why is it that odd numbers seem more random than even numbers?
I'm accruing family members at a slow but steady pace: My mom and Doogie a few days ago, John and his girlfriend Heidi tomorrow, and my dad on Thursday. Managed to contract a nasty stomach virus and lose 10 pounds though I'm sure they'll be back just as fast. Felt like a real person with a home and a family today while cooking Indian food with my mom at my childhood home (the Despain's) and listening to Doogie talk about a concept for a short story he has involving radioactive carrots and an antimatter generator powered by sustained steady conflict between Chuck Norris and Mr. T.
There are two places I feel safe and loved and at home in in this world, and they are the Despain's and the Routt's. My mom's best friend's house and my best friend's house.
Moving on:
Have you ever found yourself doing something weird, quirky, or counterproductive just because it made you feel like a character in a book, movie, song, show, or play? This entry is about why we do that.
This is a follow-up to the nemesis/archenemy entry: Even though I posted that, I knew there was something about it that really bothered me, and while talking to my much more intelligent sister Claire I think I figured it out.
The problems with the Nemesis/Archenemy thing are as follows:
1. It is not necessarily true for everyone. This is not that big of a problem, because lots of things that are not exactly true can help us to make sense of our lives, and lots of analogies that break down under scrutiny work to illustrate a certain concept. It doesn’t really matter if you have a clearly identified nemesis and archenemy or not, but these ideas may help us to understand some of our more complex interpersonal relationships, and as long as we don’t expect anything else from the idea, that’s fine.
2. The other problem is a bigger one that I’ve noticed with lots of people in all aspects of my life: People narrative-izing their lives. I know we all do this sometimes, where we imagine ourselves as actors or stars or protagonists or whatever; we imagine how scenes of our lives would play out if they were dramatized, or how they would look from these camera angles, or what music would be playing, or whatever. And I think this can be fun in some ways; it can even be productive and helpful to view our lives from an outsider's perspective and help us gain new understanding. However, it can also be very dangerous and scary, and here is why:
a. It leads to the expectation that the story of your life is being narrated or controlled by some outside force who will ensure that everything will turn out right in the end, which is sad and disappointing, and also egocentric and
b. It leads you to make decisions based on what would make the better story, rather than what makes the most sense in the real world.
This is the one that I think is the real killer, and the one I’ve seen happen the most. There have been times in my life where I’ve found myself doing really odd absurd things just because it makes me feel like Amélie or Holly Golightly or Margot Tenenbaum or whoever and this is kind of terrifying and postmodern in the worst way. We all know people like that, who care more about being good characters than about being good people, and they're both kind of attractive and also insufferable in their delusions. They're all bright lights and pretty colors with no substance in real life. Alternatively, I think people sometimes make really big decisions in life based on what would make the best story: For example, they stay in relationships “for love” because in a movie, that’s what would make the better story, and if you view your life like it’s going to be archived, and you live it according to what will be the most entertaining to viewers/readers/whatever in the future, you make decisions based on the wrong set of criteria, because the point of our lives isn’t to be entertaining, it’s to be good, happy people. A lot of the time good, happy people don’t necessarily make particularly good stories (unless maybe you’re really interested in documentaries, which I happen to be).
c. People who do this tend to also cast other people in their lives in “roles” which is lame and leads to unhealthy relationships. The best example I can think of this is one time this summer when Meg and I were riding on a trailer containing a jet ski in Austin and I was talking about someone and referred to them as my “something” friend (artsy, spontaneous, snobby, silly, stable, whatever) and Meg got really pissed and was like, “Why do you always do that? You always refer to your friends that way, like they just do one thing, and it’s so stupid. Your friends can be more than one thing to you.” And at the time it seemed like a really weird thing to get mad about and I couldn’t figure out why she was so upset, but it makes sense now: I was casting my friends in roles that may or may not have been an accurate representation of who and what they actually were in my life. You come to expect people to be certain things to you and then feel somehow let down when they are in fact complex multi-dimensional human beings who cannot be predicted rather than characters on the fucking Real World. My friends were themselves, not the caricatures of themselves I was making them out to be. I was dramatizing my life. This is where casting people in your life as your "nemesis" or your "archenemy" comes in, and why it bothered me.
I think narrative-izing your life this way is what it ultimately means to be a drama queen. This is why it's so intensely obnoxious.
Also, drama queens tend to lie a lot. Not major lies, just tiny lies to make the story better.
This is scary as shit and hugely unhealthy and I am going to get over it before I’m done growing up.
Don't get me wrong: I think stories are hugely important and relevant and worthy. They can be intensely powerful tools for helping us to share and understand everything about our lives, and they should be duly appreciated. I just think they should be appreciated as stories and not confused with real life.
There are two places I feel safe and loved and at home in in this world, and they are the Despain's and the Routt's. My mom's best friend's house and my best friend's house.
Moving on:
Have you ever found yourself doing something weird, quirky, or counterproductive just because it made you feel like a character in a book, movie, song, show, or play? This entry is about why we do that.
This is a follow-up to the nemesis/archenemy entry: Even though I posted that, I knew there was something about it that really bothered me, and while talking to my much more intelligent sister Claire I think I figured it out.
The problems with the Nemesis/Archenemy thing are as follows:
1. It is not necessarily true for everyone. This is not that big of a problem, because lots of things that are not exactly true can help us to make sense of our lives, and lots of analogies that break down under scrutiny work to illustrate a certain concept. It doesn’t really matter if you have a clearly identified nemesis and archenemy or not, but these ideas may help us to understand some of our more complex interpersonal relationships, and as long as we don’t expect anything else from the idea, that’s fine.
2. The other problem is a bigger one that I’ve noticed with lots of people in all aspects of my life: People narrative-izing their lives. I know we all do this sometimes, where we imagine ourselves as actors or stars or protagonists or whatever; we imagine how scenes of our lives would play out if they were dramatized, or how they would look from these camera angles, or what music would be playing, or whatever. And I think this can be fun in some ways; it can even be productive and helpful to view our lives from an outsider's perspective and help us gain new understanding. However, it can also be very dangerous and scary, and here is why:
a. It leads to the expectation that the story of your life is being narrated or controlled by some outside force who will ensure that everything will turn out right in the end, which is sad and disappointing, and also egocentric and
b. It leads you to make decisions based on what would make the better story, rather than what makes the most sense in the real world.
This is the one that I think is the real killer, and the one I’ve seen happen the most. There have been times in my life where I’ve found myself doing really odd absurd things just because it makes me feel like Amélie or Holly Golightly or Margot Tenenbaum or whoever and this is kind of terrifying and postmodern in the worst way. We all know people like that, who care more about being good characters than about being good people, and they're both kind of attractive and also insufferable in their delusions. They're all bright lights and pretty colors with no substance in real life. Alternatively, I think people sometimes make really big decisions in life based on what would make the best story: For example, they stay in relationships “for love” because in a movie, that’s what would make the better story, and if you view your life like it’s going to be archived, and you live it according to what will be the most entertaining to viewers/readers/whatever in the future, you make decisions based on the wrong set of criteria, because the point of our lives isn’t to be entertaining, it’s to be good, happy people. A lot of the time good, happy people don’t necessarily make particularly good stories (unless maybe you’re really interested in documentaries, which I happen to be).
c. People who do this tend to also cast other people in their lives in “roles” which is lame and leads to unhealthy relationships. The best example I can think of this is one time this summer when Meg and I were riding on a trailer containing a jet ski in Austin and I was talking about someone and referred to them as my “something” friend (artsy, spontaneous, snobby, silly, stable, whatever) and Meg got really pissed and was like, “Why do you always do that? You always refer to your friends that way, like they just do one thing, and it’s so stupid. Your friends can be more than one thing to you.” And at the time it seemed like a really weird thing to get mad about and I couldn’t figure out why she was so upset, but it makes sense now: I was casting my friends in roles that may or may not have been an accurate representation of who and what they actually were in my life. You come to expect people to be certain things to you and then feel somehow let down when they are in fact complex multi-dimensional human beings who cannot be predicted rather than characters on the fucking Real World. My friends were themselves, not the caricatures of themselves I was making them out to be. I was dramatizing my life. This is where casting people in your life as your "nemesis" or your "archenemy" comes in, and why it bothered me.
I think narrative-izing your life this way is what it ultimately means to be a drama queen. This is why it's so intensely obnoxious.
Also, drama queens tend to lie a lot. Not major lies, just tiny lies to make the story better.
This is scary as shit and hugely unhealthy and I am going to get over it before I’m done growing up.
Don't get me wrong: I think stories are hugely important and relevant and worthy. They can be intensely powerful tools for helping us to share and understand everything about our lives, and they should be duly appreciated. I just think they should be appreciated as stories and not confused with real life.