Giving old books new looks

So, in the past week I have been rereading a number of books that were a vital part of the latter half of high school for me.  Most of them about queer teens, but that's beside the point.  I have always been fond of re-reading books, for a few different reasons, and I was reminded of this stronger than ever re-reading these books now.

I find that each time I read a book, I get different things from it.  First of all, I tend to skim read a lot, and am not always conscious that I have skipped over a certain passage/paragraph/etc. when I read a book for the second time, I almost always notice little details I didn't see the first time I read it.

But I don't just read my favorite books twice, I buy them, and re-read them over and over.  I have discovered that reading the same book at multiple points in my life I connect with very different parts of the book.  Often times as I'm reading I realize that I have completely passed over or ignored a theme or passage which was vital to my last reading of the book.  Often times, re-reading books gives me great insight into the shifts in outlook that have happened in my life.

Once again, re-reading these books has given me great insight into my own life.  I don't quite know how to explain the insight without going into great detail about a lot of things, but suffice to say, it's time for a change.  It's time to stop settling and get out and live my life.  It's time to Be Alive!

Love

So, I came to my blog to write a history of my relationship/crushes, but, upon using the word love in my title, I decided to totally switch paths, and give you this:

Love

What is love?

What will we do for love?  What should we do for love?

What do we call that place before love, but beyond just "like" or infatuation?

These and other questions of a similar nature have been floating around in my head for a while and even more recently.  To me, love is a feeling when you care for someone to the point that you put their needs on par with your own.  It takes many different forms.  With birth/step family, it doesn't have to mean you like them (siblings often don't) but as a general rule, even if they may not get along easily family members will still look out for each other's basic needs.  With friends/chosen family(meaning chosen siblings/aunts/uncles/parents, not chosen spouses), love generally is accompanied by liking the person a lot, and is, in my opinion, the basis of some of the strongest and longest-lasting relationships we will have in this.  

Finally, I come to the most common use (and misuse) of the word love.  Love in the romantic sense.  Here is where things get tricky.  In my vocabulary, it is possible, even romantically, to love someone without a mutuality to the emotion, but, I reserve (or at least, try to) the phrase "in love with" for when the feeling becomes mutual.  Romantic love, in the individual sense, doesn't seem much different that the love we have for chosen family/friends, other than involving a sexual/sensual attraction to the other person.  When romantic love becomes special is when two people truly fall in love.  In modern vernacular, "falling in love with" has become a way of saying "beginning to love" someone.  I myself have been guilty of this, but have decided that I will make a conscious effort not to use it in that way, because, to me, the phrase "in love with" implies a mutuality, a sense of embarking on the journey of love side-by-side with someone.

This brings me to a question of whether one can be in love with a non-sexual friend.  My gut response is a resounding maybe.  For my own vernacular purposes, I would say that if there is someone, whether or not you are sexually involved with them, whom you place as equally important as yourself in your decisions, and who you would intentionally plan to spend a good chunk of your life living with, that you could say you were in love with them.  Many people wouldn't understand this usage of the phrase, but i think it's totally valid.

Love is a word which has been misused so much in the past that many in the world have no real concept of what it means, or what it should mean.  I recognize that it can and should have different meanings to each and every person, and humbly offer my current definition.  As I said before: love is a feeling when you care for someone to the point that you put their needs on par with your own.  Love compels us to do many things, some better than others.  Love and society often compel us to put the needs/wants/feelings of our significant other (SO) ahead of those of our own.  While this does appear a noble course of action, and is a significant consideration in the art of compromise, which is endlessly important to relationships, I don't consider it a smart or safe way to go through a whole relationship.  If we don't take care of ourselves, we won't be healthy/safe/sane to care for our SO when they truly need it.  I think the best way to approach decisions around the needs/wants/feelings of each person thus: Assess it on a scale of urgency and necessity.  While it might seem slightly harsh and final, and is definitely flexible, I think a good rule of thumb is to prioritize the needs of either over the wants of the other.  Feelings add a dimension to that, because they merely are, and can't be quantified.  I would deal with this by trying to see if there is a need or a want associated with the alleviation of any feelings that you want to change.  When it's a matter of conflicting needs, creative compromise is called for, with no solid rule of thumb.  Conflicting wants are similar, but I would recommend and hope to practice conceding to the wants of a partner more often than fighting for your own, as a strategy to encourage good will in the relationship.  I would not, however, recommend always conceding, as this could create feelings of inequity and resentment.

This doesn't specifically answer any of my questions, but to me it's an important tangent.  There is also a flip side to taking care of the other person above yourself.  The phrase "I'm doing this because I love you" to justify different varieties of harsh treatment, especially in relationships where a power difference exists, has been much maligned, and although I disagree with many of the actions, I don't (anymore) believe that the phrase itself is wrong in many cases.  While I disagree with the actions, often I believe that the parent, or other authority figure truly does care for their charge and is acting out of what they believe to be everyone's best interests.  That being said, that same phrase can be and has been used to justify total abuses of power that are completely self-centered and have nothing to do with the other person's interests.

As for my last question, I shall expand it a bit, and outline my version of the levels of being romantically attracted to someone.  First, there's liking someone.  This is a large category, and, (in light of my realization about the difference between loving and being in love with someone) can be the only step before loving them.  As I said before, love begins when you place their needs on par with yours, so anything before that could be called like .  But there is another option.  Sometimes just used as a synonym for liking, I use the word infatuation to mean something a little different.  In my vocabulary, infatuation is when you "obsessively like" someone.  When you don't necessarily put their needs on the same level with yours, but you do have the feeling of liking them to the point of thinking about them everyday, most of the time.  Beyond either of those, we have love and in love with, which I have already discussed.

Well, this turned out interesting: A blog that I came to, meaning to write about my latest big crush which has been somewhere in the range of liking, infatuation and love, turned into a long, potentially dry rant about the semantics of love.  Part of my purpose with this blog is to allow myself to word vomit with very little filter or editing, and let people take from it what they will, and as such, I'm putting this out there, and hopefully you'll get something out of it.

For the finale of this performance I give two songs:
 

TMI

I love to share.  I love it when people share things with me.  And I don't really have any topics that make me uncomfortable.  What does all this mean?  I don't have a TMI point, or a TMI filter.  I respect when others don't want to share things, but when someone says something and then apologizes because it was TMI, I tell them that anything they want to share with me is fine by me.

I think the idea of TMI is just one of the ways our generation has found to make communication more disconnected. It is part of the growing fad of meaningless drivel and daily pleasantries that pass for conversation in this day and age.  And I say, ENOUGH!  It has gotten to the point where schools are even encouraging more average friendships over the one or two special ones.

If we are to have a meaningful life, it is important to find a network of people we are close to, and who we are comfortable sharing everything with.  The phrase TMI gets in the way of this, making us think that some things aren't meant to be shared.

TMI is particularly prevalent in conversations around sex and sexuality, a phenomenon which I find particularly weird.  I think it's preposterous that our puritanically-based society in America has decided that sex, potentially the most gratifying, connecting, beautiful experience of one's life, is dirty, taboo, and not a proper topic for polite conversation.

I advocate the introduction of the abbreviation TLI or Too Little Information.  It is always up to the person talking to share or not, but sharing, and then, for the sake of others, saying you shared too much, is just silly, in my humble opinion.  And, if it's the person listening saying TMI, SHUT UP, they just cared enough to tell you something personal.  Appreciate that trust, and if anything, thank them for sharing, don't minimize what they said by saying it isn't proper conversation.

I have no idea how to end this, so I leave you with a song:

Thank you...honey?

Narcissism

In an ironic move, I'm posting a blog about not wanting to blog for fear of being narcissistic.  How narcissistic can you get.


I am a selfish person in my head.  I admit that readily and freely, but try not to let it take over my actions.  Our society has an aversion to people tooting their own horn too much.  Granted, with the rise of Facebook, Twitter,  blogging, Plurk, and other such social update websites, that has begun to shift, but in non-virtual life, there is still a definite culture of preference for being humble.


Last night, I started this blog in the interest of sharing my creative writing work in a format that was in-line with modern social interaction.  Now, as I consider the rarity of my moments of inspiration that seed creative endeavors, I am faced with the choice to either let the blog remain stagnant for long periods of time, or blog about my everyday life.  Option #1 is no good, because I have a history of starting accounts on websites, then never using them, and I want to remember, and keep using, this blog.  Option #2 isn't any different than at least 50% of the blogs in the blogosphere, but still makes me a little queasy for the reasons stated above.


Being an actor, I am expected to be, and don't mind being, a bit narcissistic under certain circumstances.  One of the many things I love about live theatre, and one of the reasons I don't want to do film, is the audience-performer dialectic, and the applause.  But even when I perform poetry or music at open mics, where I am actually "playing myself" and feel much more vulnerable, I still feel as though it's my artistic talent, or my deepest feelings which are on display, not just plain old me.  And the thought of putting plain old me on display for the world is scary.


I am so afraid of being judged badly, despite rarely showing it in my acting life, and putting plain old me on display opens me up to judgement for both who I am, and for being narcissistic.  But, I'm writing this, which is just as self-absorbed, if not more, than an account of my daily life, so I guess I'm not that afraid, because, after all I Am What I Am, and so what if I talk about myself, you don't have to read this.


I don't have any answers, really, but I guess, in a way, this post is my answer.  I suppose that occasionally I'll post updates about big events in my day-to-day life, and I know that, every once in a while, I'll do posts like this, fleshing out my ideas on a philosophical/moral issue of my life. And of course, when the inspiration strikes, I'll post my creative work.


cue curtain call music





Performer takes a bow!

When did I become the all-American college kid?

For my inaugural post, I give a poem about one of my three home situations

Grill starting up

Mom prepped dinner

Dad, bro and I played basketball

Brother and I played soccer on the lawn

When did I become the all-American college kid?

I've always had family

a family, a good one

but not like this,

not like every perfect kid

who pays for per college with inheritance

and goes off into the real world

When did I become the all-American college kid?

I left, and my life became normal

complete with dysfunction

and a little brother I love
but who drives me up the wall
When did I become the all-American college kid?

he plays piano badly and loudly
to try and prevent me reading
I move to the porch, and I realize and wonder
When did I become the all-American college kid?