assorted musings
I say "please" and "thank you" automatically to the baby and the dog and the cat. Hopefully this will stick in munchkin's head as she grows up. ... Neal's stepbrother thought it was funny that I asked his daughter politely to sit down at the table. "You don't need to be polite," he said. "We're family."
I didn't say anything, mostly because I was just flat stunned. One, that's how you teach a kid to be polite, by example; two, kids are also people deserving respect. I still don't know how to react to that line. I really don't. It's all the more important to be polite to people you see and interact with constantly. And how can an adult expect to receive respect if they aren't showing any?
When I was 18, I thought I was pretty smart and one mature kid. Most teenagers are dumb like that, though. Learning that you need to learn is something you come by through practice.
It didn't occur to me for a long time that emotions must be practiced, just like anything else. If I'd realized that earlier, how would I have been different?
Everything I write and draw and do is about where reality, symbol, and perception intersect. I've been consciously playing with this idea for sone ten years, and, I think, unconsciously before that. Only recently have I had the thought that maybe it doesn't actually matter. Life is art, art is life? Modern art fascinates me, because I know I can't really get at all of what the artist meant by it. The interesting part is where it overlaps with what I experience in it.
I found a quote a few years ago that struck me:
At that moment, he realised that he did not exist to her in the same way that he existed in his own perception. She held a copied version, an interpretation of him, filtered through the matrix of her priorities and desires.
Therefore, surely, he only held a copy of her. - K.J. Bishop, from The Etched City
Words aren't an adequate medium of communication, since words mean different things to different people. But they're all we've got to cross that space, so we twist them into shapes to fit as closely as we think we can.
Sophistry and semantics; but that's how we communicate.
Man, it all seems so pompous in black and white on a screen. Hell, it sounds pompous inside my head. I narrate and lecture, repeat and rephrase and play variation on my words. I talk to myself every moment of the day. A part of me observes and records dispassionately; yes, Mom, even in labor, I know you asked me that and I can now answer that in the affirmative.
The kids in my class used to call me a walking dictionary. I was kind of proud of that. I like having as many shades of meaning as I can possibly get.
It's quieter and less chaotic inside my head lately. I'm not always sure what I think about that. It makes me considerably more functional, and I like that. It's also somewhat muted, and I'm not so sure about that. Thinking about three different things at once instead of five is vaguely disconcerting.
I still dream the way I always have, though, in vast elaborate dreamscapes, ancient decaying places, sometimes populated with huge crowds, other times deserted or nearly so. It goes on forever, until I pass into the next region, which also goes on forever.
I rarely dream about my life. I'm glad enough for that.
I think perhaps a lot of my inner world was invisible from the outside. Some things I kept deliberately concealed, because I felt they weren't for sharing, or just because I could; others I just never mentioned because I didn't think I needed to.
I talk to myself; I do it aloud when others are nearby, but I don't bother to voice it when I'm alone. Why waste the breath? I can hear myself just fine. I played this way as a kid, too. If I was playing with other kids, I spoke for the toys I was playing with. If I played alone, my toys still spoke, but I didn't voice the words for them.
I had a game I played when I was bored. I'd look at the wall or the ceiling, and tell myself that that was actually the floor; then I would force my perception to redefine that direction as down, so that everything in the room was stuck to the wall or ceiling. Or, if the ceiling was particularly interestingly shaped, I'd imagine myself walking across the ceiling, climbing over rafters, making my way between the supports of the chandeliers.
I didn't say anything, mostly because I was just flat stunned. One, that's how you teach a kid to be polite, by example; two, kids are also people deserving respect. I still don't know how to react to that line. I really don't. It's all the more important to be polite to people you see and interact with constantly. And how can an adult expect to receive respect if they aren't showing any?
When I was 18, I thought I was pretty smart and one mature kid. Most teenagers are dumb like that, though. Learning that you need to learn is something you come by through practice.
It didn't occur to me for a long time that emotions must be practiced, just like anything else. If I'd realized that earlier, how would I have been different?
Everything I write and draw and do is about where reality, symbol, and perception intersect. I've been consciously playing with this idea for sone ten years, and, I think, unconsciously before that. Only recently have I had the thought that maybe it doesn't actually matter. Life is art, art is life? Modern art fascinates me, because I know I can't really get at all of what the artist meant by it. The interesting part is where it overlaps with what I experience in it.
I found a quote a few years ago that struck me:
At that moment, he realised that he did not exist to her in the same way that he existed in his own perception. She held a copied version, an interpretation of him, filtered through the matrix of her priorities and desires.
Therefore, surely, he only held a copy of her. - K.J. Bishop, from The Etched City
Words aren't an adequate medium of communication, since words mean different things to different people. But they're all we've got to cross that space, so we twist them into shapes to fit as closely as we think we can.
Sophistry and semantics; but that's how we communicate.
Man, it all seems so pompous in black and white on a screen. Hell, it sounds pompous inside my head. I narrate and lecture, repeat and rephrase and play variation on my words. I talk to myself every moment of the day. A part of me observes and records dispassionately; yes, Mom, even in labor, I know you asked me that and I can now answer that in the affirmative.
The kids in my class used to call me a walking dictionary. I was kind of proud of that. I like having as many shades of meaning as I can possibly get.
It's quieter and less chaotic inside my head lately. I'm not always sure what I think about that. It makes me considerably more functional, and I like that. It's also somewhat muted, and I'm not so sure about that. Thinking about three different things at once instead of five is vaguely disconcerting.
I still dream the way I always have, though, in vast elaborate dreamscapes, ancient decaying places, sometimes populated with huge crowds, other times deserted or nearly so. It goes on forever, until I pass into the next region, which also goes on forever.
I rarely dream about my life. I'm glad enough for that.
I think perhaps a lot of my inner world was invisible from the outside. Some things I kept deliberately concealed, because I felt they weren't for sharing, or just because I could; others I just never mentioned because I didn't think I needed to.
I talk to myself; I do it aloud when others are nearby, but I don't bother to voice it when I'm alone. Why waste the breath? I can hear myself just fine. I played this way as a kid, too. If I was playing with other kids, I spoke for the toys I was playing with. If I played alone, my toys still spoke, but I didn't voice the words for them.
I had a game I played when I was bored. I'd look at the wall or the ceiling, and tell myself that that was actually the floor; then I would force my perception to redefine that direction as down, so that everything in the room was stuck to the wall or ceiling. Or, if the ceiling was particularly interestingly shaped, I'd imagine myself walking across the ceiling, climbing over rafters, making my way between the supports of the chandeliers.