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I accidentally got really philosophical about the human condition
The end of the world the year is always the time for reflection, isn't it? And I realize a lot has changed in fandom over the years, but this year in particular has been rather different in terms of my not writing and fandom dispersing (not in a bad way!) over many different platforms.
The format for interactions may change but nothing in life is static, right? The interactions we have with other people and the relationships we forge will always depend on our own willingness, and not solely the backdrop or medium of LJ versus Tumblr versus Twitter. In a lot of ways, we create our own experiences by making certain decisions. In past years, I've chosen to engage and to invest and it comes with both high cost and high payoff: extremes in both awesome people and interactions as well as the emotional turmoil resulting from wank. This year, I chose not to engage so deeply and so occasionally have felt that distance, the lack of excitement of making new friends and flailing together, but I've also avoided the wank, the overinvestment, the hurt and bitter resentment.
I joke a lot that feelings are the worst and I hate them, but what would our life be without them? How gray would life be without the vividness of joy, love, excitement, or even pain, anger, and jealousy. It's said we should learn how to live in moderation and that is good advice, but sometimes I wonder if we never learn to let go at times, to go to excess, to feel, that maybe we are not living life to its fullest.
But other times I look at my ability to know when to step back, to know when to moderate, and am proud of myself because it means being responsible and having matured and learned from my mistakes. It doesn't mean I don't feel anymore, but that I recognize that the extreme emotions are not worth the price to pay, that there are consequences now. Maybe growing up does mean restricting ourselves in many ways, not to never let loose but to realize that we can - and sometimes should - restrain ourselves because there is more to life than selfish uninhibited feelings.
I guess it's a difference in philosophy. I'm never sure if "live life with no regrets" is that great of a motto. If you think about it, really, there is no life lived without regrets. It's part of life. We live, we fuck up, we regret it, we learn, we grow and move on. "Live life with no regrets" can mean either "do everything, stupid and wild as it may be, so you don't regret not taking that chance later on" or "do nothing stupid and wild, for you may live to regret all your terrible choices later on". I mean, I know it's usually said to mean the former, but surely there is a middle ground where you don't go to every extreme, nor do you hold yourself back from trying new scary things.
In the end, though, death comes to us all, regardless of the kind of life you've lived or kind of life you wished you'd lived. In the end, we only have this one life to do our best with, to experience as intensely as we dare, to not fuck up as much as we fear, to wonder if we know where we're going or wish that we did and to find or lose our way. In the end, death comes to us all, whether or not we're ready for it.
It's kind of beautiful, if you think about it that way: a terrible beauty, maybe, chaotic and imperfect and full of hope and full of fear and moments of joy and misery, and so incredibly human. At our smallest moments, we are so self-centered and so full of cruelty, no charity to be found, and at the same time we are so creative, so innovative, so full of possibility and potential. The human condition, this life we have, it's strange to think about sometimes.
It always comes back to that one Good Omens line for me, that resonates because it's so simply true: It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
And that applies, I think, just as much to our everyday lives, our individual triumphs and tragedies, and so we live this one life that we have, for better or for worse.
Aaand now realizing this was maybe more appropriate for my RL journal, but I'm too lazy to move it since I already just typed all of this up in the draft box. I don't indulge in this morbidly macro worldview all the time, and it's hardly what guides how I live my life, but sometimes...thoughts happen? (Bizarre!)
The original point of this post was really just to link people to this holiday love meme so they could post their names and I could leave them embarrassing notes. :D
holiday love meme 2012
my thread here
Happy Hanukkah!
The format for interactions may change but nothing in life is static, right? The interactions we have with other people and the relationships we forge will always depend on our own willingness, and not solely the backdrop or medium of LJ versus Tumblr versus Twitter. In a lot of ways, we create our own experiences by making certain decisions. In past years, I've chosen to engage and to invest and it comes with both high cost and high payoff: extremes in both awesome people and interactions as well as the emotional turmoil resulting from wank. This year, I chose not to engage so deeply and so occasionally have felt that distance, the lack of excitement of making new friends and flailing together, but I've also avoided the wank, the overinvestment, the hurt and bitter resentment.
I joke a lot that feelings are the worst and I hate them, but what would our life be without them? How gray would life be without the vividness of joy, love, excitement, or even pain, anger, and jealousy. It's said we should learn how to live in moderation and that is good advice, but sometimes I wonder if we never learn to let go at times, to go to excess, to feel, that maybe we are not living life to its fullest.
But other times I look at my ability to know when to step back, to know when to moderate, and am proud of myself because it means being responsible and having matured and learned from my mistakes. It doesn't mean I don't feel anymore, but that I recognize that the extreme emotions are not worth the price to pay, that there are consequences now. Maybe growing up does mean restricting ourselves in many ways, not to never let loose but to realize that we can - and sometimes should - restrain ourselves because there is more to life than selfish uninhibited feelings.
I guess it's a difference in philosophy. I'm never sure if "live life with no regrets" is that great of a motto. If you think about it, really, there is no life lived without regrets. It's part of life. We live, we fuck up, we regret it, we learn, we grow and move on. "Live life with no regrets" can mean either "do everything, stupid and wild as it may be, so you don't regret not taking that chance later on" or "do nothing stupid and wild, for you may live to regret all your terrible choices later on". I mean, I know it's usually said to mean the former, but surely there is a middle ground where you don't go to every extreme, nor do you hold yourself back from trying new scary things.
In the end, though, death comes to us all, regardless of the kind of life you've lived or kind of life you wished you'd lived. In the end, we only have this one life to do our best with, to experience as intensely as we dare, to not fuck up as much as we fear, to wonder if we know where we're going or wish that we did and to find or lose our way. In the end, death comes to us all, whether or not we're ready for it.
It's kind of beautiful, if you think about it that way: a terrible beauty, maybe, chaotic and imperfect and full of hope and full of fear and moments of joy and misery, and so incredibly human. At our smallest moments, we are so self-centered and so full of cruelty, no charity to be found, and at the same time we are so creative, so innovative, so full of possibility and potential. The human condition, this life we have, it's strange to think about sometimes.
It always comes back to that one Good Omens line for me, that resonates because it's so simply true: It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
And that applies, I think, just as much to our everyday lives, our individual triumphs and tragedies, and so we live this one life that we have, for better or for worse.
Aaand now realizing this was maybe more appropriate for my RL journal, but I'm too lazy to move it since I already just typed all of this up in the draft box. I don't indulge in this morbidly macro worldview all the time, and it's hardly what guides how I live my life, but sometimes...thoughts happen? (Bizarre!)
The original point of this post was really just to link people to this holiday love meme so they could post their names and I could leave them embarrassing notes. :D
my thread here
Happy Hanukkah!
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ahhh I am still thinking about what to write for you for the meme. actually I found your name whilst stalking the pages of the meme and felt so proud of myself, and then I realised you'd linked it anyway ...
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I know I sometimes get caught up in my own head. I remember reading a line a book where a character was startled to see someone notice their feelings. The character was surprised and realised that she wasn't the only one observing the world and humanity.
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hah that reminds me of asofterword comic I saw that said "It was a rough couple of days when I realized that other people had feelings too." I think it's easy for all of us to get caught up in our own heads.
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I think it's true that more investment = more enjoyment, but it also means more feelings in general, which include the negative ones when wank is brewing or when things suddenly go sour. Maybe moreso with an "ongoing" canon because of Plot Twists but also sports fandoms because, you know, real life events... (Stupid lockout.)
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And I guess that's how I've been dealing with the lockout! The physical (in terms of staying up late) sacrifices that I have to make to watch NHL hockey made me more apathetic to the fact of no hockey, though I'm still -- in an economic-viability-of-the-NHL/social justice way -- exasperated with the lockout and how negotiations have been progressing.
wrt investment though, I meant it in application to everything I do, not just fandom. and the downsides of going all-out when doing something apply in those areas too, I guess.
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feels kind of horrible but at the same time liberating, i don't feel obligated anymore to follow as much of people's lives as possible, being used to not being able to from busy rl bits. but moderation has been a struggle for me from the start, so learning to back off even this much feels like an accomplishment. i've always been a hoarder. i guess i want to preserve as many of my fandom interactions and connections that i can so even letting go of as little as i have is saddening :\
TOO MANY FEELINGS
;__; mei i just want to visit you and bake and eat and roll around talking about everything and nothing. one of my most often asked questions: WHY ISN'T INSTANT TELEPORTATION POSSIBLE YET
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And I think it's a good balance especially when RL demands more attention or engagement; it can be draining if you're so involved in both RL and fandom. So yay! I'm glad you feel like you are achieving a good moderation. The thing about fandom is that it will always be here and the thing about fandom connections/people is that, well, when we become more than fandom connections/people but actual friends, friendships are (hopefully) relationships don't require 24/7 maintenance. The feelings and investment and understanding are already there! And so we understand when things get busy or what not.
UGH COME TO ME AND LET US ROLL TOGETHER AROUND with food and ridiculous things and my occasional outbursts of OH GOD YOU'RE YOUNGER THAN DYLAN WHAT IS THIS GET AWAY FROM ME
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You make a good point about tumblr-the-fannish-platform helping facilitate your fandom experience, especially since you don't split your LJ into a fannish one versus a personal one. Plus, pretty pictures! I will always love the conversation-facilitating style of LJ posts and comments, but Tumblr definitely has its own pros in terms of better promoting art and gifsets and sort of communal flailing without necessarily being bogged down by Serious Meta.
(I know people do essay and express serious opinions on Tumblr but ngl I will always be resistant because I personally am only there for the pretty pics aslkdfjls and not the long, long text posts. That said, a lot of great things have been able to be passed around easily on Tumblr that fandom might not have otherwise heard about because reblogging is so easy and reaches so many people via public tags. So there are pros in that too. Just...personal preference is usage for pics.)
I am glad to hear that your general fandom experience now is more positive and less resentment! I think my engagement and interest wrt hockey fandom has waned with the lack of hockey; apparently I do need the actual sport to be a happening-thing for me to maintain it as the forefront of my current interests. (I'm sort of that way about football too, except with timezones being what they are, instead of regular seasons I need international competitions. So...World Cup 2014...)
I even spent all day yesterday watching American football and getting invested in the games. Investment comes easily for me, I guess, but also passes easily into the background if not maintained. Not to say I change my loyalties often, so I wouldn't say I'm fickle, probably just very easily distracted... u__u
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it does get hard, though, because sometimes I feel bad about how erratic my friending policy is. but then I suppose it is my prerogative and everything to add people according to how I feel about my, um, first few impressions of them. and I do miss the conversations you can have on LJ (and I guess I've been engaging more on the LJ fandom front too, having decided that if I don't mind terribly if people know about my life, and most of the time they probably scroll anyway) because it's a good way to get to know people! no idea how people accomplish that on tumblr.
tumblr is super great! /has become a true convert. I like how it's a source of lovely things to look at and serious things to read, if I want. it's like this one big conversation - several big conversations - I can dip in and out of and it's ... nice.
goodness, I really don't know what it is about hockey that's kept my interest! maybe your interest will be rekindled whenever the NHL lockout is solved!
hahaha I wouldn't call getting momentarily invested a loyalty thing... sometimes I wonder if the digital age HAS enhanced how easily distractible people are these days.
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I think I've been less internet available than ever before and I don't know why. I can't remember what I've spent so much time doing this year that I didn't have time to keep up with people. I hate losing touch with people especially when it's something I can prevent (probably by being more put together and organised)
I miss interacting with everyone. I also miss being part of fandom but I don't know how to throw myself into it again.
Maybe when I work out what I'm doing with my life I'll become an organised person and reclaim my internet personality. :S
(Ahh dreams.)
Anyway...I am unorganised but doing New Years cards. Just checking that the contact info home address is the right place to send it?
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I hope you've been well! Life can be...life. Such a tautological statement but I really don't know how else to put it. I think mine bears some further thinking in the new year as well.
As for fandom, I haven't been thoroughly in it this year either, but it does take up so much time and effort... Which fandoms are you at least paying attention to - or more accurately, which canons, I suppose?
Indeed, the home address listed in my contact post is correct. ♥
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It is a little awkward jumping back in because I feel like I've missed a lot, but if I don't I miss out on even more and I really don't want to lose touch with you.
Life is life is true unfortunately. 2013 will hopefully be a year of overhaul for me and my life. Mostly job-wise but there are some others things I really want to improve about myself.
Where do you hope to see your life go in 2013?
I really enjoy being in fandom, but I am in total agreement about the time and effort. I love writing for fandom, but it can also be stressful and I require much stress-free me time at the moment. If only fic would flow freely from my brain to publishing copy.
I've been dabbling in Teen Wolf, Star Trek, Kuroko no Basuke and Avengers/Marvel. I dream but don't put pen to paper. And you? Which fandoms are you tracking?
Awesome! Due to the fact that I am working over the Christmas/New Years period (except for a couple of public holidays) I should be able to send cards out when the post office reopens in 2013. I am possibly doing better than I have in previous years due to the fact that I actually have the physical cards and stuff written at this point.
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Stress-free me time is important. ♥ I've been getting that through fandom via reading/lurking, thankfully, and no engagement, but also via books and watching things. Sometimes I miss flailing with people! But that can still happen occasionally. I've mostly been reading Teen Wolf these days, with shades of hockey RPF and whatever else catches my interest - Merlin and HP of late. I tend to be very noncommittal during the holidays. Yuletide fics are out! I also want to catch up on manga.
And no, no writing is happening for me either lol.
♥ We won't let it be awkward! If you don't want to share too much personal stuff on LJ, you can always email me! I'd like to hear about your life, too, whatever you'd like to share.