I used this weekend to recover, from a lot of things. I got some rest and caught up on some stuff and just felt generally more relaxed than I have in a good long while. A really good long while. It didn't feel like a manic phase of my depression, I just felt a little lighter is all. It was nice.
I also managed to get some christmas cooking done. *pause while I wait for at least a few of you to recover from the image of me getting domestic in any way* I made hundreds of rumballs, very tasty rumballs, from the recipe of the bestest ex-mother-in-law in the world who is also one of the best cooks in the world. My fridge has an army of little rumballs all lined up on pans, it's quite cute, I picture them all saluting me whenever I open the fridge.
Had a great weekend of getting naughty pictures taken, and then going all gung ho dressed up to the goth bar. Got hit on by very cute goth jailbait, had a drink bought for me and everything. Nothing happened, just random adorableness.
And as per usual with any downtime, I read a ton of slash. Back onto the Highlander lately as there's a new movie coming out in '07. The whole thing got me thinking about pairings, about crushes and how it seems like there are people who crush on the hero and those who crush on the other guy. I'm to speak solely of the male heroes here as I'm taking about slash specifically, but the same applies for the girls. I crush on the other guy, always have and always will - from childhood crushes on Vinnie Delpino (dougie howser), to Ray (due south), Methos (highlander), Jayne (firefly), Logan (Veronica Mars, though this might have to do with the fact that the "hero" couldn't act worth shit), Spike (vs angel as the hero guy). And you know what all these characters seem to bring to the shows? Greyness.
The hero is someone who, morally, is into the whole western binary opposition black and white thing. Heroes kinda have to be that way, they need to be white hats, they need to believe in something good, and that a "good" side exists, in order to fight for it. They need to live on the white side in order to feel more passionately about their beliefs. I have nothing against this, we need heroes. But I like the guys who introduce the idea that not everything is black and white, the guys who understand that life is often lived in grey and that you're not necessarily a bad person for living in it. In fact, you're usually just a person honest enough to admit that that's where you live. These characters are sometimes more self-aware and empathetic, but they are also more often not doing the right thing. For this reason, and the fact that most of them are really hot, I dig the other guy. Don't ask me to explain all the Dougie/Frasier/Duncan/Simon/Duncan/Angel-loving freaks out there, they have to explain their own crushes :)
I relate to the moral greyness/fuzziness. Don't get me wrong, I've got my limits, I'm not thinking I'm this paragon of neutrality or anything. But...well let's take for example one of the questions on the seduction quiz: "Is it okay to have sex with a married person?" and I always pick a) that depends on so many things, rather than b) no, that's wrong. But in my head, I'm answering a different question: "would you sleep with a married person?" Now, yes it's okay to sleep with a married person who is in an open marriage, that's fine because there's no lying/cheating going on. But even when it is cheating, under certain circumstances I can see myself having sex with a married person. Would I consider it morally right? No. But would I do it? Sure. I have cheated on, been cheated on, and helped other people cheat on. I'm not ragingly proud of this, but I accept it. I'm not flagelating myself constantly about it, nor was I/do I flagelate at the time of committing my sins.
I don't sleep with my friends'lovers/partners (unless they want me to), that's my line at this point. I may flirt shamelessly with their partners, but I flirt shamelessly with everyone.
I'm also very much of the "in my back yard" morality. My best friend is at a low period in her life, and she does something that hurts another person, I understand her. Someone else that I don't know is at a low period in their life, and hurts my best friend, I get very angry - no understanding forthcoming from the Wee Yin. I also accept this hypocritical greyness, I know it's hypocritical but it's still the way I work.
I'm not sure about this, but it may come down to what a very wise stranger on a plane said to me once. We were discussing her 19 year old daughter, who was always fighting for human rights and trying to change the world. I said I remembered being younger and more passionate, fighting hard for all the things I believed in, being considerably more idealistic. And she said "yeah, when I was younger my motto was "fight the power" and now my motto is "pick your battles." But I think for some people out there, it's not an age thing, they keep on fighting, they never stop - that idealism and energy and passion is fueled by the belief that they are right about something, that there is a "right side" and that's beautiful. I mean, sure it can lead to extremist terrorist attacks and wars, but it can also lead to major social change and revolution. Sadly, I just ain't there anymore, if I ever really was.
The grey applies to more than my morality, and for some reason I seem to be coming up against a whole lotta black&white in my life right now. Maybe it's not quite that, maybe it's that I'm coming up against situations where being a grey human, flawed/fuzzy is not being taken into consideration. It's making my head hurt.
I prefer Queer theory to Lesbian/Gay Theory because of the whole fluctuating continuum idea of sexuality in queer, rather than the binary of Gay-Straight. And I have a grey idea of belly dance as well, there is so much variety within the dance and some people have this idea of "belly dance is this" (whatever "this" may be) and they can't accept anyone who interprets the dance differently. For me, tribal dance, especially fusion and goth, is what fits. Just because it's the type that fits for me, doesn't mean that I think goth is the only valid form, or that I don't appreciate the beauty of other forms of the dance. So why others gotta judge? Sorry, just a wee rant there.
Black&white, it's necessary I think - the world needs those passionate people, and how would we know where the middle is, where the spectrum goes to on either side, if we didn't have people living on those ends of the spectrum? Black&white is also great for arguments and discussions, but it's not really where my head lives.
Okay, not sure where all this is going, and I've edited this post a thousand times trying to get it to say what I want (which is why I'm up at 5:00am). Perhaps it's just to say that let's not forget that tis the season not just to celebrate giving/shopping but to celebrate the human beings around us, however flawed or different they may be, in whatever colour they happen to live in.
I also managed to get some christmas cooking done. *pause while I wait for at least a few of you to recover from the image of me getting domestic in any way* I made hundreds of rumballs, very tasty rumballs, from the recipe of the bestest ex-mother-in-law in the world who is also one of the best cooks in the world. My fridge has an army of little rumballs all lined up on pans, it's quite cute, I picture them all saluting me whenever I open the fridge.
Had a great weekend of getting naughty pictures taken, and then going all gung ho dressed up to the goth bar. Got hit on by very cute goth jailbait, had a drink bought for me and everything. Nothing happened, just random adorableness.
And as per usual with any downtime, I read a ton of slash. Back onto the Highlander lately as there's a new movie coming out in '07. The whole thing got me thinking about pairings, about crushes and how it seems like there are people who crush on the hero and those who crush on the other guy. I'm to speak solely of the male heroes here as I'm taking about slash specifically, but the same applies for the girls. I crush on the other guy, always have and always will - from childhood crushes on Vinnie Delpino (dougie howser), to Ray (due south), Methos (highlander), Jayne (firefly), Logan (Veronica Mars, though this might have to do with the fact that the "hero" couldn't act worth shit), Spike (vs angel as the hero guy). And you know what all these characters seem to bring to the shows? Greyness.
The hero is someone who, morally, is into the whole western binary opposition black and white thing. Heroes kinda have to be that way, they need to be white hats, they need to believe in something good, and that a "good" side exists, in order to fight for it. They need to live on the white side in order to feel more passionately about their beliefs. I have nothing against this, we need heroes. But I like the guys who introduce the idea that not everything is black and white, the guys who understand that life is often lived in grey and that you're not necessarily a bad person for living in it. In fact, you're usually just a person honest enough to admit that that's where you live. These characters are sometimes more self-aware and empathetic, but they are also more often not doing the right thing. For this reason, and the fact that most of them are really hot, I dig the other guy. Don't ask me to explain all the Dougie/Frasier/Duncan/Simon/Duncan/Angel-loving freaks out there, they have to explain their own crushes :)
I relate to the moral greyness/fuzziness. Don't get me wrong, I've got my limits, I'm not thinking I'm this paragon of neutrality or anything. But...well let's take for example one of the questions on the seduction quiz: "Is it okay to have sex with a married person?" and I always pick a) that depends on so many things, rather than b) no, that's wrong. But in my head, I'm answering a different question: "would you sleep with a married person?" Now, yes it's okay to sleep with a married person who is in an open marriage, that's fine because there's no lying/cheating going on. But even when it is cheating, under certain circumstances I can see myself having sex with a married person. Would I consider it morally right? No. But would I do it? Sure. I have cheated on, been cheated on, and helped other people cheat on. I'm not ragingly proud of this, but I accept it. I'm not flagelating myself constantly about it, nor was I/do I flagelate at the time of committing my sins.
I don't sleep with my friends'lovers/partners (unless they want me to), that's my line at this point. I may flirt shamelessly with their partners, but I flirt shamelessly with everyone.
I'm also very much of the "in my back yard" morality. My best friend is at a low period in her life, and she does something that hurts another person, I understand her. Someone else that I don't know is at a low period in their life, and hurts my best friend, I get very angry - no understanding forthcoming from the Wee Yin. I also accept this hypocritical greyness, I know it's hypocritical but it's still the way I work.
I'm not sure about this, but it may come down to what a very wise stranger on a plane said to me once. We were discussing her 19 year old daughter, who was always fighting for human rights and trying to change the world. I said I remembered being younger and more passionate, fighting hard for all the things I believed in, being considerably more idealistic. And she said "yeah, when I was younger my motto was "fight the power" and now my motto is "pick your battles." But I think for some people out there, it's not an age thing, they keep on fighting, they never stop - that idealism and energy and passion is fueled by the belief that they are right about something, that there is a "right side" and that's beautiful. I mean, sure it can lead to extremist terrorist attacks and wars, but it can also lead to major social change and revolution. Sadly, I just ain't there anymore, if I ever really was.
The grey applies to more than my morality, and for some reason I seem to be coming up against a whole lotta black&white in my life right now. Maybe it's not quite that, maybe it's that I'm coming up against situations where being a grey human, flawed/fuzzy is not being taken into consideration. It's making my head hurt.
I prefer Queer theory to Lesbian/Gay Theory because of the whole fluctuating continuum idea of sexuality in queer, rather than the binary of Gay-Straight. And I have a grey idea of belly dance as well, there is so much variety within the dance and some people have this idea of "belly dance is this" (whatever "this" may be) and they can't accept anyone who interprets the dance differently. For me, tribal dance, especially fusion and goth, is what fits. Just because it's the type that fits for me, doesn't mean that I think goth is the only valid form, or that I don't appreciate the beauty of other forms of the dance. So why others gotta judge? Sorry, just a wee rant there.
Black&white, it's necessary I think - the world needs those passionate people, and how would we know where the middle is, where the spectrum goes to on either side, if we didn't have people living on those ends of the spectrum? Black&white is also great for arguments and discussions, but it's not really where my head lives.
Okay, not sure where all this is going, and I've edited this post a thousand times trying to get it to say what I want (which is why I'm up at 5:00am). Perhaps it's just to say that let's not forget that tis the season not just to celebrate giving/shopping but to celebrate the human beings around us, however flawed or different they may be, in whatever colour they happen to live in.
5 Comments:
I feel inadequate to follow such a long and reedited passage but here goes. Yes, grey or gray trumps black and white everytime.
I get the feeling that the Middle East quagmire whether it be the Iraq war or the other conflicts in general are very much a product of black and white ideologies (and to open another pandora - I think that is what bothers me about the Western religions, and in fact, senses of traditional behavior...its black and white rectitude come what may; there are exceptions to be sure but on the whole, give me relativism please.
Individuals of the black and white stripe can be exasperating or under some circumstances inspiring but the higher they rise the more likelihood of harm. Somebody once said, Rick Mercer? perhaps, that no one trusted a politician who changed their mind. They were wishy washy. Give us leaders who do waver back and forth, who realize that circumstances change, and on the personal level, give us friends who know that even if it was the black and white that got us noticed in the first place, it is the gray that gives us colour and substance.
Maybe this is why I no longer care about the endings of books...beginnings and endings are black and white but the journey is gray.
I could go on and who knows I might be back.
I wonder if any of grey-prefrence is becuase you don't like being told what to do, which is implicit in the black/white divide. When the answers are given to you, becuase of your moral code or what have you, its much less fun - you lose the process of discovery.
Gray is the knit that stitches the sane people. Rock on.
Hmmm... from where I stand, the White Knight Hero guys scare the bejeezus out of me. They tend to say a lot of things that sound very close to other things... For example:
"The American Way": "is the best and only Way, and other ways are valueless."
"Love is Forever": "but I will only recognize love within certain very narrow parameters. Love between two men, or two women, or two women and a man, for instance, isn't really love. Oh, and if you decide love isn't forever, you're just not Hero material"
Seriously. How is that shit attractive? Being entirely convinced that you are good and right often means being entirely convinced that others are bad and wrong. Don'tcha think? Or perhaps I'm just a big freakin cynic.
See, of course I think grey is generally the more reasonable, realistic, self-aware place to live, but I also don't want to disallow the black&whites their rights - cuz guess what? that would be kinda black&white too.
I wrote the first draft going "oh for fuck's sake, what was so great about Angel and his inability to compromise or be a real human being?" and then toned it down, and then remembered the conversation on the plane, and how I still can envy the passion and idealism that comes from having very strong beliefs and I changed the blog again. I really do want to be able to respect all colours in the spectrum.
But speaking of heroes, I'm actually wondering about doubling back on the whole "same goes for girls" statement. Heroines are maybe different - I think females are represented as more mutable as fictional characters, so the black&white thing isn't as strong in them - which is sorta ridiculous as I know plenty of women who embrace the binary. But also, because the "strong" female hero is in such demand, perhaps we are seeing more binary-loving female characters and considering them "stronger" for having stricter moral codes and having the strengh to battle for their beliefs. In short, seeing them as stronger for being more stereotypically male. I'm not sure about this, but it's kinda got me thinking about it.
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