Saturday
Feb252012
We Can Become Known
Saturday, February 25, 2012
I was reading blogs from bed in the wee hours this morning, alternately as a way to entertain myself without having to leave the comfort of my pillow and as a way to stop myself from beating Onion, the cat who cannot, will not, and won't stop scratching at our door in the morning to get some of our sweet, sweet loving. Oh my god I hate him so much right now.
This is Onion, taken from under the bedroom door.
Anyway, I was reading an older entry of Maggie Mason's about Tina Fey's Bossypants, and this quote caught me. I haven't read the book myself, so this is a quote of Maggie's quote, and so we go down the internet rabbit hole, Alice:
I have railed against this treatment my whole life. It has wounded my heart and my head, casting doubt upon the boundaries of my own needs and desires. It not only blurs the boundaries, but it also throws off our reasonable sense of balance between our own and others' needs. It confuses us enough to yoke us to subservience. We become cattle in a system that only honours us insofar as it can use us.
As much as I have railed against it, though, I am caught in it, too. It's a deep indoctrination bred through years of family, school, work, and social relations, so the kneejerk response to please another over myself still insinuates itself into the way I work, feel, think, and create.
I realized yesterday that this is why I dislike so much of Pinterest's content1. There is something extremely dissociative about Pinterest. I was browsing through pictures people had pinned there, and even though I know some of the people pinning quite personally, their content on Pinterest was distancing and often downright offputting.
Why is it so distancing? It's distancing because most of the pinning going on isn't actually about what that individual likes or wants; most of the pinning going on is about what that person perceives others will value. That person on Pinterest will never create those twee mini-cakes with the flawless icing and the tiny, ornate birds made of drizzled chocolate, and they don't even actually want to, and you, in turn, wouldn't even actually want to eat them, because fondant is nearly inedible. Those pins are about putting those isolated examples of orderly perfection in relation to ourselves like costumes. If our lives were paper dolls, pins on Pinterest would be the paper clothing bent around us.
This is an actual cupcake whose icing I hated.
In this light, a large portion of Pinterest's content starts to look largely like the great, white, suburban dreamscape of the 1950s pathologized, now crowd-sourced to showcase today's insecurity with the messier, dirtier, and much less wealthy lives we actually lead. It's an extension of the pleasure machines we've been trained to be: we please the perceived tastes of others with images of things that have little or no relation to who we actually are or what we do — most of which images are of things that are, in themselves, about creating pleasure for others — with hopes of little more than to continue being pleasing.
But this whole thing isn't really about Pinterest. Pinterest is just such a great example as a concentrate of the outcomes of our intensive training. This whole thing is about me, of course, and how this kind of social training has stampeded through and minimized everything I love when it comes to my creativity, and it is the force against which I battle every time I write a sentence or manipulate a graphic.
This is a park I found very depressing.
My kneejerk response is to be cute for you, to be entertaining and witty, and, most of all, to be appealing. This urge to be appealing is a terrible encumbrance to the creative spirit, because it is not about being objectively appealing or complexly appealing, or appealing in ways that point to any kind of meaning.
What we do and create most often ends up being about meeting the perceived needs related to what we think people want and not what their needs actually are or what our own needs might be within that experience, so we are often left creating toothless pap that can be easily digested by the broadest community we can imagine and no one in particular. We try to appeal to the things a community of hundreds or thousands might all agree on like we're all Martha Stewarts selling boring sheet sets. We erase ourselves, and we erase the actual individuals who take part in what we do.
We end up honouring surface wants over the real life meat of who we are and the work that we do.
No wonder it is so easy to lose perspective on who we are and what our actual place and purpose is in the world when we live in a system that works to subvert it entirely into social servitude. How can we know what is important and why it is important to us when we are so often consumed with appealing to and meeting the needs of a question we only imagine people are asking?
Which brings me back to that wonderful moment when Amy Poehler's eyes went black after Jimmy Fallon told her she wasn't being cute. She claimed her right to do it her way whether it appealed to him or not, and that kicks ass. I wish such moments weren't also such rarities.
Fuck what my family thinks. Fuck what super-straight, hetero, white, rich men think. Fuck what my critical friend thinks. Fuck the dictates of religions to which I do not adhere. Fuck what you think. Fuck whatever all of those bodies we perceive as having power over us in some way think. Fuck serving a perception of what everyone's needs are instead of actual people.
This is a bird that died in the snow.
What do I think? What do I like? What do I love? What do I hold in my hands like a wounded bird that I need to pay attention to? What makes me feel like I have teeth? What makes me feel hopeful? What makes me look ugly but feel happy? What don't you like about me that I would never give up?
That's what I forget too often, and that's what you forget too often, and it's time we remember. Who do we hold up the most over time? Who do we continue to tell stories about and replay and reread and rediscover? It's the people who risked being disliked. It's the ones who risk being ugly and inconvenient and selfish to create the life and art they loved the most.
We most see ourselves, the real and meaty complication of our interiors, when we see it in others, those who let those raw bits of themselves out into the wild to see what will happen, and that is the irony that twists what we've been trained to do on its head. All of the appealing, appeasing, ingratiating servitude we've been trained to see as our being so giving of ourselves is actually the tool that keeps us quiet, controlled, and cut off from each other, cut off from the kind of honest, vulnerable interaction that brings the most joy to people and communities.
The way we've been trained to serve often renders us as little more than machines that do given tasks, and it cuts us off from what it is to truly give of ourselves both to our own beings and to others.
We need to see each other. I really believe that that is the only way to save the planet from whatever mass destructions we can forecast, be they political, economic, or environmental. We need to know each other, and not just the broad, dissociative stuff we put out there to appeal to what we think most people will like most of the time, but what lies beneath that.
I tried to follow my training for years. I smiled for the guests, and then internally chastised myself for not feeling it. I hid the complicated parts of my heart away to keep myself easy to be around, and then felt more alone with more people. I kept my anger under wraps so that others wouldn't have to deal with any inconvenient outbursts, and then felt ineffectual and invisible.
These are kitties!
You can't give of what you have if you don't know what you've got.
I want our eyes going black to be some kind of religion. I want us to have one holy day every week when we say I am not meeting your needs today. Instead, I am building a sculpture out of the bones from yesterday's chicken. (Or whatever crazy thing feeds your heart.) On that day, we will tend the wounded birds in our hands or the storms in our minds. If our boundaries have been so blurred by our training that we can't quite see our wounded birds or storms yet, then we'll use that day to let the absence of other people's needs help us to figure that out, because we have to strip the walls away, the ones that keep us in line, the walls that keep us from each other.
If I see a real and meaty you, I am better able to recognize the real and meaty me, and then someone else sees that in me and so in turn in themselves, and on it goes. We don't have to devote our lives to appeals for the most minimal levels of social power and acceptance. We can become real and inconvenient and complicated and sometimes ugly and memorable and loveable and honest and bright. We can become known.
----------------------------
1 I recognize that Pinterest is growing and changing and that it is being bent to different uses, such as the Humane Society of New York's adoptable pets boards. I merely used my own prior experience with it as it relates to my discussion.
Every person who pins nice things on Pinterest does not fall into the group I describe. There are those like that humane society, those who are actually the handy sorts who make great stuff to show off, and those whose lives actually look like those pictures. There are always outliers.
This is Onion, taken from under the bedroom door.
Anyway, I was reading an older entry of Maggie Mason's about Tina Fey's Bossypants, and this quote caught me. I haven't read the book myself, so this is a quote of Maggie's quote, and so we go down the internet rabbit hole, Alice:
Amy… did something vulgar as a joke. I can't remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and "unladylike."After reading that, I thought in a very loud internal voice EXACTLY. We, especially the women among us, are generally taught to please, appease, and ingratiate ourselves. Growing up, when I was sad, I was told that nobody is friends with a sad girl. When I was angry, I was told I was being manipulative. When I wanted to do something that required others to step out of their way to help me do it, I was often met with admonishments about my tendency toward impracticality and selfishness. It was clear that I was to be pleasant and pleasing, to serve others' happiness above my own, and to not make too much noise.
Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, "Stop that! It's not cute! I don't like it!"
Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. "I don't fucking care if you don't like it." Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit…
With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn't there to be cute. She wasn't there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys' scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.
I was so happy. Weirdly, I remember thinking, "My friend is here! My friend is here!" Even though things had been going great for me at the show, with Amy there, I felt less alone.
I have railed against this treatment my whole life. It has wounded my heart and my head, casting doubt upon the boundaries of my own needs and desires. It not only blurs the boundaries, but it also throws off our reasonable sense of balance between our own and others' needs. It confuses us enough to yoke us to subservience. We become cattle in a system that only honours us insofar as it can use us.
As much as I have railed against it, though, I am caught in it, too. It's a deep indoctrination bred through years of family, school, work, and social relations, so the kneejerk response to please another over myself still insinuates itself into the way I work, feel, think, and create.
I realized yesterday that this is why I dislike so much of Pinterest's content1. There is something extremely dissociative about Pinterest. I was browsing through pictures people had pinned there, and even though I know some of the people pinning quite personally, their content on Pinterest was distancing and often downright offputting.
Why is it so distancing? It's distancing because most of the pinning going on isn't actually about what that individual likes or wants; most of the pinning going on is about what that person perceives others will value. That person on Pinterest will never create those twee mini-cakes with the flawless icing and the tiny, ornate birds made of drizzled chocolate, and they don't even actually want to, and you, in turn, wouldn't even actually want to eat them, because fondant is nearly inedible. Those pins are about putting those isolated examples of orderly perfection in relation to ourselves like costumes. If our lives were paper dolls, pins on Pinterest would be the paper clothing bent around us.
This is an actual cupcake whose icing I hated.
In this light, a large portion of Pinterest's content starts to look largely like the great, white, suburban dreamscape of the 1950s pathologized, now crowd-sourced to showcase today's insecurity with the messier, dirtier, and much less wealthy lives we actually lead. It's an extension of the pleasure machines we've been trained to be: we please the perceived tastes of others with images of things that have little or no relation to who we actually are or what we do — most of which images are of things that are, in themselves, about creating pleasure for others — with hopes of little more than to continue being pleasing.
But this whole thing isn't really about Pinterest. Pinterest is just such a great example as a concentrate of the outcomes of our intensive training. This whole thing is about me, of course, and how this kind of social training has stampeded through and minimized everything I love when it comes to my creativity, and it is the force against which I battle every time I write a sentence or manipulate a graphic.
This is a park I found very depressing.
My kneejerk response is to be cute for you, to be entertaining and witty, and, most of all, to be appealing. This urge to be appealing is a terrible encumbrance to the creative spirit, because it is not about being objectively appealing or complexly appealing, or appealing in ways that point to any kind of meaning.
What we do and create most often ends up being about meeting the perceived needs related to what we think people want and not what their needs actually are or what our own needs might be within that experience, so we are often left creating toothless pap that can be easily digested by the broadest community we can imagine and no one in particular. We try to appeal to the things a community of hundreds or thousands might all agree on like we're all Martha Stewarts selling boring sheet sets. We erase ourselves, and we erase the actual individuals who take part in what we do.
We end up honouring surface wants over the real life meat of who we are and the work that we do.
No wonder it is so easy to lose perspective on who we are and what our actual place and purpose is in the world when we live in a system that works to subvert it entirely into social servitude. How can we know what is important and why it is important to us when we are so often consumed with appealing to and meeting the needs of a question we only imagine people are asking?
Which brings me back to that wonderful moment when Amy Poehler's eyes went black after Jimmy Fallon told her she wasn't being cute. She claimed her right to do it her way whether it appealed to him or not, and that kicks ass. I wish such moments weren't also such rarities.
Fuck what my family thinks. Fuck what super-straight, hetero, white, rich men think. Fuck what my critical friend thinks. Fuck the dictates of religions to which I do not adhere. Fuck what you think. Fuck whatever all of those bodies we perceive as having power over us in some way think. Fuck serving a perception of what everyone's needs are instead of actual people.
This is a bird that died in the snow.
What do I think? What do I like? What do I love? What do I hold in my hands like a wounded bird that I need to pay attention to? What makes me feel like I have teeth? What makes me feel hopeful? What makes me look ugly but feel happy? What don't you like about me that I would never give up?
That's what I forget too often, and that's what you forget too often, and it's time we remember. Who do we hold up the most over time? Who do we continue to tell stories about and replay and reread and rediscover? It's the people who risked being disliked. It's the ones who risk being ugly and inconvenient and selfish to create the life and art they loved the most.
We most see ourselves, the real and meaty complication of our interiors, when we see it in others, those who let those raw bits of themselves out into the wild to see what will happen, and that is the irony that twists what we've been trained to do on its head. All of the appealing, appeasing, ingratiating servitude we've been trained to see as our being so giving of ourselves is actually the tool that keeps us quiet, controlled, and cut off from each other, cut off from the kind of honest, vulnerable interaction that brings the most joy to people and communities.
The way we've been trained to serve often renders us as little more than machines that do given tasks, and it cuts us off from what it is to truly give of ourselves both to our own beings and to others.
We need to see each other. I really believe that that is the only way to save the planet from whatever mass destructions we can forecast, be they political, economic, or environmental. We need to know each other, and not just the broad, dissociative stuff we put out there to appeal to what we think most people will like most of the time, but what lies beneath that.
I tried to follow my training for years. I smiled for the guests, and then internally chastised myself for not feeling it. I hid the complicated parts of my heart away to keep myself easy to be around, and then felt more alone with more people. I kept my anger under wraps so that others wouldn't have to deal with any inconvenient outbursts, and then felt ineffectual and invisible.
These are kitties!
You can't give of what you have if you don't know what you've got.
I want our eyes going black to be some kind of religion. I want us to have one holy day every week when we say I am not meeting your needs today. Instead, I am building a sculpture out of the bones from yesterday's chicken. (Or whatever crazy thing feeds your heart.) On that day, we will tend the wounded birds in our hands or the storms in our minds. If our boundaries have been so blurred by our training that we can't quite see our wounded birds or storms yet, then we'll use that day to let the absence of other people's needs help us to figure that out, because we have to strip the walls away, the ones that keep us in line, the walls that keep us from each other.
If I see a real and meaty you, I am better able to recognize the real and meaty me, and then someone else sees that in me and so in turn in themselves, and on it goes. We don't have to devote our lives to appeals for the most minimal levels of social power and acceptance. We can become real and inconvenient and complicated and sometimes ugly and memorable and loveable and honest and bright. We can become known.
----------------------------
1 I recognize that Pinterest is growing and changing and that it is being bent to different uses, such as the Humane Society of New York's adoptable pets boards. I merely used my own prior experience with it as it relates to my discussion.
Every person who pins nice things on Pinterest does not fall into the group I describe. There are those like that humane society, those who are actually the handy sorts who make great stuff to show off, and those whose lives actually look like those pictures. There are always outliers.
categorized in politics & religion and tagged in Amy Poehler, Bossypants, Jimmy Fallon, Maggie Mason, Pinterest, Tina Fey, authenticity, creativity, feminism, oppression, patriarchy, women
politics & religion and tagged in Amy Poehler, Bossypants, Jimmy Fallon, Maggie Mason, Pinterest, Tina Fey, authenticity, creativity, feminism, oppression, patriarchy, women 
Reader Comments (81)
I loved that moment in the book too (and frankly, I thought the book suffered from precisely what you're talking about: too much of it was look at me I'm cuuuute, and sassy, and clever, but not in a too terrible way. I think it's interesting that Fey wrote about POEHLER saying don't fuck with me, but that Fey herself doesn't say that very often). Sorry. Digression.
You've written a manifesto, here, a manifesto for anyone who wants to create anything - because the moment you do "what people will like" you're doomed. Giving ourselves permission to say fuck off, I'm doing it my way... that's permission that lots of people (lots and lots of women, particularly) never give themselves. And they do whatever it takes to hide from themselves the fact that they're not doing what they want to do...and voila: misery. Sadness. Fear of failure, fear of chaos, fear of the great messiness that is the human soul. This essay kicks ass, that's what it does. All the way across the interwebs and back again the other way.
This is powerful. I remember for one blog post I was going to mention something about hemorrhoid cream, and I hesitated because generally I'm not a gross-out in-your-face blogger and I was worried that it might be over the line. Then I did it anyway and it felt good. And now I have commented on your blog that I found writing about hemorrhoid cream empowering. Life is weird. I love the dead bird pictures.
I found this blog both incredibly honest and insightful. I think much of what you have written resonates with me.
To be this honest person, the one that people might not like, would mean (for me anyway) making a decision to do be that person every minute of every day. Similar to you, I was taught to please, be polite, and shove all my needs, wants, anger, and joy down. To retrain myself to be someone else seems utterly exhausting.
Thank you for such a great read, and something to think about.
This post makes me furiously happy. This is why I got so angry about the mob mentality that surrounded a recent episode of cyber bullying. It reeked of "look at me! I can be witty too!" while being at the expense of others. I am as guilty as anyone else of putting on a mask to please people. Part of that mask is humour and how I use it to the point of draining myself to cope with anxiety.
In short, I love this post.
This is almost exactly right.
You know--I think you know--that I get this. (I mention it a bit on my blog post this week--you've captured here what I am trying to explain when I make my incoherent aside about the aspirational self).
I think there is actually something beyond this. At times reacting and being powerful in one's reaction is the answer. But there really is something past it where you aren't even reacting anymore to *their* bullshit and you are simply being. Maybe you know they are out there just like you know the cars are out there when you are inside your apartment--if you tuned into it, you'd hear it but you don't. You don't even hear it.
That's what I'm shooting for. I'll probably get it when I'm 80. I can also see you going for it in various ways. I suspect you have the tools much more at hand than I do for this quest. You're already quite the renegade honey. I have always been the Good Girl and might die that way.
For me 2012's motto is something like "We Are Doomed But We Can Find an Upside If We Look" So I do think this is absolutely the upside of getting older. The clarity of age. Dayum--how much easier one sees the bullshit! Aging is better than LSD for that.
There is so much to be said about this post, but I can't get it right. I do know I am amazed by the words that come from you when you think you should be sleeping. You are quite obviously meant to be awake. Brilliance.
Louise, I'm starting to think I was meant to be an overtired insomniac, too. I'll get some sleep in my next go 'round.
Bravo woman! This was the best thing I have read so far this year and something that I needed to 'hear' as well. I have made some life decisions lately that are for me, I walked away from pleasing a lot of other people and focused on ME. It felt very good to do this. Thank you so much for being one of the best things I have ever found on the internet (and you are pretty darn cool IRL too!)
Re: "We need to see each other... lies beneath that."
Hear Hear!!! I think we need to also TRUST each other, and be TRUSTWORTHY to each other. The digital age strands us in isolation and insecurity. We learn to judge in just a few seconds, and move on because there is always MORE MORE MORE, too much to ever truly value one piece. We are drowning in a sea of individuality, when what we need is the solidity of a true community to hold on to. When we can honestly say to one another "I will always stand by you" then we can truly be ourselves
I think if more people got over being afraid to be themselves and therefore needing other people to fill roles, if all of us had more 'black in the eyes' moments, we could begin a revolution of healing that would change the fucking world, just knock it back on its ass. Instead of trying to control other people's behavior so we could feel OK,let people be just who they are and feel even better.
I think of this post in the context of the latest bout of internet judgment that's going on -- and as much as I stand in the center and raise a hand to one side, saying "you're allowed to use your voice even if you're being an ignorant judgmental asshat" and say to the other side "don't listen to the asshats, they don't know what they're talking about," I'd really like there to be fewer asshats.
Mary, I have to say that I 100% disagree with your statement about the digital age. Before the rise of the internet, I did not feel any more connected than I do now. In fact I felt less connected. With the rise in communication, I have been able to find more of my tribe, and I feel deep gratitude for the gift of this technology.
People who feel disconnected and lonely on the internet, likely feel the same way off the internet. Assholes online are probably assholes offline, and people who are kind and community builders are likely the same here as anywhere. The internet is a tool. Our behaviours are ours.
I think that this is a daily struggle and I have a chronic desire to be liked, which I suppose is not uncommon. But writing is so hard. It's just as hard as Hemingway says it is. Then there is voice and style and pleasing which sometimes ends in paralysis. So bravo! You wrote. And every day I write a true sentence, I'm happy. The odd thing is that I'm not a negative person. Sure, I sometimes have to vent and I do so privately, but as soon as I turn to sarcasm and anything tinged with aggressivity, I know I'm skirting the issue. I also get annoyed with myself for being such a damned Mary Poppins. Those crafty crepe paper flowers on a toothpick I pinned on Pinterest? I made them! So truth is frustrating, both when it is messy and you'd rather hide it, and when it is just as pretty and twee as the other person's superficiality. Sincerity is hard and somehow there is a space for the messy and the pretty and it takes exercise in knowing oneself and courage in being that self to others.
And then ... we undervalue our own experience ... it's too dull, it's too everyday, it's too this, it's not enough that, everyone else is smarter, funnier, writes better, has more to say, does more important things, blah blah blah. I do that to myself sometimes and it makes it tough to blog, because ... who cares what I'm thinking about and doing? That's exactly the kind of attitude that stops us from accepting, respecting and expressing what comes naturally to us, as if in comparison to others we will never measure up. It keeps many of us quiet.
There's that line from the lost Gospel of Thomas that says ""If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." I think about that line every single day.
My favourite quote, ever, is by Howard Roark, who is a character in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
He says, "To say 'I love you', one must first know how to say the 'I'."
I try to live by this quote.
This is a wonderful post. As someone in recovery, I am learning, after many years, that there are people who appreciate my own complicated heart.
Wow, powerful post. Is true that we need to see each other more clearly and more truly, and also need to see ourselves and live ourselves better.
I think the Internet had helped, at least it has for me, in terms of feeling less isolated and alone.
I don't get the pinterest thing, tho then again I avoided twitter for years and am now breathing it. Maybe I'm a second wave adaptor.
Read the Tina Fey book. She is awesome.
Brava! Thanks, I needed this. Like a mantra: I don't have to be nice and make everyone happy.' I might have to print this article and pin it up in the kitchen.
This post is one of my favorites in the history of blogs. It's my absolute favorite in the history of social media. I've always counted you among my favorite writers online because you strive (and achieve, in being so forthcoming about the striving) for a purity of voice and content. Your take on personal blogging is raw and beautifully bare. Thanks for being here, and sharing your probing, sharp mind.
Funny - I was up in the wee hours of the morning thanks to my 10 lb fur ball hurtling herself at our bedroom door. Amazing that something so small can make so much noise.
This was a really great post. 2012 has not been a great year for my family, and I struggle with feeling like I need to keep things light when I really just want to write about how crappy things are and how the crap is unending. I'm trying to be true to myself though, and the Internet definitely helps me feel more connected.
Your analysis of Pinterest is spot-on! I see what other people pin and wonder if they will actually make those crafts or cook those meals and not having a crafty bone in my body, I know I won't.
Ok, I am not a hundredth the writer that you are and am not good at writing what i mean. Your post so affirmed me and filled me with so many thoughts and ideas that I was unable to express them succinctly while being mauled by four kids. My comment was not meant to condemn the internet at all, or blame it for our problems.You wrote that we need to see and know each other to save the planet, I was just trying to say that I agree, and that we also need to trust each other. I mean that in a strong community people are able to find and express themselves more openly, to agree or disagree, without the fear of being rejected or abandoned. Whether that is online, or in a neighborhood or by bottles across the ocean, it is the connection which gives strength. And by your reply I sense that you already understand that. I should just leave all negatives out next time, so as not to overshadow the positive message i am trying to deliver. Thank you for the lesson.
P.s. That was not sarcastic!
Also I think I am always trying to please people, because I fear being rejected. Ironically, it is those who do not fear rejection, but fearlessly, relentlessly express their true thoughts/feelings that garner the fiercest admiration and loyalty, like Amy Poehler. And you. As long as I have known you you have had a gaggle of admirers, vying for your time and attention, and you deserve it, because you are amazing
I loved that part of Bossypants.
That pressure to please others is so insidious, isn't it?
I remember being a teenager, just walking down the street and minding my own business, and then all of the sudden being yanked out of my own head by some guy who was a complete stranger who somehow felt compelled to tell me that I needed to smile.
What was worse is that I did it. Why? Because it got him out of my face so that I could be left again with my own thoughts.
There have been so many times when I've wanted to say "fuck you," but have said "thank you" instead.
Your posts always give me food for thought, Schmutzie. They are real.
" Who do we continue to tell stories about and replay and reread and rediscover? It's the people who risked being disliked. It's the ones who risk being ugly and inconvenient and selfish to create the life and art they loved the most."
I don't know if I have the words to tell you what this post (and within this post, these sentences) has meant to me today. Suffice it to say that my brilliantly artistic Mom just passed away (in December) and I wish to God that I had fully appreciated all of the risks that she took in her life just to be the artist that she was and to create the art that lived inside her. What I believed for so many years to be "selfish" and "impractical" was my Mom being brave and refusing to deny her truth, despite furious objections from her family, friends and society.
I'm ashamed to say that my creativity was buried so deep inside me for such a long time that I resented her for hers at the same time that I delighted in it. She did not have an easy life and her death was horrifying and painful, yet I sit today in a house that is full of her art (and is a piece of art in itself) I think of how bland and colorless the world would have been had she decided to conform and take the easy road instead of shine and create beautiful spaces and art. The world is a better place because my Mom fought to create her art.
I just wish I had had the ability to fully comprehend that and to tell her about it before she passed.
Thank you for writing this.
Kim
Balancing act. I want to entertain my audience and be "authentic". But avoid shooting for the lowest common denominator. And accept that not everyone's gonna like me. Entertainment--Pinterest or going to the movies--can be about an escape or a fantasy. I think that's ok. Struggling with this. I don't know what the answer is for me yet.
I relate to so much you say.
It is hard to be real and honest with ourselves in our society. I keep finding things that have been conditioned into me when I was a child that I have to break free from in order to be my most honest self. I work at it because it's important to me. I'm so glad to have this awareness now. That's when I'm happy to be an adult. Actually, that's what I think makes me an adult.
Great post! Thanks for giving me the urge to chat here :)
Neil & the Pinterest conversation on Twitter sent me over here...i'd missed this and am so glad i caught it now.
yes. very much. i actually have a post brewing, if i can squeak out some time tomorrow, about what i think Pinterest is doing to the whole digital identity and digital connection stuff. will be quoting you.
Exactly! I am so glad to have found your site, you have no idea. Funny thing ... I pinned a picture of and extinct bird made out of leftover chicken bones because I prefer to go against the grain and also the site annoys me.
This post is salve to my soul. I'm going to embroider a tea towel with "What makes me look ugly but feel happy?" and then pin a photo of it on Pinterest. Thank you for taking a stand for creative risk taking women, and for challenging us to be real and meaty and known.
Thank you! I so needed this! As the mother of young children I have struggled with the outward perfection of other mothers around me. I see them pinning lovely cakes and crafts to their boards and I don't know why I feel this need to make my kids beautiful birthday cakes! Twice a year I go into a serious funk because I cannot make beautiful cakes. The trouble is... I HATE baking... why do I do it to myself? It turns out my art takes more time than a cake to appreciate, but I enjoy making it so much more than I enjoy making cakes!
I love the "real and meaty" reference. I can't connect with others unless they are real and meaty (cause I am somewhat real and meaty as well). Wonderful post.
This post really spoke to me. I also appreciate everyone's thoughtful comments. There is so much insight here. Y'all have got me thinking, and that is a really good thing. Thank you.
I love this piece
I wish we could talk more.
My daughter is honest and difficult and independent and nonconformist and does-not-do-what-the-group-does and I adore her for it and I worry deeply when I see the repercussions from everyone else, her being boxed in and closed out and shut down because she isn't easy and convenient and \"like the other kids\". And, even more, I hate when I catch myself giving her that same message because I don't want her to get in trouble. And I don't have a clue how to help her keep being true and expansive without also seeing her get hurt over and over and over again. But you've reminded me why it's so important to find a way to nurture her, not to train her. Thank you.
Funny I was having this convo last night, you've of course put it much more beautifully than I can but I believe there are certain arenas on social media that allow for distance. I so often have pinned photos and never been to the source....certainly not entered into dialogue with the owner.
Isn't it funny how we gravitate to this behavior? We'll point and say oh I like that much faster than approaching the person and telling them directly thus beginning a relationship?
Hear, hear! There's a lot to be said for letting it all hang out, the good, the bad, the snotty and embracing our humanity. Otherwise who are we but actors in our own life? If we willingly censor ourselves on the grounds that we may not be liked for who we are and what we feel, how can we ever expect to invite any kind of communication that goes beyond noise or any kind of closeness that goes beyond mere "acquaintancing"? My freak flag is flying high and proud and no matter how many times it gets battered by the elements, I will not take it down. Dear society, this is who I am and I won't bargain for your love.
Brilliant - thank you for this. I've been feeling increasingly as if I'm in a bubble where I have to watch everything I say for fear of offending, and that I must only react, never act, be polite and never me. This post bursts that bubble. Hoorah!
I fucking love you for this, the glowing black you've somehow strung the right words together to describe. Thank you!
I really enjoyed this, especially your thoughts on Pinterest. I have yet to sign up-- clicked on there yesterday just to see what all the fuss is about and although there were a couple of things on there that I liked most of it just rubbed me the wrong way. Couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but you articulated it perfectly! Especially the part about the mini cakes with the flawless icing-- people don't really end up doing that, do they?!
This was so good for me. I think about this all the time. It takes a long long time to shake off this people-pleasing I used to always live out all the time every second, when I was younger. And I think I was drinking away the pressure of that and now I'm learning to not drink and not be something I'm not. Because I just don't FIT under any kind of label. I don't think and believe or create like other Christians or other mothers or other bloggers or other anyone. It's when I catch myself trying to fit what other people think those things mean that I'm the most miserable.
This post is...well...I just needed it and thank you.
This is why I've loved turning 40. I feel like for the years leading up to it and certainly since, I've been undergoing an exciting shift, searching for and finding my me, saying 'no' louder and more often, being unafraid. And unashamed.
(I've never gone to Pinterest. From the get-go, it just seemed like something I wouldn't like. It's popularity weirds me out.)
I wish I'd known you and had read this about 15 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of heartache and pretending. You always amaze me with your brilliant mind and I am so glad I can call you my friend.
This is absolutely beautiful and inspiring (and I have a crash on dead birds too!)
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3216111037988&set=a.2690240851562.2141635.1122706872
Thank you!
A hug from Chile.
Wow. First time reader of your blog, and this was exactly what I needed today. I can hardly call myself a writer, as I've only just started blogging to unload some of the stuff I've carried with me for years, messages that I was anything but okay. Or normal. Or entitled to my own experiences, opinions, etc. And I'm unloading it all, because I can't bear the thought of NOT breaking the cycle with my own kids.
Getting it out there is my first step, finding my voice even though I'm not ready to use names and my picture is in profile.
I've printed out this post, I love it so much. Thank you so much for the inspiration. You've got a new fan here.
I think one thing about Pinterest that I enjoy is that *I* enjoy it. My boards aren't organized for anyone's pleasure. There isn't isn't any rhyme or reason to why something is more attractive to me that day. It is for me, I just let you watch if you want.
I admire the part of the word "fuck" that scares most people.
Not the profanity or the curse, but the real and raw that comes from using it. From saying it or hearing it. It draws a reaction.
I love when the reaction is real.
As I was reading this I began to feel guilty, to take offense: "But I DO love the things I pin. I like order. I like pretty cupcakes. I like..." and then I realized, that's kind of the point isn't it? I felt guilty because you were saying people don't like those things, but I do. So just keep liking them, right? As long as they're true to me what does it matter?
Wow. Just wow.
I'd love to sit down with you one fine day and discuss this in excruciating detail because it's like you picked it out of my brain.
And the part of me that wants to be liked and doesn't want to be seen as a weirdo is all "Don't say you want to discuss it with her in excruciating detail. She'll avoid you like the plague at the next conference!"
But I'm not deleting it...
So yeah. I feel every word of this.
And in raising a daughter, I feel it even more.
Great writing, Schmutzie.
While I read this post I felt a lump welling in my throat as I suppressed the urge to yell 'Yes!... yesyesyes... oh YES!" outloud in my very quiet house where three little heads lay on little pillows sleeping. I love every word of this post; it resonates SO deeply with me. This is something I've struggled with in all facets of my life. Yes, yes, yes! I want to print this post out and clutch it to my chest so I can read it over and over and burn each word into my heart. Simply brilliant.
I secretly love when women can use profanity, catching others off guard, but not having what they said come off as profane, vulgar or cheap. It's probably why I like English comedy skits and Canadians who can curse but somehow make it sound so delightful. That's how I have always imagined Amy telling Jimmy what's on her mind - direct, focused and in no way profane.
If only we could all just be our true selves. I've always told people that there are so many things we do that are just cute, adorable and sweet when we're 3 but when we're 30 they're completely unacceptable. Being our true and authentic self if one of those things. How we 'evolve' from being able to say "I need to go pee", "Johnny smells like green beans", or "I think princess perfectionist is a doofus" without being judged to being judged even if we ask for a little more ice or for the salad dressing to be on the side, I'm not sure.
I've never figured out why at some point we need to yield to other's needs/desires/wants/perceptions/beliefs yet other's don't need to yield to us.
And I'm not sure why only magazines (and Pinterest boards) of perfect perfection are what is desirable. We all live in homes where the dishes await washing, the towels are mismatched, the fitted sheets aren't folded perfectly and the cupcakes are lopsided (but still oh, so delicious!). They're not perfect, but they're who we are. And none of us really wants to live in a home that is sterile and has everything matchy-perfect-adorable-magaziney. And we don't want our cupcakes picture perfect. We want them tasty and delicious and imperfect so we can eat 2 and no one will wonder why.
Thank you, Schmutzie, for being perfectly you and sharing your amazing thoughts and writing talent with us all.
I just found you thanks to a FB post from Erin Margolin. SO glad I clicked over. LOVE this. (and not just because Fuck is my favorite word). Have you read or done the exercises in the book The Artist's Way? I just started it and she speaks this same language - that we need to do what you suggest here in order to find our true creative selves too.
It's a great book. And this is a great post. I'm glad to have found you.