I spend a lot of time wondering what it would be like to be another person; sometimes a certain person, often just another person per se. I'm happy to be who I am, but all the same, I'd like to know what it means that there are all these other people. Why do they have habits and tastes that are different from mine? What are their thoughts, and how do they think them? Why do other people consider something to be good when I don't, and is there any ultimate meaning in this difference? I think my anxiety and constant confusion about the creative process has the same source as these questions. What is the state of an artist in the moment of creation? What makes another person say things I don't say, and do things I don't do?
This thought often turns into an attempt to understand personality. Laying aside the question of the origin of different personalities, which is enough trouble, I want to know what a personality even is, and just how they differ from one another. Do people with different personalities have different feelings and thoughts? Is the bearer of a different personality really different from me, or similar in some crucial way? Do they have a different consciousness? What experiences of life do other people have, and would I recognize them if they could somehow be presented to me?
More than I want to get to know other people in the convntional sense of that phrase, I want to know other people absolutely, the same way I know myself. I don't want to use this knowledge, as is implyed to me by the phrase "get into someone else's head", although I often use the urge as an impetus in fiction writing. The conception doesn't appeal to me for the purpose of greater compassion for others, although I am often lacking in compassion. I just want to know. I feel as though this knowledge would bring me a sense of completion and satisfaction beyond anything else I have experienced. When I dream, I think I get something of it, and that may be one of the reasons I like sleeping as much as I do.
I don't know if what I'm describing is unique, or even uncommon. I have rarely seen this feeling expressed, and yet I doubt that it is special in me. If anyone would like to join me, please let me know. I'm open to a meeting of minds.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
WATCH OUT, SCOOTER
Tonight a man came up to the desk, stood in my peripheral vision and called out, "engarde". From his voice and a brief glance, I knew it was him, so I ducked behind the desk and grabbed a pair of scissors. He disarmed me by saying, "hey, none of that, now." I stood up. Blake greeted me with a firm handshake one-arm embrace combo, and said, "you stole my job."
He was wearing a thin, grey wool two-piece suit, with a tucked-in shirt and leather shoes, all well fitted. He's growing a beard, which has come in thinly but fully, and is closely groomed. His hair was controlled, parted in the middle, of medium length. He has glasses with light-colored frames. He is small, trim, and erect. He comes off as a handsome young scholar, which I suppose he is. He's just moved in with a girl named Chelsea who graduated last year, and whom I know only from my precept on Willa Cather. She's about his size, also blonde, thoughtful and sharp; she stayed rather quiet in class, and seemed like an interesting personality.
Blake invited me to a dinner he was planning for all the members of our class who were still around, and we exchanged phone numbers. Upon his request, I gave him Scott's phone number as well. Then he described how he got mugged back in March, ending with the words, "I've been thinking about it a lot. Next time I'm going to tackle the guy, even with the heavy back pack, and then kick his ass." After that, he showed me how to use a credit card to pick a lock. As he was leaving, he saw an LP of Kind of Blue and asked me to check it out t0 him. "Put on a little music as I put some moves on my lady," he said, walking away.
He was wearing a thin, grey wool two-piece suit, with a tucked-in shirt and leather shoes, all well fitted. He's growing a beard, which has come in thinly but fully, and is closely groomed. His hair was controlled, parted in the middle, of medium length. He has glasses with light-colored frames. He is small, trim, and erect. He comes off as a handsome young scholar, which I suppose he is. He's just moved in with a girl named Chelsea who graduated last year, and whom I know only from my precept on Willa Cather. She's about his size, also blonde, thoughtful and sharp; she stayed rather quiet in class, and seemed like an interesting personality.
Blake invited me to a dinner he was planning for all the members of our class who were still around, and we exchanged phone numbers. Upon his request, I gave him Scott's phone number as well. Then he described how he got mugged back in March, ending with the words, "I've been thinking about it a lot. Next time I'm going to tackle the guy, even with the heavy back pack, and then kick his ass." After that, he showed me how to use a credit card to pick a lock. As he was leaving, he saw an LP of Kind of Blue and asked me to check it out t0 him. "Put on a little music as I put some moves on my lady," he said, walking away.
Monday, September 04, 2006
In Maryland I was oppressed by the looming presence of my parents and the constant reminder of my own childhood. Their tastes hang over the whole house, and you can see them even from the outside.
My mother's failed sense of presentation is apparent: the inaptly placed flower garden and the small gnome at the end of the driveway.
There's Jeff's lingering embarrassment: that red Honda on the edge of their curb, parked nearly all the time.
You can see my father's distance from people: the pathway leading to the front door, which is obstructed by propane tanks.
Inside the house are floral-patterned living room furniture often covered during the day by baskets of clothes taken out of the dryer, in tribute to my father's militant wash schedule; and at night by my prostrate mother, generally with Mulder on her stomach. A vacuum cleaner sits in front of the hearth (which they call a fireplace) on most days, and the table against the wall is taken up by detritus from my mother's job.
The dining room has fruit wallpaper and a flimsy dinner table they've had as far back as I can remember. Jeff always sat against the wall at dinner, and my mother often said to him, "you look good against that wallpaper." She took his picture there many times. In every picture, he's crumpling his face to try to get a laugh. I wouldn't say that he looks especially good against the wallpaper.
The kitchen recently received a Thing in the middle of it, a hundred-pound wooden piece with a large cutting-board surface and numerous small drawers along the sides. The oven and range-hood are a deep black, the counters are white and have a faded color pattern, and the refridgerator is gigantic.
In all three of these rooms, the reigning decorative style might be termed Cluttered Ugly Things.
My mother's bedroom used to be Eric's bedroom, and the mix of their decorations was confusing for me, psychically. My father's bedroom is more austere, and even has a small feeling of solemnity aided by dim lighting and copious dark wooden furniture. The basement is centered around technology: the computer, the television, and the washing machine. Off to one side is the room Jess dubbed the "Bourgeois Bunker"; on the other is Jeff's childhood room, where twenty-six-year-old Jeff still lives, a child.
I felt at home here, but never free. Every room was a reminder of my parents and my childhood. Worst was my own room, so small, full of everything I had accumulated. I tried to re-arrange the room every season, and it never felt right, whether my bed was against the side wall or by the window, a nightstand present or not, my CDs displayed or in binders. I had a television that I rarely used anymore, but whose blank face stared at me all night. My shades were usually drawn, and when they weren't, I had a fine view of the overgrown bushes in front of the house. My bookshelf contained a small library that I found always unsatisfying. My closet opens into the attic.
I could never fully become an adult in this house. I was always reminded of myself as a teenager, all my old habits and thoughts. My parents treated me kindly, for the most part, but their earnest instructiveness and constant attention drained me. The fact that they paid for everything meant that I didn't have to figure out how to do it for myself. Their too practical minds often clashed with my speculative thoughts, and made it so that their advice was always questionable.
My mood in Maryland was winter: my passions were cooled, my habits frozen in place. I could produce no new shoots, and the old dead ones stayed around to mock me.
Here, everything is new and under my control. Anne and I can order our lives and our house as we wish. I have enough time to read, write, and learn German. My job has considerable variety and autonomy, and very little supervision. New Mexico has elaborate skies, rolling land, intricate plants and insects, and beauty. I am working on making my life.
My mother's failed sense of presentation is apparent: the inaptly placed flower garden and the small gnome at the end of the driveway.
There's Jeff's lingering embarrassment: that red Honda on the edge of their curb, parked nearly all the time.
You can see my father's distance from people: the pathway leading to the front door, which is obstructed by propane tanks.
Inside the house are floral-patterned living room furniture often covered during the day by baskets of clothes taken out of the dryer, in tribute to my father's militant wash schedule; and at night by my prostrate mother, generally with Mulder on her stomach. A vacuum cleaner sits in front of the hearth (which they call a fireplace) on most days, and the table against the wall is taken up by detritus from my mother's job.
The dining room has fruit wallpaper and a flimsy dinner table they've had as far back as I can remember. Jeff always sat against the wall at dinner, and my mother often said to him, "you look good against that wallpaper." She took his picture there many times. In every picture, he's crumpling his face to try to get a laugh. I wouldn't say that he looks especially good against the wallpaper.
The kitchen recently received a Thing in the middle of it, a hundred-pound wooden piece with a large cutting-board surface and numerous small drawers along the sides. The oven and range-hood are a deep black, the counters are white and have a faded color pattern, and the refridgerator is gigantic.
In all three of these rooms, the reigning decorative style might be termed Cluttered Ugly Things.
My mother's bedroom used to be Eric's bedroom, and the mix of their decorations was confusing for me, psychically. My father's bedroom is more austere, and even has a small feeling of solemnity aided by dim lighting and copious dark wooden furniture. The basement is centered around technology: the computer, the television, and the washing machine. Off to one side is the room Jess dubbed the "Bourgeois Bunker"; on the other is Jeff's childhood room, where twenty-six-year-old Jeff still lives, a child.
I felt at home here, but never free. Every room was a reminder of my parents and my childhood. Worst was my own room, so small, full of everything I had accumulated. I tried to re-arrange the room every season, and it never felt right, whether my bed was against the side wall or by the window, a nightstand present or not, my CDs displayed or in binders. I had a television that I rarely used anymore, but whose blank face stared at me all night. My shades were usually drawn, and when they weren't, I had a fine view of the overgrown bushes in front of the house. My bookshelf contained a small library that I found always unsatisfying. My closet opens into the attic.
I could never fully become an adult in this house. I was always reminded of myself as a teenager, all my old habits and thoughts. My parents treated me kindly, for the most part, but their earnest instructiveness and constant attention drained me. The fact that they paid for everything meant that I didn't have to figure out how to do it for myself. Their too practical minds often clashed with my speculative thoughts, and made it so that their advice was always questionable.
My mood in Maryland was winter: my passions were cooled, my habits frozen in place. I could produce no new shoots, and the old dead ones stayed around to mock me.
Here, everything is new and under my control. Anne and I can order our lives and our house as we wish. I have enough time to read, write, and learn German. My job has considerable variety and autonomy, and very little supervision. New Mexico has elaborate skies, rolling land, intricate plants and insects, and beauty. I am working on making my life.