watching Seinfeild. That's not to say, we don't like disagreement, or seeing another perspective. I think we do. I know I do, or I wouldn't have friended the people I have - who agree with me on certain things, and disagree on others.
It makes sense that they disagree - to expect a guy who lives in England to agree 100% of the time with a girl who lives in NYC, is insane. We are different ages, genders, races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, professions, etc. Our mileage has to vary most of the time.
I remember a conversation I had in 2001 with a couple of women at my workplace during lunch. I'd said that I sometimes wished everybody saw the world as I did, that people agreed with me. I was tired of arguments. The women looked at me and said, well that would be boring if everyone agreed. And if you surrounded yourself with yesmen or yeswomen - then how would you know if you were wrong? How would you learn? How would you challenge your own opinions? You might as well be a hermit or never speak to a soul.
They were right of course. Part of exchanging information and communication - is learning from one another. Expanding one's own knowledge and changing one's mind. Seeing something from another angle.
I've watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, per example, five different ways. 1. by myself with no preconcieved views and no discussion. 2. with people in person. 3. with people online that I discussed it with immediately after each episode, with their perspectives in my head as well as mine. Also while reading fanfic on it - and the fanfic often pushed a view that was not necessarily my own or the creators. 4. Spoiled by people with varying versions of what was going to happen, and watching it with their reviews in my head as I watched and their desires. 5. Unspoiled, with nothing there, knowing nothing, just my own baggage.
I couldn't tell you which was the best approach. What I can tell you is each time I saw a completely different show. I'm rewatching it now and seeing something completely different than what I saw when I watched it with my pal Jacob spoiling me for about fifty percent of the episodes. Or what I saw when I had the voices from the ATPO board bouncing in my head. Or my own baggage. It's almost as if I'm driving down the same highway but with a different car, so am noticing different things? Or going at different speed. My mileage from when I first watched the show and wrote about it, and my mileage now - varies. It's not the same. I am seeing each and every character differently.
It's different to be watching S7 without hating Wood. I don't hate Wood anymore. The character no longer pushes my buttons. I actually sort of find the character funny and he isn't in that many episodes. I thought he was more prevalent then he is, but he's barely there. And when he is, he is interesting, funny, and adds something to each scene. He made Him hilarious and Lessons. I actually like him quite a bit. But when I first watched the season back in 2002-2003, the actor playing Robin Wood for reasons that elude me reminded me of an ex-boss. (No idea why he did, he didn't look anything like him. My ex-boss looked like Ricky Gervais from the British version of The Office. DB Woodside and Ricky Gervais bear absolutely no resemblance to each other. I think for some reason or other, I found him "smug" and "manipulative"?? Don't know. I do know that my friends Doc and Jacob as well as the posting board I was on at the time - probably made me hate the character. In fact I'm positive they did. Doc hated Spike, was a huge Willow/Xander fan, and felt Spike could not be redeemed and was going to die horribly. He would give me the most horrible spoilers and was constantly trying to talk me out of liking the character of Spike. He could not understand how an intelligent woman who loved all the characters, couldn't see that Spike was irredeemable. LOL! Anyhow - Doc ironically was the reason I hated Wood and hated Wood's storyline. I knew how people would react to it, before it aired, because Doc had spoiled me on the episode and told me exactly what would happen. I remember dreading the airing of Lies My Parents Told Me, dreading venturing on the ATPO board, and feeling this overwhelming need to warn a few people - who I had become friendly with not to watch the episode, because I knew it would push their buttons and hurt them. I saw the episode at that time mainly through their eyes.)
Have you ever watched something from another person's or what you perceived to be their perspective? It is actually a good exercise for a writer. Because it pulls you into another pov. The problem with it - is it can feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland or Alice popping through the looking glass. It is disorienting. And you can lose yourself a bit. I remember being quite lost in 2002-2004, not sure which end was up. I was bouncing back and forth between divergent points of view. Lacking confidence in my own. I kept writing metas to somehow ground myself.
Now looking back - I find that I disagree with what I initially saw. And I understand why I saw it the way I did. But what I see now is completely different. It's like I'm watching a new show. I feel confident in my own outlook and perspective. But, at the same time appreciative of the fact that others saw it very differently and why they saw it the way they did. I feel as if it can be seen more than one way. It is as if I am merely traveling down the same highway, but in a different car, with different people and the flowers, while the same, and the houses while the same, look different, because the people I'm with see different things than the others did, as do I. I'm looking at it from another perspective.
That's the great thing about life the ability to revisit events, books, tv shows, movies and see them differently. With different eyes. And with different people. To fall in love with something again, or in love for the first time, or to discover that you don't like it and don't know why you ever did. It is evidence in a way that we do change over time. That we are not stagnant. It is also evidence that we all have unique perspectives, are unique. Different.
Our mileage will differ, it will vary, because we are driving at different speeds and in different cars on this highway and sometimes even on different paths, and different routes - and even different destinations, only passing one another briefly along the way.
[Edited for clarity - 8/30/09]
I finally asked him - what does YMMV mean?
He responded: Your Mileage May Vary. Then explained that it was car speedometer term, how mileage varies per car and while we're all on the same highway so to speak, our car speedometers will have completely different mileage based on fuel consumption, make of the car, who is driving it, etc. He stated it was used here - because we are metaphorically speaking corresponding on the information superhighway but with completely different takes on the topic. Often contradictory ones.
Today, well not just today, but the past few days reading posts on my live journal correspondence list and responses...this statement "your mileage may vary" seems fitting. One responder even used it.
My hands shake. Every time someone sees them shake - they ask if I am nervous, is there something wrong, am I okay. If their hands shook - it is because they are nervous or low blood sugar, or upset, or sick. Mine shake because it is hereditary. It is caused by something deep inside my brain and I take medication for it. A tick if you will. It's not harmful. Quite a few other people have it. And doctors call it an essential tremor - meaning as one doctor explained, they have no better word for it. Each person who sees the tremor responds differently - based on their own speedometer, or what that speedometer states.
I'm willing to bet that 85% of the disagreements that occur online are due to that little phrase above - your mileage may vary. Except when we interact with each other - we have a tendency to think it doesn't. How can it. We are all driving at 30 miles an hour. We are all driving the same distance. But we are driving different cars, of different makes, and different models. And we ourselves are different.
Have you ever had the experience of seeing a movie with a friend, where you laughed the whole way through and your friend didn't? They left the film angry and offended, while you were grinning and happy? You saw the same movie. In the same theater. At the same time. Neither read reviews. You both chose to see it. But what you perceived was not the same at all. When you entered the movie theater you brought all your baggage with you. Every experience you've had. Every boy or girl you dated. Every job. Every family member. Your body. Heck, you may have been feeling sick that morning.
When you think about it - it would be miraculous if you and your friend both left the movie laughing at the same jokes and loving it. Or maybe not, since we do tend to gravitate towards those who share our perspective on things. Who we have things in common with. And drift away from or exclude or shut-out those who don't. It is not right or wrong, it is human nature. I'm not judging it. Human beings are tribal creatures, cliquish. We want to be around people who share our worldview, who like what we like, who for the most part laugh at the same jokes we laugh at. We don't want to be around someone who is going to criticize us for say laughing at Seinfeild. At least not while we are watching Seinfeild. That's not to say, we don't like disagreement, or seeing another perspective. I think we do. I know I do, or I wouldn't have friended the people I have - who agree with me on certain things, and disagree on others.
It makes sense that they disagree - to expect a guy who lives in England to agree 100% of the time with a girl who lives in NYC, is insane. We are different ages, genders, races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, professions, etc. Our mileage has to vary most of the time.
I remember a conversation I had in 2001 with a couple of women at my workplace during lunch. I'd said that I sometimes wished everybody saw the world as I did, that people agreed with me. I was tired of arguments. The women looked at me and said, well that would be boring if everyone agreed. And if you surrounded yourself with yesmen or yeswomen - then how would you know if you were wrong? How would you learn? How would you challenge your own opinions? You might as well be a hermit or never speak to a soul.
They were right of course. Part of exchanging information and communication - is learning from one another. Expanding one's own knowledge and changing one's mind. Seeing something from another angle.
I've watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, per example, five different ways. 1. by myself with no preconcieved views and no discussion. 2. with people in person. 3. with people online that I discussed it with immediately after each episode, with their perspectives in my head as well as mine. Also while reading fanfic on it - and the fanfic often pushed a view that was not necessarily my own or the creators. 4. Spoiled by people with varying versions of what was going to happen, and watching it with their reviews in my head as I watched and their desires. 5. Unspoiled, with nothing there, knowing nothing, just my own baggage.
I couldn't tell you which was the best approach. What I can tell you is each time I saw a completely different show. I'm rewatching it now and seeing something completely different than what I saw when I watched it with my pal Jacob spoiling me for about fifty percent of the episodes. Or what I saw when I had the voices from the ATPO board bouncing in my head. Or my own baggage. It's almost as if I'm driving down the same highway but with a different car, so am noticing different things? Or going at different speed. My mileage from when I first watched the show and wrote about it, and my mileage now - varies. It's not the same. I am seeing each and every character differently.
It's different to be watching S7 without hating Wood. I don't hate Wood anymore. The character no longer pushes my buttons. I actually sort of find the character funny and he isn't in that many episodes. I thought he was more prevalent then he is, but he's barely there. And when he is, he is interesting, funny, and adds something to each scene. He made Him hilarious and Lessons. I actually like him quite a bit. But when I first watched the season back in 2002-2003, the actor playing Robin Wood for reasons that elude me reminded me of an ex-boss. (No idea why he did, he didn't look anything like him. My ex-boss looked like Ricky Gervais from the British version of The Office. DB Woodside and Ricky Gervais bear absolutely no resemblance to each other. I think for some reason or other, I found him "smug" and "manipulative"?? Don't know. I do know that my friends Doc and Jacob as well as the posting board I was on at the time - probably made me hate the character. In fact I'm positive they did. Doc hated Spike, was a huge Willow/Xander fan, and felt Spike could not be redeemed and was going to die horribly. He would give me the most horrible spoilers and was constantly trying to talk me out of liking the character of Spike. He could not understand how an intelligent woman who loved all the characters, couldn't see that Spike was irredeemable. LOL! Anyhow - Doc ironically was the reason I hated Wood and hated Wood's storyline. I knew how people would react to it, before it aired, because Doc had spoiled me on the episode and told me exactly what would happen. I remember dreading the airing of Lies My Parents Told Me, dreading venturing on the ATPO board, and feeling this overwhelming need to warn a few people - who I had become friendly with not to watch the episode, because I knew it would push their buttons and hurt them. I saw the episode at that time mainly through their eyes.)
Have you ever watched something from another person's or what you perceived to be their perspective? It is actually a good exercise for a writer. Because it pulls you into another pov. The problem with it - is it can feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland or Alice popping through the looking glass. It is disorienting. And you can lose yourself a bit. I remember being quite lost in 2002-2004, not sure which end was up. I was bouncing back and forth between divergent points of view. Lacking confidence in my own. I kept writing metas to somehow ground myself.
Now looking back - I find that I disagree with what I initially saw. And I understand why I saw it the way I did. But what I see now is completely different. It's like I'm watching a new show. I feel confident in my own outlook and perspective. But, at the same time appreciative of the fact that others saw it very differently and why they saw it the way they did. I feel as if it can be seen more than one way. It is as if I am merely traveling down the same highway, but in a different car, with different people and the flowers, while the same, and the houses while the same, look different, because the people I'm with see different things than the others did, as do I. I'm looking at it from another perspective.
That's the great thing about life the ability to revisit events, books, tv shows, movies and see them differently. With different eyes. And with different people. To fall in love with something again, or in love for the first time, or to discover that you don't like it and don't know why you ever did. It is evidence in a way that we do change over time. That we are not stagnant. It is also evidence that we all have unique perspectives, are unique. Different.
Our mileage will differ, it will vary, because we are driving at different speeds and in different cars on this highway and sometimes even on different paths, and different routes - and even different destinations, only passing one another briefly along the way.
[Edited for clarity - 8/30/09]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 06:39 am (UTC)And it made me realize that, yeah, there's no One True Way of viewing the series. That everybody brings their own perspective to the show, and everybody's gonna see it slightly differently. Sometimes, they're gonna see it radically differently.
I find it fascinating to read other people's takes. Sometimes, I can see where they're coming from. Other times, I can't. But, hey, it happens. I've read so much meta and discussions that my view of the series is very malleable and often depends on what the context is. *g*
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 09:55 pm (UTC)Oh yes. It sometimes feels as if I am watching something completely different. Just finished watching Sleeper through Showtime, and I really enjoyed Bring on the Night (cried during Buffy's speech at the end of it this round, while the first time I saw it - I didn't.)
And it made me realize that, yeah, there's no One True Way of viewing the series. That everybody brings their own perspective to the show, and everybody's gonna see it slightly differently. Sometimes, they're gonna see it radically differently.
Very much so. Each person brings something different to it.
Like your take on Beneath You speech - "holding myself, expending buckets of salt" - it never occurred to me that he could be talking about masturbation. But I can sort of see that now...having rewatched Season 6 prior to Season 7, without the long break in between, not to mention all the fanfic. Fanfic read between episodes of a tv series can change your perception of it.
I find it fascinating to read other people's takes. Sometimes, I can see where they're coming from. Other times, I can't. But, hey, it happens. I've read so much meta and discussions that my view of the series is very malleable and often depends on what the context is. *g*
Context - I find is everything. If you watch an episode alone, without seeing the others around it - it means one thing. If you watch it then read someone's fanfic, another. Watch it and read meta - say someone who is obsessed with slayer mythology and watching the show from only that angle - as a metaphor about Buffy and her power and nothing else - you'll see just that.
It also depends largely on what is happening in your own life at the time you are watching or reading. If you are depressed, frustrated, etc - all of that adds to the context. What might have pushed your buttons say in 2006, doesn't in say 2009.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 07:31 am (UTC)In reality, we all do watch a different show when we sit down together. One person is watching the Hits My Buttons So Hard It Leaves Holes Show. Another is watching the I'm Seriously Entertained Show. Yet another is watching the I'd Rather Be Watching Football Show. It all gets filtered through who we are, like light through tinted glass.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 05:00 pm (UTC)Also...this is very well put:
"One person is watching this Hits My Buttons So Hard it Leaves Holes! Another is watching I'm Seriously Entertained Show. Yet Another is watching the I'd Rather be Watching Football Show."
Too true. It explains why we are often so bewildered by one another.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 12:25 pm (UTC)When I find myself not reacting, or reacting strongly, I ask myself why that is happening. It generally isn't about the thing, but me. I see that in fandom too, and real life. The other day a neighbour reacted strongly to something the kid's school bus driver said, and I didn't even realize it would make her angry. I hadn't reacted to it at all. I thought of fandom immediately because I've seen that so often there.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 04:30 pm (UTC)Yes. It also will be affected by other things, such as diet, illness, and other stuff. My tremor got really bad between 2001-2003, before I finally got medication to control it. The medication combined with something else I was taking, almost sent me into a clinical depression. So scaled way back, and then got diagnosed as gluten sensitive - when I went off the glutens, the tremor got better. A lot better. But it is aggravated at times. When I get really upset - I can't type.
And it is totally hereditary. My brother tells me smoking keeps his in check - which is why he struggles going off of it.
Personally, I found how people see a particular thing, tv show book, sickness fascinating. What it tells us about them is sometimes more interesting than the thing they are reacting too.
Agreed. And bewildering at times...hee.
When I find myself not reacting, or reacting strongly, I ask myself why that is happening. It generally isn't about the thing, but me. I see that in fandom too, and real life. The other day a neighbour reacted strongly to something the kid's school bus driver said, and I didn't even realize it would make her angry. I hadn't reacted to it at all. I thought of fandom immediately because I've seen that so often there.
One of the secretaries at work once stated in frustration - "there's no knowing what triggers people". Too true. People are walking landmines.
For example, about five or six months ago, I finally realized that several people on my flist were inadvertently pushing one of my buttons and pushing it really really hard - it had zip to do with them, of course, - it was associated with a complicated, difficult and painful relationship with my brother. They were, without realizing it, replaying painful arguments I had had with my brother on similar topics and hitting a raw wound.
That realization is why I now try to post warnings in front of all metas on my lj and talk about triggers. We don't always know why something pisses us off or why it makes us happy.
Or why someone else's reaction to something we love, pisses us off. Often it is the feeling that someone is judging us in a negative way for something we love that makes us the most angry.
Example from fandom: someone who tells you that your love of Supernatural is wrong, because it is a sexist show. So you are endorsing that sexism by loving it.
Or another one: If you love Spike, you obviously have a thing for bad boyfriends.
It's, I think, that judgement that upsets so many of us. Which is why that poster ended his posts with YMMV. It was a protective device. Sort of like saying - if you tolerate my views, I'll tolerate yours.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 05:25 pm (UTC)That is one of my fav things, watching someone who hates the totality of a show, just go on and on about the hate, and just doesn't stop watching. I don't get that either. Life is too short to watch or read what you hate. I wonder what it is about them that they need to do that. That's what I end up questioning.
I don't look at/toward most of the SPN fandom, it's either porn or hate. Often at the same time LOL. Fandoms can ruin a show if you let them!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 09:32 pm (UTC)to push drugs on patients as opposed to other methods. I fired one doctor who did this - almost destroyed my body and got really sick because of the drugs he kept throwing at me.
That is one of my fav things, watching someone who hates the totality of a show, just go on and on about the hate, and just doesn't stop watching. I don't get that either. Life is too short to watch or read what you hate.
Agreed. I don't understand the group at TWOP who keep whinging about Buffy, the show ended five years ago people. I mean I adore it and it makes me happy. But shows I can't stand or I hate? I avoid or forget. I despise the show Everybody Loves Raymond for example, but I know people who adore it. Why go on about it?
I also agree about SPN. I enjoy the show. It's very noir and fits beautifully within the horror noir genre, which I happen to like. I just avoid the fandom, which is sort of crazy.
Fandoms can ruin a show if you let them!
Too true. I've learned how to avoid the portions of the fandom that do that. I remember when I posted on the Angel's Soul and ATPO boards, how I used to just avoid reading certain posters. It made life easier.
Life is too short to let your blood pressure skyrocket over an lj or internet post on a tv show or book.
Granted I've been known to rant about a book or tv show on occassion, but if I really hate it? I let go of it. The Twilight novels are a great example. They aren't my cup of tea, so I haven't bothered to read them or buy them. But my cousin loves them as do others on my flist...so (shrugs) no big. I love stuff they hate. Makes life interesting.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-02 06:46 pm (UTC)