You Keep Using That Word. I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means

Have you ever been in an argument with your lover, and you (or your lover) has screamed “I FUCKING LOVE YOU!!!” out of some place of rage or sorrow? If so, have you ever reflected upon this incredibly strange notion? It is an odd cocktail of emotional and conceptual discord. The statement is at such tremendous odds with the emphasis, emotions, and context. How can this even be a sincere utterance?

One better. Have you been in a relationship in which your lover professes to love you – and acts towards you in such a fashion that only one who is in love would act – while simultaneously hating everything you say and do? This can be deeply confusing and emotionally distressing. It can make you question your value without any outside markers to grab on to. It is intensely bizarre to be so passionately loved and so wholly disapproved of.

What is happening is that your lover simply does not love the actual you, but their idealized you. As Rhonda Lee Roberts suggests in “Friendly Lovers,” when we first begin to date someone, we fill in the gaps in our knowledge of them with positive information, or at the very least, the information we want to be there. As we slowly grow to learn a person’s true nature, the actual and the idealized versions come together. The greater the difference between the two, the greater the resulting conflict. This happens in each and every relationship if one is too focused on their own perceptions or goals rather than the person sitting at the table across from them. We focus on wanting a relationship to work from our own motivations – loneliness, dependency, need for validation – and we imbue a person with qualities that we have no way of knowing that they even have. We create our lovers in our own image, building conceptual constructs to love us. How deeply disturbed and egotistical is that? Or perhaps it is an optimistic pattern assumption. Humans are a little crazy about that. We look into the night sky, see five stars, and call it a bull. We see what we want to see, and what we want to see is something we can understand. When we look into the eyes of another, we want to see something perfect. We constellatize others, seeing a few key points and imagine a frog, when sometimes, they are a scorpion.

After time, the realities of our lovers emerge. The character traits or habits we glossed over eventually show themselves to be deeply-set and unavoidable. We see them for who they are, and if our mental constructs deviate strongly from the reality, we begin to hate the person for not being who we created them to be. The pipe-dream meets the reality, and we get angry at ourselves for our delusions, but we take it out on our lovers, nonetheless. We try to force them into the mold we made for them, pissing on their agency and autonomy, their right to be themselves. We do everything we can to make it seem as if the problem is theirs, when it is unequivocally ours. It is our expectations they do not live up to, and that is our problem.

The only way to avoid this is to enter a relationship slowly and without a goal. If a person is goal-oriented (I want to get married, I want to feel safe, etc), they are much more likely to try to force a situation, and make the square peg fit into the round hole. If a person is person-oriented (I want to know this person, he/she seems cool, etc.) they are likely to walk into a relationship slowly and with relatively clear vision. Even better, if one enters into a relationship with no expectations, but with a “hey, I’ll give it a shot” attitude, they are most likely to see a person’s faults and, if their differences are irreconcilable, part ways without rancor or drama.

Authentic love can only exist between two people with agency and humanity. Authentic love cannot exist between a person and a fabrication. 

Something Serious, From a Friend

From one of my best friends and brothers, offered without comment:

My name is Ryan Brogan and I have two moms. They are two little sweet old ladies. At 65 and 75 respectively, they are both devout Buddhists with a dedication to each other that I hold as a model in my own life. They are hard working and are currently enjoying their much deserved retirement. I love them both dearly and view them both as my mother. They listen when I talk, banter when I call, and care for me when I need it. I am not saying this to incite or inflame  I am writing this to hopefully give you  a new perspective. They have been married in spirit for many years, but do not enjoy the same legal protections a man and woman would enjoy. I am not here to discuss the religious implications of gay marriage. I am here to discuss the hate, bigotry, and legal ramifications of the anti-gay and anti-gay marriage movement. 

First let me say that when you stereotype or hate homosexuals, you are talking about my mom and not just the one. When you see people out demonstrating against homosexuals, holding up signs that say “GOD HATES FAGS,” they actually believe god hates my moms. They actually want to do harm to my moms. I cannot stand for that. I would not stand for that against any other culture or group and I will certainly not stand for it when they are talking about my mom. People with this view believe that children raised in a homosexual house hold will grow up to be different, maladjusted, or gay. All of these things might be true, but no more so than in any heterosexual house. The use of “traditional household” is biasing and will not be regarded here. 

I am not going to list statistics or facts on heterosexual households. I am not writing this to tear anyone else down. I am writing this to hopefully raise up the standing of homosexual couples. Religion certainly plays a roll in modern marriage, but there is a larger factor in their legal standing in the state. This is the element of homosexual marriage that must be changed. The current standing is a denial of equal rights on a federal level. My parents should be allowed equal standing in the eyes of the law both for good and bad. They should be allowed the tax relief of marriage. The rights of visitation in hospitals. Rights of spousal power of attorney, inheritance, and asset access. These two people are the most important things in this world and I will do anything to protect them. So the next time you hear some one talking about their hatred of fags, homos, queers, or dykes let them know they are talking about Ryan Brogan’s moms and he will not let that stand. 

PS- I debated politicizing this letter and will not do it as it may cheapen the sentiment. However, I will say that one of the leading candidates is staunchly anti “gay marriage.” Again, he is talking about my mom and I can’t tolerate that.

Feel free to share as this is an important topic to me and to us as a nation.

The Importance of Being Shitty

            In "The I Who Says 'We,'" Stacey Ake touches on a concept that I have long adhered to: never trust someone who proclaims to be a good person. If we see ourselves in a shining light, she says, we are presuming we are perfect in light of another’s imperfections. Only when we can see ourselves as imperfect can we have genuine understanding and realistic acceptance of another’s inevitable moments of shittyness.

            We are, all of us, at least kind of shitty. We’ve all hurt someone, or been rude or demanding, ungrateful or snide. We’ve broken someone’s heart and disappointed someone when they’ve needed us. We’re human. We’re imperfect. We’re kind of shitty. This is fine. It is a realistic, fair assessment of ourselves, which is the first step towards personal authenticity, from which springs the ability for all meaningful, lasting relationships. When we recognize our propensity for shittyness, we become more tolerant of shittyness in others. We are less likely to rush to the fundamental attribution error, the term psychologists give to being a self-righteous dick. This error skews a person’s opinion such that they believe their own failings or missteps are due to circumstances, while perceived failures of others are due to the flaws in their character.

            We’ve all done shitty things, so reasonable people believe themselves to be a bit shitty. People who view themselves as good, on the other hand, have explained away the impact of their negative actions. They feel justified and righteous. They are wrong. They are just as shitty as the rest of us, only less cognizant of that fact, which emboldens them into further acts of shittyness. Their lack of repentance shows a lack of self-realization, one that is dangerous to their relationships and to themselves. To boldly move forward without objective self-reflection is to continue to blunder through life without a genuine understanding of how deeply a person can hurt the people in their sphere. And this necessary, genuine, comprehensive, and objective self-reflection will invariably result in the realization that one is, to at least some degree, kind of shitty.

On Expectations

Last night, and event occurred in my life that I had been waiting for and fantasizing about for over twenty years. I was finally able to see my favorite band play live. Dead Can Dance's last tour was over five years ago, and before that, tours were infrequent and out of my ability to attend as a youth. I couldn't attend the previous tour because of extremely tight finances. If there had been a way, I would have made it happen, but it came down to a choice between the concert and rent. I still deliberated, but, ultimately, reason won out.

Since 1991, at age 11, I had determined that I must see Dead Can Dance play live before I could die. I would go looking stylish in a suit, with a beautiful woman on my arm, and I would watch them play, and joy would overwhelm me, tears spilling down my face.

On August 26, 2012, my wife and I arrived at the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall. I was looking stylish in my suit, and my wife looked gorgeous. We were sat through a riveting performance by the percussionist touring with DCD, David Kuckhermann. We were skeptical when he said he was going to perform a song on his tambourine, but it was brilliant. He is a true talent.

Then the moment came. The stage lit, and Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard stepped out from behind the curtains and began weaving their magic. It was a two hour and fifteen minute performance that included three encores. The sound was amazing, perfectly balanced to highlight the brilliant array of both the subtle and the dramatic. All of the performers showed intense mastery and genius.

It was a phenomenal concert.

It was not the concert that I wanted to see.

I knew that my expectations would work against me, so I had tried to limit them. However, they did not play a single one of the dozens of their songs that would have reduced me to sobbing. Only two of the songs they played were more than three albums old, and my deepest emotional attachments are to their earlier work. They played material primarily from their new album and their side projects. I have spent too little time with the new album to have it in my heart, and while I enjoy their side projects (Perry's particularly), their song choices were not the ones that would have resonated with me.

I left the theater stunned at my lack of emotion.

For context, I weep easily at concerts. Something about them moves me tremendously, especially when I have loved a band for a long time. It is not sadness, or even joy, but emotional attachment that affects me so deeply. I bawled when I saw The Cure play "Same Deep Water As You," and when Peter Murphy performed "Marlene Dietrich's Favorite Poem." There are even more ridiculous, less manly events that I can remember. However, at this, my most anticipated concert event, I was left feeling, well, very little.

Don't get me wrong, I feel incredibly fortunate to have seen them play, and I will forever be grateful that I had the chance. I suppose it was what I needed, but not what I wanted. I know this is probably whiny, first-world problemy stuff, but I am very sad. I know that, as artists, they want to play the music they are passionate about, which, with any artist, is their most recent material. The music I want to hear is 20+ years old, and is probably worn very thin for them artistically.

I guess what I am most sad about is the fact that I will never see the concert I want to see.

The fact that the girl sitting next to me smelled of Italian dressing and piss didn't help, either.

Pain

Today is one of those mornings that, when I wake up, I immediately have to reach for the pill bottle. I have to force myself to only take one, to wait and see if one pill is good enough. "I'll wait for half an hour before taking the next," I promise myself. My brows furrow slightly as I stare at the ceiling. I check the time every couple of minutes, hoping for the pain to subside.

Waking up is hard enough, but the pain makes it worse. I start surfacing to consciousness, only for my mind to realize the pain I am in. My immediate reaction is to try to retreat back to sleep, so that I can spend another hour with oblivion, rather than the gnawing in my leg. If I'm lucky, I can return to unconsciousness. If I'm not, the pain will take hold and keep me awake, every twist and turn I make to find some comfort only serving to tear ever deeper into my side. I'm sure there is a metaphor in this about the greater experience of life being merely an uncomfortable search for comfort, or being a path of trials to achieve peace.

The half hour passes. I take another pill. I stare out my window, watching the trees sway and people walk down the sidewalk. A fight breaks out. Two men, three women. One of the men and one of the women drove up in a car to confront my neighbors who live across the street. The man from the car is dressed in a nice button up and slacks, everyone else is in pajamas. They all look like fools, wrestling on the ground. Police come after the couple in the car have departed.

The diversion serves as an anesthetic, but only briefly. As the view outside resolves once again into normalcy. My pill bottle catches my eye. It sits on the window sill, about two feet from my head, which rest on my pillow for the vast majority of my day. It's always there. It needs to be.

Paul Ryan explained

Eight years ago, Paul Ryan opened the Lament Configuration and survived. That pallor and pained look on his face is due to the tight weaving of barbed chains crisscrossing his body underneath his ill-fitting suits. He is simultaneously always on the verge of tears or orgasm (or both). His sweatiness and intense, predatory gaze is due to his constant knowledge that he must harvest souls for the Cenobites, lest he himself be taken to Leviathan. 
His every movement, pain.
His every thought, pleasure.
His every desire, oblivion.

Imagine Love

Imagine being in a loving marriage. You and your spouse have been together for years and have two children. Everything is good; life is hard, you fight sometimes, but that’s the way the world works. It’s real love, and you are happy.

One day, you’re lying in bed, and your spouse turns over to look at you very seriously.

“If you ever leave me, I won’t be happy,” they say. You say it will never happen and give them a hug.

“If you ever leave me, I will put a bullet through each of our children’s heads while you watch. I will lock you in a box with them, to breathe in the gas as they decompose, and to live in the slush of their rotting flesh. I will take you out of the box daily to feed you, and then to beat you to unconsciousness. When I see your eyes glaze over, I will switch the form of physical pain so that it is always fresh and new. If you get sick, I will heal you, only to keep the pain going. You will never come to terms with this. You will be in agony for the rest of your life. Your only company will be the corpses of our children, who died for your refusal to love me. Your every moment will be torture, because I cannot handle the possibility of your refusal of my love.”

You look into your spouse’s eyes and know, beyond doubt, that they are fully willing and capable of doing this. How do you feel?

God commanding your love, with punishment of Hell as the alternative, is disgusting and horrifying. What hideous monster could be so petty to condemn one to an eternity of Hell for ANY transgression? Even if Hitler were to spend a million years in Hell for every life his regime was responsible for ending, not just the Jews, but the Russians, English, Americans, and other Germans who died in World War II, his term in Hell would still only be a fraction of a picosecond when compared to all of Eternity. Is that just? Is that equitable? Who or what could fit such hatred in its heart? God is truly the greatest of all conceivable horrors.

So when people ask me “What if you’re wrong?” about being an atheist, I feel it doesn’t matter. I could not love such a loathsome creature as God. An eternity in Hell would be preferable to the forced act of singing the praises of he who would condemn me there.

If there is a Hell, it could be no worse than Heaven.

Art is Not Democratic

            Richard Wagner was driven by the motivation to create the Gesamtkunswerk, the Total Work of Art. To do so, he sought to tie in aesthetic masterpieces of as many mediums as he could to create his music dramas (he loathed the term “opera”). This entailed beautifully painted sets, amazing costumes, wondrous music, powerful dramas, and built on classic, stirring themes. He was an innovator, and was considered by many to be superhumanly ambitious and a bit of a twat. However, his name remains with us today as a testament to his success. He came as close as anyone had ever come to producing this total work of art.

            Today, artists are able to even more fully realize their multidimensional artistic realities and share them with us in greater numbers than ever before. The Gesamtkunswerk of today, though some may not see it, is the video game. Powerful writing, timeless themes, beautiful visual works, moving musical scores, inspired character designs, and, above all, the involvement of the beholder come together to develop aesthetic impressions that are impossible to create otherwise. A video game allows for the character development of a television series or a novel while sharing the intensity of a film or short story. A great advantage they have is that the main character often acts as a surrogate for the player (possibly more deeply than in any other form), facilitating greater personal involvement in the relationships we see manifest. In some games, the illusion of choice and sense of genuine repercussions allows us to feel as if we truly have an impact on the artistic world we are operating in.

            I truly believe video games can be art. I say “can be,” as not all of them are art, just as not all books or albums are art. Some are products, churned out for profit. A painting of a couple of apples next to a bowl is a painting, not art. A clichéd romance novel hastily congealed via mad lib is a book, not art. Madden NFL 2012 is a video game, not art, no matter how good it is.

            Art and Products abide by different rules, and people must treat them differently as such. This blurred line has become quite evident in the controversy over the ending of Mass Effect 3. The Mass Effect series is widely considered to be art, and rightly so. It has some pretty wonderful writing, great character development, beautiful visuals, excellent music, and great game play. The story is not especially inventive, but few are. It is a compelling version of Campbell’s monomyth, but too similar to Battlestar Gallactica to be considered wholly original. However, it is endearing and involves players on a pretty deep emotional level, which has created a tremendous affection for the series. The last installment moved me to tears on a few occasions with its portrayals of heroism, sacrifice, and despair.

            Now. Even some non-gamers have heard of the storm of controversy of the ending of this series. The game has a few different endings, all equally pretty poor. Many people have listed assertions, both justified and unjustified, ad nauseum, to the weakness of the endings. But that is not what I wish to discuss; you didn’t like the ending, I didn’t like the ending, the horse is dead. What I do have issue with is the bafflingly self-entitled mentality that compels gamers to demand a different ending.

What happens if artists have to listen
to consumers.

            Somehow, people not liking part of a piece of art has inspired some butthurt basement dwellers to start a movement to demand a new ending to the game. I simply can’t even begin to understand the audacity involved in this act. Frankly, it is comparable to a group of people deciding they don’t like Mona Lisa’s smile, and gathering to demand da Vinci’s artistic deference. Or, to take it even further, a vocal minority of fetishists screaming about how the Mona Lisa doesn’t look natural without a ball gag in her mouth.

            The Mona Lisa is what it is. The picture you see IS the idea from which she was created, made real by an artist. The Mona Lisa IS what the Mona Lisa is supposed to be. To proclaim that her smile is too vague and to demand it changed would be destroying the very nature of the artistic integrity of its creation. If part of it sucks, part of it sucks. That’s life. In fact, a fair number of people would say that it is the imperfections of art that define it as art.

            There have been many artistic endeavors that I have been critical of. I adore the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, but felt let down by the ending. I did not complain, I just accepted that it was King’s story that I was privileged to follow and moved on with my life. Despite the fact that I spent roughly $200 and 100+ hours reading it to do so, it never even occurred to me to try to demand a different ending, possibly because I’m not a spoiled little shit.

            Many people have brought up “artists” who caved to public pressure in the past in order to justify their selfish outrage. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle revived Sherlock Holmes ten years after he killed the detective off, assumedly in response to a pissed-off readership, and there is only so much hate mail one can read. Today, the instantaneous communication that the Internet provides lends itself to a far greater capability to annoy the shit out of an artist, making for a much faster turn-around. When Doyle broke down and started writing Holmes again, he became a whore. To explain the severity of this, let me draw a hypothetical comparison. As a married man, I sometimes wish to have sex when my wife does not. If I reacted to her disinterest by demanding her compliance, I would be an awful person, correct? If I created an internet buzz and donated to charity, staging a very public shaming of her lack of desire to fuck me, I would be a phenomenally awful person. If, after all of this, she DID decide to have sex with me, I would not be able to look past the fact that I coerced her into giving me what I wanted, despite her wishes. This is what is called coercive rape, and anyone who could take pleasure from this is a disgusting human being. The strong-arming of Bioware into submission and compliance is the artistic parallel. These assholes are demanding that the company create more or better art for them, whether Bioware wants to or not.

...sexy bitches that they are.

            Simply put: when you use market pressure to demand a work altered, you have rendered that work Not Art. “This creation does not suit my needs; change it” only applies to functional tools. It should NEVER apply to the realized ideal or experience art acts as. To believe that you deserve a good ending to a story is so dishearteningly selfish that, well, that I’m disgusted enough to write an over-long blog entry about it. I could not be more embarrassed to be a gamer if everyone I have ever known simultaneously walked in on me masturbating to ToeJam and Earl.

            I wouldn’t be so disappointed if Bioware had not capitulated and announced that they are looking into creating a better ending in response to customer complaints. This is a travesty of artistic value that has set the status of the artistic value of video games back at least a decade. Mass Effect could have acted as the video game figure of Beethoven, shifting global sentiment of video game creators from artisans to artists.

            This amazing display of self-entitled, first world problem, Monday morning quarterbacking is appalling, and Bioware capitulating to the demand of the populous is to admit that they are selling a product instead of telling a story that exists wholly in the authors’ minds. Art is not democratic. A novel creation is a creation that exists as a whole, and to pick it apart and demand reworking is utterly contrary to the entire mien of artistic character.

            An artist of any medium is not your bitch, as Neil Gaiman rather succinctly puts it. They owe us NOTHING. They develop the vision from their mind into some form that the populous can witness. Once the creation has left the artist, they can no longer control it; it is in the world, born and new, and it will do what it will do.  We can then evaluate their creation any way we choose. We have the right to love it, hate it, be disgusted by it, rub one out to it, whatever we feel is fine. We even have the right to bitch about it. We do not have the right to demand anything more from the artist. To do so is an amazing and disheartening display of arrogance.

            For the record, I accept that it is possible that EA put Bioware into this position by demanding product readiness at a time that Bioware would be unable to deliver. However, if this is the case, you are only hurting Bioware, a great group of artists, by proclaiming loudly to the world that they can’t deliver to the consumer what their corporate masters demand. Who do you think you are hurting? (EA is notorious for releasing incomplete games, which I blame on the rise of DLC usage in today’s gaming, but that’s a rant for another time). If this is the case, I feel desperately for the Bioware team, but to lay blame at their feet is just upsetting to see.

            Personally, I would love to see another ending to the game. I would love for Shepard to have been indoctrinated or something, changing the effects of the end. However, I want Bioware to want it. If they had planned a great controversy to emotionally fuel a greater, real ending that would mimic the initial confusion of the players, that would be outstanding. Otherwise, I’ll feel like I’m fucking a limp body that is just allowing me a hole in order to shut me up and retain access to my bank account.

Facebook Makes you Stupid

Over the past few years, Facebook and other social networking sites have been changing our diet of sensory input. While there are so many things I love about this technology, it is, of course, a mixed bag. As I moved around quite a bit, I have friends strewn across the globe, and I appreciate the ability to converse with them effortlessly. However, the ease of access to and constant barrage of people's untempered thoughts has been changing the way I see friendship and my friends. Our ease of access to each other has, to a degree, devalued friendship. Familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt.

Seriously, I should know better.

I have recently unsubscribed to all of my friend’s newsfeeds. I continue to be on Facebook, probably as much as I was, but in a different way. This was an effort to make communication more meaningful, as I need to take some action to see individuals' status updates, however slight that effort may be. Even in this limited capacity, Facebook is still radically more convenient than any other socialization facilitator the Earth had previously seen.

Overall, this has been pretty helpful. My general mood has improved, and I no longer feel obligated to spend the first hour or so after waking up every day making sure I’ve read every status update that occurred while I slept. I check my friend’s pages when I want, and, when I get pissed off by looking at one of my more radical friend’s feeds, I have no one to blame but myself.

Even with this online reclusiveness, I am still privy to instances of hideous displays of dumb-fuckery. Frankly, Facebook is beginning to resemble a Petri dish full of virulent new strains of stupidity. One of the most baffling tendencies that struck me today was the desire for people to proclaim that they have nothing to proclaim.

"Dear Diary, this page left intentionally blank."

"Hello friend, you have said something that doesn’t matter to me in the slightest."

"For the sake of posterity, I wish it to be known that I am uninvolved with this information."

It's as if someone states "Hey, I have a plate of delicious sandwiches," and someone runs from another room to tell everyone they aren't hungry. Poster is utilizing Facebook well by offering useful information to his or her friends, and then someone replies with utterly useless bullshit.

The phenomena of people who simply wish to hear the sounds of their own digital voice is a novel innovation
of idiocy. In this climate of devalued communication, people don’t seem to embrace the fact that no one gives a shit about what you have to say unless it aligns with what the observer already believes. We only want to hear statements that reinforce our own opinions, and, even if we usually respect a person, if that person deviates from our closely-held dogma, we will rail and scream at them until they agree with us or lose the will to argue.

If you are positing a null position, it becomes painfully obvious that you are simply trying to remind people that you exist without providing any reason for those people to give a fuck about that fact. You are reminding us of exactly how profoundly useless you are. You do yourself a greater disservice than the people whose informational waters you are polluting.

Stop it.

Now, a lot of people might call me a hypocrite on this matter, and I will admit to Facebook pollution. I post a lot of videos, news articles, quotes, and stupid pictures. I post almost all of them from other friends or from reddit. I in no way believe that doing so makes me seem incisive or on the cutting edge of modernity. The crap I regurgitate is nothing new, and is, almost exclusively, NOT original content. (I am fantasizing about changing that, though, hence the reworked blog.) The fact is, I see cute, funny, enlightening, or upsetting things on reddit, and then I post them to my Facebook so that I may engage my friends in conversation about the topic de jour so that I don’t have to talk to the increasingly terrible people on reddit.

Much as my reduced tolerance for idiocy has caused my partial withdrawal from Facebook, my general contempt for redditors has grown unchecked. Were my disgust and disappointment to manifest in physical form, I would explode into some hideous Akira-monster and envelop Neo Tokyo with my hate-fat. Seriously, who downvotes a puppy?