Yes, I have come to realize that I am a really odd duck indeed. This was no big epiphany today or this week or even this month...it's been a gradual realization. The real question is, when one finally accepts that they haven't grown up to be a swan--but that one has grown up to be just a really ugly duck, what does one do with that knowledge? My eternal gratitude, by the way, to Jon Scieska, who authored the book from which I borrowed my image. I laughed to the point of tears sitting on the steps at the back of Women & Children First books in Chicago many years ago reading it for the first time.Back to my question, what does one do with the knowledge that you're not a swan after all? I don't know if I have more than my share of neurosis or if I'm just more aware and more vocal about them. I have spent a fair amount of time this Advent/Christmas season trying to determine if my Garboesque desire to be alone is a healthy variance and an appropriate understanding of what I really desire or if it is pathological, depressive, sliding towards a complete meltdown.
I'm nearly forty-seven, so hearing the strains of Miss Peggy Lee singing "Is That All There Is?" in the back of my brain as I examine my life may simply be part of the mid-life readjustment - formerly called "crisis" before the downward slide of our country made that term all too common. I have been feeling this way for a bit now.
I remember conversations about my late grandmother. How she defined herself exclusively as a mother and then grandmother so that once the grandchildren were grown she seemed to lose her bearings - finding herself with a life without definition.
In the absence of children who would be producing grandchildren about now, perhaps I have hit that developmental challenge a bit early. I know it is a part of why I have seven animals. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, they keep me alive (in all senses of the word). Their needs demand that I stay on track and not lose myself completely as I sit in my cabin in the woods.
The internet has proven helpful in many ways, but I have found it particularly helpful in tearing down the glossy wall of "celebritism." For example, there's this series of photos "Memba Them?" where we can see current shots of formerly (and some still) famous celebrities. We also are able to learn much more easily where some of these folks have gone to, good or bad. Most of them only got to be "swans" for a little while before sinking back down to duckdom.
Perhaps a bit of our ravenous hunger for tabloids and gossip is a desire to drag everyone back down to duckdom, a cultural backlash against the media driven fairy tale we are always shown. At this point I am realizing that I am much more affected by news of the separation between Susan Sarandan and Tim Robbins than I realized. I was genuinely sad to learn of their break up. Isn't that strange? Why are we affected by these people who are really just images in our lives?
Or are we all really just images in each others' lives? I struggle to experience real connection with people while holding them at arm's length so as not to feel anything that might trigger anxiety. This is the core of my mental illness. This is why this blog, Facebook, e-mail, the Internet is either a really good thing or a really bad thing.
Either it has merely enabled me to create a social network that substitutes for real connection or it actually keeps me connected in the midst of my baggage, without which I would slowly drift into full blown madness. What do you think? Is it just training wheels? Or is it a bicycle?
3 comments:
But Larry, you are such a marvelous duck. What wonderful webbed feet. That little curly-cue in your tail feathers. And that QUACK!
I learned a long time ago I would rather be the best duck I could be, secure in my knowledge of it, than a fake crappy imitation of a swan and constantly insecure about it. If others don't like my duckness...well, as my granny used to say, "They can all just go to hell."
As for social networking, ultimately, I say thank God for it. I can only do so much live time social; then my social clock runs out. I find with my FB friends, I can be real, even if it is real at arms length a little bit. And the real I can do, it actually makes me a little better with the live time stuff.
The trick of course, is that it is not a "substitute" for real connection. It is a new variant of connection. A bicycle, but perhaps a bicycle the likes of which we've never seen until now.
But what it means is one must never let it supplant real connection, but compliment it.
I had but two things that I wished to share with you and your comment readers. The first is the link to an article in the current NEWSWEEK (12/28 & 01/04 a double issue)In it, the idea of celebrity is discussed as it has become, an art form. This new form is displacing other older and established art forms. To me, it was an interesting read.
The second this relates to your discussion of current social networking tools, like Facebook and others. In my life, there have been numerous occations where I have completely changed directions. In some cases, I changed jobs. In others,I have moved my famnily. In each of these changes,I left and lost contact with people that I loved and cared about very much. Face- book has given me a tool to possibly reconnect with some of these people. This year was my 50th year since graduation from High School. In the past months, I have reconnected with many old friends, and some that weren't friends and I cannot remember why. I view Facebook as a good thing. That is not to say that there are "friends" that are a pain in the ass, with all the things they have joined or are involved with in the land of FB. I don't look for 'snowmen', 'hearts', 'pillows', etc. However, I can merely refuse acceptance. In another vein, if they are cluttering my home page with BS postings, I again use the powerful "HIDE" to clean house.
Anyway, I like it, and if you think you are slipping into madness, as your dad, all I can say is, "What's taken you so long??"
I once read an interesting article about celebrity. It said that our brains are hard-wired to be in tribes of between 150 and 200 people. Now that we live such atomized lives there aren't that many people in our "tribe," so to speak. So, what happens is that we adopt celebrities into our circle of friends until we have about the right number. For example, the cast of Ugly Betty is in my tribe, as is Stephen Colbert. I can't wait to see them when I get back to the US. I think that FB and the blog world to the same thing for us. You and so many others are in my tribe. Because these tools allow us to find people of like mind, the stress of being social isn't there. I do enjoy my real life friends. But, I can only take a very small amount of the others. I don't have enough fake in me to last the night and after a couple hours start telling the truth. It's really better for all if I just leave. I think FB is a blessing, as are the blogs. I know that, as with most anything, it can be abused. But, for me it's been all good.
I hope you find the balance you seek. I too would like to be more of a swan. But, I am what I am. You are too. And it is good.
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