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All responses Most smiled responses
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chubby emo. terrible at sega. how can I answer pure lies?
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I forgot i said that, and mostly forget the motivations i had for saying it. but okay. I'll try.
yes, sentimentality has been parcelled out in books and films and mass media at times in varying strengths, I don't think it's really ever been fully divorced from it's emotional base and repackaged for its symbology. I think that is happening more and more, as more and more young people begin to adopt a sentimental persona in the same way the alt crowd once adopted piercings .
this is fuelled by having platforms for that persona. It's a complex thing to put out there and it takes time to craft. enter tumblr. twitter, facebook, wherein the emotional content of your being becomes a fashion accessory.
abstract enough for you?
a commodity is loosely defined as something thats content is more or less self contained and it's value can vary depending on where you get it. As in that laptop model you can get for $50 cheaper at bestbuy. Same guts, only the price varies.
my thinking was and mostly is that we are growing more and more saturated with sentimentality as an emotional tone which survives independent its origins. as in a tumblr stream where we reblog the same sappy sentiment 15,000 times. The sentiment mattering more than the source of it (which we presume to be a human being who felt that thing and had the sense to express it for others).
the original source of the sentiment is lost, obscured and made irrelevant.
this abstraction, once complete, moves sentimentality from an actual emotion or expression of an emotion, into a commodity.
the reason i say this is coming even though it's been a part of movies, music and books forever is those arms of mass media aren't really relevant anymore. They don't feel like part of us anymore. we broke away from them at some point and i think see them as distinct from us. This commodification will be part of us. will be by us.
i wish i could have seen your whole question. -
oh. an easy one. someone always asks the easiest questions. if i had a vagina people would just ask if i do anal. and i could say i'd do anything for the right guy and keep the flirtation going. alas, i have a cock.
love…
romantic love for me has been elusive. I fell into it without any idea how hard it was to find as a teen, and lived that love into the ground over the next decade. then spent another decade mostly alone. During which I followed the well beaten path of idealizing love, raising it up almost as a god--i also did this with "woman" and "flesh". I became a poor man's Cohen. writing drunken poems about love, and the beauty of women but making sure i kept far enough away from both that I didn't have to pollute these ideals with the ugly realities that often accompany them.
I was fortunate to imagine myself in love with a woman who needed exactly what i was giving. To be idealized from a distance. But I was too inexperienced to see why she really needed that--which was so she could prove things to herself about her worthlessness by purposely skulking around being generally vile behind my back while presenting what i needed to my front. it was a symbiotic relationship where we both fed our demons very hearty meals.
when that invariably fell apart, and i saw how ridiculous i had been, how sanitized and clinical (though romantic) my view of love and women had become and it's consequences i think i quietly waged war against love in my own heart. I began to dig into the ugly side of love. the hate, passion, weakness, and games. Once that pedestal was safely tipped I quit caring about love, or believing in it.
I went a profoundly long time this way. things atrophied inside me. blood stopped flowing to all the parts of me and i began a very slow and calculated emotional death which naturally follows giving up on something. The real damage there for me was not the death of the idea of love, rather, the death of the idea i was someone might ever be loved. Oprah would have herself a field day--but thats the truth of it.
but then some ridiculous young woman, with a bent for healing the un-healable saw something in me. We grew closer over time. She respected the distance I needed and used the structure of our relationship (photographer/muse) to wind her way into my heart one simple kindness at a time. Another symbiotic relationship where she has a need to heal and I needed to be healed.
she taught me about love by loving me. She taught me about kindness, grace, warmth and compassion by gently touching the rawest parts of my heart with a steady hand. She undid my elaborate defences by simply not being a threat. She used the power of her genuine acceptance of me as a whole person to dance through the field of mines that no one else could get through. it was magical to watch and when she got inside she liberated me from myself and my big brain and all the bullshit it believed about me.
she made me feel like i mattered. that was love. she made me feel wanted. that was love. she met every single thread of logic my mind put forth with her hands and warmth. that was love. She offered me a way out of my own beliefs but left it up to me to meet that challenge. love. love. a sea of hands and love.
she made meaninglessness meaningless for a time.
love, then, is not so much a thing as a collection of contrasts to things. love fills the empty spaces where hate, isolation, worthlessness, sadness, selfishness, shame, guilt and everything else that threatens to take us down daily used to live. for me it was air to keep breathing. energy to keep living. strength to keep going and a wedge drove deep in my heart that cracked me open--which so far refuses to re-close.
through the choices one person made in earnest, my life was changed. the core way i see life was changed. but that happens every day all around us. people are crushed, cheated, made less, trapped, defeated, broken at the hands of the world and the people who inhabit it every single day. to me love contrast against that. In a world where the easiest thing to do is take from others, to use them, to prey on their weaker selves love is what happens when someone chooses another way. -
Formspring question of the day
asked by Formspringmy beautiful daja (daughter). without question. yes, it's true. I'm one of those parental sterotypes who thinks the chromosomes i gave away (I wasn't using them) are actually more important than my own.
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I kinda suspected. Being that theres only two people paying attention to what im doing here, and you're one of them, and you've self declared as being fucked in the head which is validated by the facts of the case :P
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well thank you "someone". I like what i've seen of your writing. so far, it's all about me. I like that in a writer.
i've played with the idea in the past. i've been blogging for 10 years, and keep about 27 blogs. keep my journals, etc. but I think unless i want to add another career that fails to pay rent to my long list of non-rent-paying efforts--you should see me weave a basket underwater--i should probably just stick to writing for myself. that way i have no expectation of anything, and no heart crushing confrontations with the fickle crowd that drives reality (currently tumblr hipsters i think).
i have considered perhaps making one of those super easy to publish self published books with photos and some writing off my various blogs. but i'm famously bad at deciding what's good and what isn't in my own stuff, so it would likely end up a vanity vanity project.
pleasing almost no one.
i digress. -
asked by mscornchip
it doesn't feel like a shame from here. it feels like a yoke off my neck and the shame for me is not having the cajones to honestly look at my motivations, interests, and whatnot and pull the trigger sooner.
as for my loyalties.. i have very few. I will desecrate the heart, the flesh and the mind pretty much on a whim. probably the only loyalty i really know is to never get stuck in one version of myself, particularly if other's are defining, or playing a role in defining, that self.
i'm glad you like my stuff. seem people either connect or don't, and it's not like im not still posting pictures, so i guess for you--nothing serious will have changed for some time to come. take heart :P -
I just hung on and waited for it to pass. Like bad gas, or something..
no resolutions. some hopes, but i'm not a resolver. -
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the paradox of being a symbolic animal (an infinite symbolic world) in a corporeal body ( a finite, and effectively weak housing ) essentially drives all human activity.
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cuz.. y0 mama rolled over and told me to get up.
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that's a good question, and one i have no ready made answer for.
it does seem, that "Erotica" in the main is comprised of grainy black and whites often poorly exposed or including at least some motion blur.
I imagine that a good part of this is historical. most forms of photography have their beginnings in black and white, naturally.
there are forms of voyeuristic photography mainly coming out of japan that are made up of men going into the public parks which are frequented by couples looking to hook up, and sneaking up beside them with fast film and taking pictures.
to avoid shutter lag, and the use of a flash they end up grainy and black and white will render forms without concern for color problems from low light.
and this is where i think we end up in black and white. three primary reasons.
1. the first mainstream erotica was brought to us by the big name photographers in the 20's and 30s so naturally it's black and white, but many modern photographers have kept that line because black and white is better for form, and pattern (reducing visual elements to their basic forms) and you get photographers like ralph gibson to bring sexy, but also art.
2. black and white is more tolerant of poor light. you don't have to worry about color casts, colors coming apart, color balancing or that swollen purple member color matching.
3. related to #2, i think a lot of "erotica" is shot in natural light settings. because lots of it is home made. natural light = less light = more grain (digital or film) = more color aberrations.
but mainly.. i just think there is a body of work established and most people follow that style, as most things go. we have an established language of erotica and perhaps trying to communicate something to the fringes (and erotica does still fall into the fringes) one might take shortcuts, or easier paths to their audiences rather than trying to refine the medium.
ive been playing with erotic Polaroids and i think it's possible we could see a big shift into that in the next few years. as sentimentality becomes a commodity, then sexuality, then regurgitated en masse.
all those thirteen year old girls on flickr taking nostalgic Polaroids of tea cups and abandoned houses are going to grow up into sexual women at some point, and i can't see them leaving their sentimentality behind when they do. -
two or three days. working up at the cabin, no running water. no choice. but otherwise i feel like death without a shower every day. not sure why.
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she's kinda dropped off my radar, honestly. I hear she's giving up her show and moving into film production and a bunch of other stuff.
i suppose this means i will be attacked by more overtly sentimental well produced but sham story movies like "precious". which, to any thinking person was a direct insult, if not, attack.
I think she will end up getting into politics at some point and eventually be installed as CEO of USA Corp.. er i mean become the first female president.
what else is there for her to do? -
well, i guess that would be a step up from non-existence for him.
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i just, moments ago as i was waiting for this page to load was kissing the top of a line of hair that runs up marla's belly. i was entirely conscious of both my good fortune and the luxury of having my muse standing naked next to me while i browse the internet..
you could say it went well. -
what are my thoughts on anti-depressants? I can't really say because i've never had thoughts on anti-depressants, having never taken them.
what do i think about them? thats a multi-part answer.
first part:
anti-depressants, as people generally consider them (pharmaceuticals) do have a valuable role in our modern world. I've seen people close to me having severe psychic trauma and unable to function in day to day life. simple things like eating and bathing, and driving were impossible under the weight of depression ( and anxiety, it's sister condition ). As a short term aid anti-depressants can act like a tourniquet and stop bleeding and perhaps save a life, or mind. As a long term solution, i'm not sure support that.
having said all that there are other factors at play in most cases--non emergency situations.
part two:
I think people often choose medication over learning. they choose fixing over experiencing. have a pimple, eradicate it. have a hang nail, clip it. job isn't making you happy. swap it. partner is getting fat, throw them out.
as a byproduct of our disposable-convenience focused culture people have lost the ability to withstand situations they dislike. or tolerate less than they want, and can't find satisfaction without every want and whim tended to. in losing this skill, they literally collapse when faced with any sort of legitimate psychic agitation. and through the many mechanisms available today, anti-depressants being one, they can easily spend their entire life avoiding discomfort rather than developing skills and philosophies to cope with, or even grow from it.
it's the mental equivelant of why would you take the stairs when theres an elevator there? because taking the stairs is work. might stink up your pretty dress-shirt with human smells like sweat. might take longer. might make your legs ache. it's just easier to take the elevator.
there's a secondary argument playing in the background for this entire strategy, and that's one of productivity. one of the main motivators to relieving stresses and discomforts immediately, without any inspection, or experiencing them, is it distracts you from being a productive human being in the workforce. and if you're too distracted, you lose your earning power, and the consumer economy loses part of it's lifeblood. so there's immense societal pressure to always be happy, always be moving forward, and always be a fully functioning person. you can't slow down, stall, laze, introspect, or you'll miss the next episode of the bachelor, or worse, under produce in your job for a brief period.
given this pressure, it's not unnatural people respond to disruptions in what they feel is their contentment and their security in life with some anxiety, and a want to end it as quickly as possible.
however, as one ages, the complexity of the problems we face in our lives mature, and if our coping skills fail to mature at pace--when the really big problems come up ( aging, sexual irrelevance, death, sickness, coming face to face with the pointlessness of most of what they lived for ) many of these people are going to be entirely unable to withstand the onslaught and having already spent most their lives on medications, i wonder how they may survive.
you can push the garbage under the bed but eventually it's going to have to be dealt with. and in cases of moderate disturbance i think there are things to be learnt that could prevent or mitigate major disturbances.
third part:
while i don't have time to explain why i think modern culture is creating so many unhappy people, and so many neurotics, I would like to briefly point out that there are many forms of anti-depressants that don't come in a bottle.
living more in line with your bodies original design (exercise), taking care of the physical body (good eating), meaningful relationships with people, fostering curiosity, learning, and really learning to live with fear, hopelessness, and the weight of life, face-kisses, finding a place in your life where you feel you belong and are using your greatest strenghts to their full, and fostering high level neural paths like compassion, empathy, connection, oneness. your brain is a chemical stew, without question, but your thoughts and actions have a direct and tangible impact on what chemicals are in that stew. learn the value of community. learn the power of living in accordance with your body's needs. develop those connections in your mind that release the right chemicals, regularly, and half the battle is won.
i've lived with periodic depression all my life. It has come at a cost to me financially, and probably emotionally. But it's also given me many of my current beliefs, and strengths. and moreover, with each cycle I learn more about myself, my weaknesses, fears, and my understanding about what sort of life i actually want strengthens. The depressions are hard, and i dislike them, but they can still have positive aspects to them.
in the end though, each person must decide where their priorities lie, and while I know i flirt with the devil being an admitted periodically depressed person and not medicating myself.. my priority is on my experience. and that includes the sweet,and the sour. -
thats a question only someone whose never felt the perfect total body happiness of morphine would ask.
yes. seriously.
happiness is just chemistry, so why is that surprising? -
holy smokes that's a random question. normally i'd have something funny to say back but i've been struggling with some personal shit and heavy life issues, so let me just say for clarity that Bea Arthur is one of the foxiest men around.
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