I have problems remembering that my idealistic view of the world is not quite reality so that when someone does something that is entirely in their character but below what I expect from them I feel hurt, a little betrayed, and miserable. I know it's all my fault. I look at the world from a perspective that many people would call naive.
Because I am naive, in a way, really. I believe that everyone has in them the potential to be good. That everyone is inherently a good person but that societal expectations and personal grievances often overcome their good nature. I believe that everyone battles between wanting to be good and the easier ability to be bad. So when I interact with people I expect them to be good. I honestly believe they are. I feel they are capable of so very much and that they are trying to be a better person. I have hope in every single person that I meet and some that I never do.
This expectation- this faith in the people I know- has hurt me so much. I have spent so many days being miserable, being hurt, feeling betrayed by the people I love and the people I have hopes for and I will spend many more the same way. I wouldn't trade one miserable, forlorn day for an instant of expecting people to be less than they are capable of. I feel such a natural capacity for love and I don't want to dampen it, to let it wither away. I want to keep believing in people, in second chances, having faith in humanity, in my loved ones.
People make mistakes, they stumble, falter, fall, trip up, get upset, do things they know they shouldn't... I know they do. I do it to. I get terrified by things that most people spend their life chasing, I am scared so much, paranoid so often, hurt so habitually... My life has not been easy. At all. My life has been a stew of rot, mold, lies, treachery, betrayal, negligence, and a constant state of lacking. I have seen the worst in humanity. Raised by a murderer, birthed by a prostitute, left with a pederast, abandoned, starved, beaten, ignored, and betrayed repeatedly. My body is littered with the scars of a difficult life, my mind is a mass of them. I am so scared all the time. Afraid to have my back to doors, afraid to sleep in the open, afraid to speak too loud or too much, afraid to ask for what I want, terrified to depend on someone.
The majority of my friends are at least five years older than me. This isn't something I've done on purpose but a natural sort of gravity. I have always been old for my age. I get along better with older people. People my age just always seem so young, so free, so unburdened, so inexperienced and it bothers me. They bother me. Make me ache with an age I haven't earned, make me burn with this sort of jealousy for the easy life they have had. Sometimes they just frustrate me. I find these people my age who have gone through things like mine, maybe not so much or so severe or maybe they just had it hard in different ways and they're still so young, so free, so their age. Sometimes it has nothing to do with their maturity and more to do with their intelligence.
I am smart. I am. This isn't some egotistical statement brought about by a self-delusion but a conclusion arrived at by assessment of various factors. I am intelligent. There are people out there leagues beyond me and people out there at the same level as me that simply hold more general knowledge. I prefer to feel a bit stupid when I am in a group of people. I don't like to be the smartest person in the room. I like it when others know more than me. Now here is a distinction I draw: there are people out there who have had years and years more education than I, who have spent their lives in a higher socio-economic spectrum than me and thus have more knowledge- this does not make them more intelligent than me. More knowledgable, yes, and I appreciate that, but not more intelligent.
There are people out there who think that age and knowledge equate with a type of better-ness. This is not true. No one is my better. We humans are all equals. No one is better than another. I may not be their peer but I am always their equal. I always deserve the same level of respect. I always deserve to be treated like the equal I am. Any less than that and I cannot respect you as much as I once had. There is no better way to turn me off of you than to condescend to me, than to underestimate me because I am poor, because I am young, because I am not as educated. Especially if you know me. Strangers can be forgotten, they do not know better even though they should. But loved ones who do this hurt the most.
I have spent my life living under an enforced divide because of people who love me and as such believe it is ok to withhold things from me or to treat me different. Because I am female is no reason to treat me any differently. Because I am young is no reason to withhold things from me. Because I have not yet obtained a "proper" education is no reason to condescend to me.
I promise you that I have been torn up inside and out to such a degree that many people would not have survived. I have grown up in hell and I deserve the respect and regard that I should receive. I may be a woman. I may be young. I may be small and blond and bubbly and naive. But I can promise you that I am tougher than you think and I am stronger than you could believe. I have always survived and I will continue to do so. If you treat me like I am fragile, like I will break, like I can't handle things, then I can guarantee you that the only thing that will break is our relationship.
I can promise you something else, though: if you try, if you want to do better, if you recognize your mistakes and apologize for your wrong-doings then I will forgive. It may take me a while to trust again but if you come to me and try then I will try as well. I am human. I make mistakes. There are things I wish that I had done differently, people I have hurt that I wish I could mend, mistakes I have made that I desire strongly to correct. I understand what it's like to battle with those dark things inside and to lose. I know what it's like to give in to fears and insecurities when I know I shouldn't. So much of my life I spend afraid and fighting.
So yeah, maybe I am a fool. Maybe I am naive and maybe I let my hopes get too high but damn it, it's worth it. It's worth it to believe in the utter goodness of people. It's worth it to hope for the best. It's worth it to cling to some "idealistic" perspective. To me it's like loving. It's always worth it to love. Sometimes you get hurt. Sometimes you get broken. Sometimes love leaves you in a landfill of despair but it's always worth it. The pain is worth the trust, the warmth, the respect, the learning, the companionship.
Sometimes when you leap from tree branches you hit the ground (and every branch on the way down) but always when you leap you fly. Maybe briefly, maybe for a while, and sometimes if you're very lucky you leap and you just keep on soaring.
Showing posts with label judging is for people who want to be judged and jeered and I really don't want people critiquing my life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label judging is for people who want to be judged and jeered and I really don't want people critiquing my life. Show all posts
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
There's a reason I keep my opinions to only about fictional characters
It has to do with the fact that what one sees in the media about a fictional character is what there is to a character and what one sees in the media about an actor or artist is what the media wants us to believe about that particular person.
I’m putting in a page-break because I doubt anyone wants to see me up on my soap box. I’m hoping that at least a few people will take a moment to at least skim through a paragraph or two.
A lot of people like to pretend or are possibly ignorant to the fact that “celebrities” (for lack of a better word) are defenseless to the slander painted against them no matter what Congress has to say to that. Just because these people’s professions put them in the lime light does not mean they asked to be called a slut or anorexic or an addict. It seems to me as if people forget that Lohan, Winehouse, Bush, Parker, even Stewart are people. They have (or had in the recently deceased Winehouse’s case) feelings and lives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and other people they care for. All of these stories about slutting around town, shooting up, raging incompetence, and lack of a soul are hurtful.
I honestly can’t believe in an age where we en mass cry out against cyber bullying and rage against terrorists that we can support or condone what the current day media do. I just wished that once people would really, really put themselves in those “infamous” celebrities positions and actually think about how it would feel to be nominated for “Villain of the Year” and win “Worst Dressed Performer” or third worst dressed British Woman. I want people to take a moment and think of how they would feel, honestly feel to be ranked number two on Richard Blackwell’s 48th annual “Ten Worst Dressed Women” list.
Take a moment and think about how your parents, siblings, grandparents, or whomever you call your loved ones would feel about hearing stories of you doing smack from People Magazine or having an affair from the evening news. Imagine everyone who you care what they think of you finding out about a completely fictitious evil that you purportedly did and never looking at you the same way. Imagine the stress and shame at not being able to defend yourself, lest you turn into another “Charlie Sheen” or “Bill Clinton”.
Take a moment to think about people using your name as a slang way to refer to the most horrifically embarrassing and stressful moment in your life so far.
How fun does that sound?
Do you think you asked for it?
Do you think you deserve it for being a smacked out anorexic whore?
How much do you think these perfectly normal and privacy wanting people deserve it?
And on to a lower level of this gigantic one woman soap box comes something else I wonder rather a lot. I always sort of feel hot under my cheeks and embarrassed when I look up in the grocery store and am greeted with somebody else’s private life that it makes me wonder how people can enjoy prying into someone else’s life like that. It makes me wonder how someone can read about Pitt and Jolie and not feel ashamed at being entertained by someone else’s traumatic love life. I’m wondering how many people would truly revel in knowing that out there are people snickering and pointing at their picture and talking about how their relationships are falling apart.
Maybe this stems from my utter lack of curiosity about a celebrity’s private life. To me all that matters is their professional front. I want to know what movies they’ve been in, where they studied their art, what awards they’ve won… Things pertaining to their career. I don’t care who they marry or how much they weigh or what they do at clubs because that’s their business and not mine, thanks.
Which brings me back to my original point. I’ll talk all day and night long about fictional characters. I’ll holler about Sherlock’s asexuality or Blake’s whorishness because they’re not real. At the end of it I can point to passages or scripts and point and define and explicate from there because that material has been put down so that I could. I can point out out-of-characterness if someone says Sherlock would tip tap in pink dance shoes and lay a smooch on Moriarty’s naughty bits because I have diction and history and that entire character laid out before me. Fictional characters are there to be dissected and fought over. They are there so that I can. I can’t hurt their feelings or make their mama’s cry because their mamas are made of paper and ink and a suspension in disbelief.
Actors are mediums to a fictional character; they give shape and sound to a nebulous idea and create a solid organ that we can conceive but they are not ours to dissect or deconstruct. Actors are people who are generous enough to lend us their bodies and skill so that we can distill our imaginations. Yes, some are better than others at it and some of them don’t have their life all that well together but that doesn’t give us the right to turn our noses up at our fellow humans and ignore the fact that they feel and that they can see our disgust.
That’s the difference between a character and an actor, really, right there. Characters don’t know we exist. They can’t. They’re not real. Some creative man or woman or many men and women sat down and dreamt them up. They are fake; make-believe. But actors aren’t. They are flesh and heart and dreams and hopes and families and histories and laughs and hands that reach out into the night to hold our empty palms because they are human also and because they know; they understand and want to give us a brief reprieve from the isolation that is so intrinsic to the human condition. And to touch us and give us this break from reality they put on ways and means and wigs and make up and stand under lights and call out words that aren’t theirs and pretend with all their might to be this make-believe person so that we can pretend to know this make-believe person and find company in their stories.
So how can we hate them for lies and gossip when they do so much for us? How can we not thank them (of course, from a healthy distance) for all that they do for us? How can we not respect their humanity and give them the respect and privacy that we find such a self-evident right?
I’m putting in a page-break because I doubt anyone wants to see me up on my soap box. I’m hoping that at least a few people will take a moment to at least skim through a paragraph or two.
A lot of people like to pretend or are possibly ignorant to the fact that “celebrities” (for lack of a better word) are defenseless to the slander painted against them no matter what Congress has to say to that. Just because these people’s professions put them in the lime light does not mean they asked to be called a slut or anorexic or an addict. It seems to me as if people forget that Lohan, Winehouse, Bush, Parker, even Stewart are people. They have (or had in the recently deceased Winehouse’s case) feelings and lives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and other people they care for. All of these stories about slutting around town, shooting up, raging incompetence, and lack of a soul are hurtful.
I honestly can’t believe in an age where we en mass cry out against cyber bullying and rage against terrorists that we can support or condone what the current day media do. I just wished that once people would really, really put themselves in those “infamous” celebrities positions and actually think about how it would feel to be nominated for “Villain of the Year” and win “Worst Dressed Performer” or third worst dressed British Woman. I want people to take a moment and think of how they would feel, honestly feel to be ranked number two on Richard Blackwell’s 48th annual “Ten Worst Dressed Women” list.
Take a moment and think about how your parents, siblings, grandparents, or whomever you call your loved ones would feel about hearing stories of you doing smack from People Magazine or having an affair from the evening news. Imagine everyone who you care what they think of you finding out about a completely fictitious evil that you purportedly did and never looking at you the same way. Imagine the stress and shame at not being able to defend yourself, lest you turn into another “Charlie Sheen” or “Bill Clinton”.
Take a moment to think about people using your name as a slang way to refer to the most horrifically embarrassing and stressful moment in your life so far.
How fun does that sound?
Do you think you asked for it?
Do you think you deserve it for being a smacked out anorexic whore?
How much do you think these perfectly normal and privacy wanting people deserve it?
And on to a lower level of this gigantic one woman soap box comes something else I wonder rather a lot. I always sort of feel hot under my cheeks and embarrassed when I look up in the grocery store and am greeted with somebody else’s private life that it makes me wonder how people can enjoy prying into someone else’s life like that. It makes me wonder how someone can read about Pitt and Jolie and not feel ashamed at being entertained by someone else’s traumatic love life. I’m wondering how many people would truly revel in knowing that out there are people snickering and pointing at their picture and talking about how their relationships are falling apart.
Maybe this stems from my utter lack of curiosity about a celebrity’s private life. To me all that matters is their professional front. I want to know what movies they’ve been in, where they studied their art, what awards they’ve won… Things pertaining to their career. I don’t care who they marry or how much they weigh or what they do at clubs because that’s their business and not mine, thanks.
Which brings me back to my original point. I’ll talk all day and night long about fictional characters. I’ll holler about Sherlock’s asexuality or Blake’s whorishness because they’re not real. At the end of it I can point to passages or scripts and point and define and explicate from there because that material has been put down so that I could. I can point out out-of-characterness if someone says Sherlock would tip tap in pink dance shoes and lay a smooch on Moriarty’s naughty bits because I have diction and history and that entire character laid out before me. Fictional characters are there to be dissected and fought over. They are there so that I can. I can’t hurt their feelings or make their mama’s cry because their mamas are made of paper and ink and a suspension in disbelief.
Actors are mediums to a fictional character; they give shape and sound to a nebulous idea and create a solid organ that we can conceive but they are not ours to dissect or deconstruct. Actors are people who are generous enough to lend us their bodies and skill so that we can distill our imaginations. Yes, some are better than others at it and some of them don’t have their life all that well together but that doesn’t give us the right to turn our noses up at our fellow humans and ignore the fact that they feel and that they can see our disgust.
That’s the difference between a character and an actor, really, right there. Characters don’t know we exist. They can’t. They’re not real. Some creative man or woman or many men and women sat down and dreamt them up. They are fake; make-believe. But actors aren’t. They are flesh and heart and dreams and hopes and families and histories and laughs and hands that reach out into the night to hold our empty palms because they are human also and because they know; they understand and want to give us a brief reprieve from the isolation that is so intrinsic to the human condition. And to touch us and give us this break from reality they put on ways and means and wigs and make up and stand under lights and call out words that aren’t theirs and pretend with all their might to be this make-believe person so that we can pretend to know this make-believe person and find company in their stories.
So how can we hate them for lies and gossip when they do so much for us? How can we not thank them (of course, from a healthy distance) for all that they do for us? How can we not respect their humanity and give them the respect and privacy that we find such a self-evident right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)