I wanted to tell them: freedom is a length of rope, God wants you to hang yourself with it.

[momebie]

I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Oh, I had the usual string of dream jobs on hold: astronaut, paleontologist, famous author, etc. I just never actualized them in my mind as solid possibilities. I was mimicking the people around me, as all children do. Until about the age of 17 it didn’t occur to me that I might live through my senior year of high school. It’s not that I was suicidal—that came later—it was merely that the idea of being an independent human being, separate of the structures I’d built for myself, didn’t appeal to me. So I dismissed the thought. Time would stop.

Of course, time didn’t stop. In the last ten years I’ve gone from ignoring the idea of the future to dwelling on it too intently. I can’t sleep some nights. (I didn’t sleep last night, which is why you’re getting this instead of more fiction.) There’s a tag in this journal for ‘the dreaded future’ for a very good reason. The future terrifies me. It terrifies me because everything is going to change and I am going to have to be the one to make some of those changes and I am ultimately responsible for where I end up. That crushing responsibility, above all else, is what I believe in now.

I took a lot of philosophy and religion classes in college. It was the only way to productively work through my fear of free will and how it related (poorly) to my Calvinist theological upbringing. If things are predestined and predetermined, why spend so much time dragging myself through life? I still haven’t found a reliable answer to that one. My solution was to eschew theology altogether, which is a tailspin of a feeling if you were raised with all of the comforting, violent, gilded words of a specific religion.

At that point it was the existentialists that caught me. In them I found the desperate explanation of life that I’d been looking for. It’s all on me. Regardless of whether there are gods in the sky or the earth or the perfume ads they stuff into women’s magazines, I’m still responsible for myself. I have to create a meaning. I have to create myself every day. Every day. Sartre is my boyfriend and Camus is my mistress and even though it means that sometimes I don’t sleep at night, I’m most comfortable when living through the illusion that I’m in control.

And it is an illusion. The world is large and dense and sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter how much of a path I manage to forge through the brambles, the Universe can come through and just as easily drown me out through no fault of my own. As a child I was taught that it happened to the people Noah didn’t have room for. It can happen to me. So even though I’ve built myself a world of lonely, commanding words, I have to leave room for eventualities. I’m not hedging my bets as much as it sounds like I might be, but in a lot of ways I still am and always will be a little girl, pretending to know what I want to be when I grow up.

There’s a tattoo I’ve been planning for several years now. And those of you who know me will raise your eyebrows and go ‘a tattoo? you want every tattoo’, which is true, but this one is special. This one I’m reserving for a moment when I take one of those large, startling leaps. Right now I go back and forth between deciding whether I want to get it when I move across country or when I graduate grad school. Both are things I’m feeling compelled to do. (Don’t you find that sometimes, as you’re making your way through life, certain decisions feel like they travel in well worn grooves in your soul? They come to you and you wonder in what life you’d ever choose the other option?) I haven’t settled on a design, but I know exactly what it will say.

Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future.

It’s a quote from the Alan Moore comic Watchmen. (Yeah, not only am I an insufferable pretentious douchebag, but I’m also an insufferable pretentious comic book geek. You all probably noticed that by now, though. I just really like Batman, okay?) I wish I could share the panel the line comes from with you, but I don’t have my copy on me and my quick Google search hasn’t turned it up. (Thanks to edincoat it's now at the bottom of the post!) Long story short, one of the characters realizes time as being simultaneous, so he doesn’t feel he’s moving through it linearly so much as bumping up against events as they happen at all points. And I don’t have a giant blue penis, but sometimes, in spite of everything I believe about making me me, that’s how I feel. I’m a blank slate. I’m an ornate statue. I’m a weather worn, pock marked rock. I've blinked out.

I am already who I’ve made myself, and sometimes that futility will just keep you up nights.




This post was written for Topic 25: Uncarved Block at therealljidol. I know there's been a lot of meta lately about fiction vs. non-fiction and how some people feel like they don't really get to know those of us who write fiction. I'd be interested in knowing if you feel like this tells you more about me than my fiction did. As always, I welcome all comments and questions.

Comments

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

I like the end point reference to Watchmen because it took me to an unexpected place. Nicely done!

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it could do that. My brain is very weary from lack of sleep. :p

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

Imagining you as Dr Manhattan is a pretty funny mental picture, not going to lie.

I feel a bit more like Dan. I'm there because I used to take action but now I feel kind of flabby and looking for a reason to just be a badass. :/

[brilligspoons.livejournal.com]

In answer to your question at the bottom there - yes, I do feel like I know a bit more about you than I did before for reading this (and I've known you for a while now). There's no filter - there's just you, and your perceptions, and your journey, and it's beautiful.

[tentaclecore]

I personally hold the opinion that fiction tells us more about the author than nonfiction-- for one, it's harder to lie about who we are with fiction, because the bits and pieces are much harder to disguise. With non-fiction, one can twist things with conscious effort and no one will be able to spot the difference.

However in saying that, yes this entry is definitely a clearer look into your psyche than your fictional entries-- but that is because I am trusting that you are telling the truth, and that this is an honest desire to express yourself to the world at large. If someone else was posting this exact same entry I would be inclined to be skeptical, because I have no idea what their basis of truth is.

(sorry if this sounds hostile, I don't mean it to be, especially in relation to you. I just happen to find the argument itself insufferable, and it is one of the reasons I will not be returning to IDOL next round. One form does not invalidate the other, and any insinuation thereof is an insult to everyone.)

(also, if you can tell me the general scene the quote is in I can skip through my scans of Watchmen and upload it for you. I downloaded them when I was planning on making a moodtheme that never happened.)

(also, also, ♥)

[momebie.livejournal.com]

ENJOY THE WANG.

I have felt like Dan, and I can understand that entirely, especially in relation to your search for work.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

This is honestly what it's like to be in my head ALL THE TIME. These thoughts are rosary beads that I click to off and on every day. Especially at night, but they're always in the background. It's why I'm so hard to live with in other ways. ;)

[theemdash]

^^ This comment.

I love nonfiction, but it's much easier to "lie" in nonfiction because the author is more acutely aware of what's true. In fiction, where the author is protected by a layer of personal distance, there are sometimes more revelations because the author isn't trying to hide.

Which only assumes an author is trying to hide and is not being totally bald—something that is very difficult for many people.

[theemdash]

I never really thought about Calvinist vs. Catholic upbringing, but I can really see that now. Interesting. Hmm.

Also, I feel like you show this face quite clearly in your fiction. Though showing this in fiction could just be the result of research rather than the result of feeling. So... there is no "better," but there is information.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I agree with you entirely, but that's partially because I find myself being able to more reliably relate how I feel about things through fiction. Even in characters who are nothing like me. I feel like when they explore the world I can control then they're finding new things about me that I might not have unearthed without them. (I've said this in Green Room meta, which you haven't seen I don't think, but that entry about the Maya Shakti tattoo did more to break down my own personal boxes than anything else I've written this season. That one post is the reason I'll consider this season a success regardless of when I go. I learned some things about myself that I'm still dwelling on. That's important, I think.)

And you know, I might not take a post like this at face value for a lot of people, and I will entirely understand if other people who read it don't take it as face value for me. All I can do is tell you what I told Margaret: this entry is the hum that happens in the back of my brain all the time. It's partially why I'm so annoying in so many ways, heh. This is about 75% of what I think about, and it informs my fiction a great deal, which I think people can recognize. At least, I hope they can recognize it.

(And and don't worry about it. I am having the exact same feelings re: the competition in general.)

(I'm pretty sure it's a regular, blue block thought panel from when he's on Mars. It's been a while since I looked through it, though.)

(♥ ♥ ♥

[ninasafiri.livejournal.com]

I feel like I know you better after reading this :)

and I understand the crushing responsibility of the future. I feel like I'm buckling underneath it every day :/

[momebie.livejournal.com]

There's a whole paragraph that I ended up deleting about the cognitive dissonance created in 8 year olds by being told that people who don't go to church can't go to heaven and then told that it's ALREADY DECIDED who's going. How does that even make sense, oh Calvin of the ludicrous haircut? Then you get into the whole debate of, are you already chosen because you're the kind of person who WILL follow God's law to the tee, or can you really do whatever you want? Not that I really think predestination trumps free will. Just because I know the actions a person is likely to take does not mean that they haven't chosen to take those actions of their own accord. If a God were to be truly omniscient it's entirely possible he's simply reading the output at the end of everything and just taking liner notes. I think the part of that I struggled with as a kid was that he then got in his time machine and brought those liner notes BACK IN TIME to bully us with. It's a very delicate conversation that I feel was handled by a great deal of clumsy people in my youth. But yeah, I didn't want to dwell on the religion thing. ;)

I think that when I show this in my fiction it's sometimes pure feeling and it's sometimes research. For the BDESFN it's pretty heavily both, in that I know my feelings and have extensively researched the philosophies that informed them. I want that project to be aware of what it is. I like reading things like that, so it's by design there. In the serial and other one offs I've written, or even how things might come out of the Steampunk characters sometimes, it's more about how I was feeling on any given day when I was writing.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

That's good, at least. :)

And choice is so, so heavy. Who came up with this dumb plan of life anyway!?

[ninasafiri.livejournal.com]

And choice is so, so heavy. Who came up with this dumb plan of life anyway!?

I have no freakin' idea, but it needs to be rethought. I'm not feeling the whole 'make life decisions at 18' part of the deal.

[tentaclecore]

Yeah, I've been staying away from the GR for the most part so I did not see that particular piece of meta, but I can very much see what you're saying. Through your own characters you discover yourself, without fear of judgment or recrimination. I think most people tend to use fiction as a way to exercise their own demons--I know I do--simply because all it is is going on a journey with friends. Fictional friends, but friends nonetheless.

If they know you in any way, shape or form, I'm sure they will. And it's very brave of you--as trite as that word is and as much as I hate to use it--to be willing to put yourself out there like this. Probably should have said that in the initial comment, but I was too busy being incensed that this fiction vs. non-fiction thing is still going on ohmygod what.

(right-o. I'm cooking right now, getting my mother out the door etc., but after she leaves I'll book up CDisplay and find it. Do you want the entire page or just the panel?)

[tentaclecore]

♥ Yes, everything you're saying here, especially about the tentative assumption on hiding vs. honesty. Unless you know the person, it's extremely hard to tell which is which for the reader. So the author can basically do whatever they want if they have no respect for their readers or are wishing to contort something for personal reasons.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm not feeling the whole 'make life decisions at 28 deal'. Sadly, I don't think it's going to stop.

[rapunzelita.livejournal.com]

If things are predestined and predetermined, why spend so much time dragging myself through life?

Uh, well, I don't know about you but I'd rather be predestined to haul myself through life although it might be painful that be predestined to just die in a corner after 30 years of not doing anything interesting.

But then again I suppose I'm not interestend in theology/metaphysics/that kind of stuff for my own good. My general stance on the subject is "who gives a crap, this is kind of fun!" (Please note: I am a masochist. Emotional pain makes me feel more alive, so most painful moments in my life qualify as "fun", in a weird, kinda twisted way.)

To go back on the initial subject, which was not myself and my weird submissive psychology but YOUR MOST EXCELLENT META (because it is most excellent....)

I don't know if this told me more about you than your fiction. It definitely told me something different about you, because fiction is much more ideal than introspection, it's much neater in the ideas. I mean, in most books, it's not too hard to say "this book has Calvinist ideas" or "oh, that was written by a Cartesian" or whatever. The expression of metaphysical / philosophical confusion is very different, and rather interesting.

When I say that it didn't tell me more than fiction, by the way, it's mostly that I've been reading your LJ for long enough to know about these ideas already (apart from the tattoo, obviously).

tl;dr: COOL META BRO <3

PS: My icon's quote is directed at myself, not you, obv.

[theemdash]

YES! :D

Honesty and "getting to know" an author means knowing them outside of their work as well.

[tentaclecore]

The Calvinist church sounds amazingly confusing to me, especially that fiddly bit there about having repercussions and then apparently taking them away because there's already a guest list of somesort.

Does the church have their own Bible or Manual or something one can skim through to get an idea of what the basics are? Like the Mormons have their Book of Mormon, etc? I'm curious, but am not willing to trust Wikipedia on anything re: religion at this point.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

LUCKY FOR YOU YOU ALREADY KNOW MORE ABOUT ME THAN ANYONE EVER WANTED TO.

[theemdash]

I WAS PRETTY MUCH THINKING THE SAME THING.

[theemdash]

I don't think I learned about predestination until I was in high school, so my formative thoughts and opinions were based around free will and life having end-consequences, so predestination never made much sense to me (because I too was thinking "if it's predetermined, how does that influence your actions?"). I think it's an interesting concept, but doesn't seem very useful practically (I have always believed religion is designed to teach morality on the basic level of "This is why you shouldn't be a dick to other people.").

(You know, sometimes I read my thoughts and wonder how on Earth I made it through 13 years of Catholic school.)


I think it's difficult to hide too much in fiction. I mean, what you write is inside your head in some way. Maybe it's not something you'd do (steal people's faces), but the idea that someone could has obviously occurred to you.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

The stuff I've been doing for LJI has very much been a journey with friends. I don't think that always came across, but that's what I was using it for.

That particular argument isn't going quite as strongly as it had been. Yesterday the focus was on what's good versus what's popular. Which is also kind of tiring. Yet I can't look away because I'm a glutton for punishment.

(Oh, just that panel would work fine. But if it's easier for you to get me the whole page and have me cut it out with paint that's cool!)

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Hm. We always just used the regular old Bible. Old and New testaments of course. Apparently there's some kind of ultra conservative Orthodox Presbytery, but my church was the average old PCUSA type. Granted, I find that it was more traditional than some other Presbyterian churches I've attended in the way we do call and response and how we give communion and all. Some Presbyterian churches are downright Methodist, which just isn't right. ;)