My Little Journal of Positivity

We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives...

Some years ago, I realized that the concept of
“noblesse oblige” was strongly ingrained in me
almost to the point of deformation of character,
traits and abilities. That in some way one (I)
is always required to do the “highest” duty one can –
that one must devote oneself to the most complicated,
abstract, mentally-intensive work one is capable of
performing – because there are many people who can't
do that kind of thing, and it's unfair of one to not
live up to one's potential when others can't do it.

So I felt like I was not supposed to – or more like,
allowed – to do things that “just anyone could do”.
Or anything that might be the only thing someone
else could do – that I couldn't take anyone else's
job away from them.

Of course, there's a lot of definitional questions of
what that would involve (or exclude). Mostly it seems
to involve concrete thinking (anyone can read or write
simple things, add numbers together...) or practical/
household skills (anyone can clean a room or polish
furniture or dig a hole...) or physical techniques
(anyone can do rudimentary sewing to repair clothes,
or paint a wall, or drive a car, etc.).

So there are many things I'm not supposed to waste my
time learning, much less doing, because I am “too smart”
for that.

We are young but getting old before our time...

I was pondering this because my dad, specifically, is a
very “handy” type of person (he worked as a machinist
mate in the Navy, and then was a mechanic in the Martin
airplane factory before he went into teaching). Yet
while I helped him with several home and/or car repair
projects, I don't feel like I ever learned much in the
way of actual, systematic repair skills or techniques
from him – i.e. how to analyze a concrete problem and
then either troubleshoot or resolve it.

Did I ask my dad to teach me? No, but I'm wondering if
that was a subtler version of my “don't bother someone
if they are busy” fear. Could he have taught me that way,
those things? I have no idea, though the times I watched
him as a teacher or heard him tell stories, I know he's
very emphatic and intent on teaching people things that
are applicable to their lives.

Either it just didn't dawn on him that he could (or should)
teach me those type of things (but certainly he did share
other things with me) – or maybe he tried to and I didn't
have the capacity to learn that kind of thing (though I
do like to solve things systematically) – or maybe, as I
perceive it right now, the expectation was that I should
be learning the highest-level abstract things I possibly
could so that I could aspire to bigger and better things
than being a janitor or repairman or farmer or factory worker.

Similarly, my mother went to college and became a teacher
because she was intelligent, and that was an intellectual job
that was acceptable for women back in the 50s, not to mention
the fact that my father was doing the same thing and she wanted
to be with him.... but she didn't like teaching, it wasn't a
good fit for her personality. The rest of her jobs went
“backwards” from that – from basic office/clerical tasks in
my grade school, to being a meat cutter/cashier at the local
grocery store, to her last attempt to work as an expert/
salesperson in a craft store... where my own perception is
that she panicked at the added responsibility, began to feel
like she had failed/was about to fail, and got sick in order
to quit.

Which goes back to, I'm not supposed to take someone else's job.
I'm not allowed to do simple work or tasks. I feel like I have
to do what other people expect me to do, or need me to do because
they can't. That I am trapped into doing intellectual work, or
thinking academic thoughts, all the time, and forever.

I fear that if I take any time off – or if I stop doing this
type of work for any reason – I'll be perceived as quitting,
or irresponsible, or failing my potential and not fulfilling
(others') expectations. (Also that if I then try to go back
to doing it, I will have lost all ability for it. I already
have a lot of that fear just in the fact that I've done little
explicit user-centered design or testing in the last year.)

I don't know that I would want to stop doing it completely and
permanently – I am good at it and there is some value in it –
but I've been in some version of the “information sciences”
field for over 25 years (if you count my library assistant/
grad school years, it's been 26 years where this has been my
career path) and am now feeling quite a bit exhausted by both
the constant change, challenge and pressure of having to learn
new things to “keep up with the field”, and the parallel feeling
that actually both the problems and solutions just keep getting
recycled rather than actually resolved.

We'll leave the TV and the radio behind...

At this point in the formal essay-writing process, the
expectation is: having discussed the fundamental issue,
one should now propose realistic ideas or suggestions
to resolve the problem and not play “yes, but...” with
the reading audience. However, I don't feel able to
find solutions or possibilities that aren't radically
drastic and thus perceived to be unrealistic since people
don't dramatically change all at once – if they think
they do, it tends to be a “Flitcraft moment” where they
move out of their pattern briefly but eventually lapse
back into the same type of existence they ran away from
previously. Because as Buckaroo Banzai and all the Buddhas
say, “Wherever you go in life, there you are.”

Don't you wonder what we'll find
Stepping out tonight--

I don't feel like I can stay the same.

But I don't feel like I'm allowed to change, either.

And there's damn little fruit juice in this bottle....

We'll be there in just a while...
If you follow me

The year, the year, the year gets dark.

Soundless fury, toneless fear, blackness so stark
closing your eyes against it only makes it brighter.

Everything counsels patience, waiting, slowness.
If I sit any more still I will go backwards.

If you had a clue what I think -
If you ever asked how I felt -
If it wasn't all about you -
Maybe there would be me.

Instead, every day is a new misadventure.
I don't tell you anything, I keep myself
in the cage that keeps you safe from me.

[No actual coworkers were harmed or upset in the making
of this dream. This is only partially about work, after all.]

I dreamed this morning that "they" killed one of my coworkers.
Officially he "fell", but several of us figured he was pushed
because we saw him wrestled away from the balcony before he
could speak. "They" instantly replaced him with someone new
who cheerfully spouted what "they" wanted to hear rather than
doing difficult work to fix or change things.

One coworker, who had been close friends with the victim,
fell completely apart, sobbing in my arms. I was trying to
help and hide her in case they might go after her too.

Then things shifted slightly... and I was parking further away
from work, in a rather hidden spot in an underground garage.
I noticed I was wearing a specific T-shirt [a meaningful but
uncomfortably constructed one that I haven't worn in years -
however, I saw it a week ago when I pulled out its sister shirt
for my first solo takeoff and landing] and so on my way in
I started looking around for a more suitable shirt, but no one
had noticed I wasn't dressed right.

At least before I woke up.

Would the death of hope hurt less if it hadn't been given a voice?

At least my first impulse seems to have been to worry about someone else
in more trouble, rather than myself.

Would you have still said what you did if you knew what I was thinking?

One of the leftovers from my childhood is that I don't like surprises.

Do I change my shirt, or do I walk away?

Ah, sometimes Tir'na Na Nog'th disappears right under your feet.

I dreamed this morning that I was dodging fireballs
shaped like ghostly freight trains, in a basement
I know quite well.

We opened a casement window to escape. People got out,
but the piano was destroyed. I was in no danger, but.

Ah, sometimes Tir'na Na Nog'th is a subconscious...
But these past few weeks, been entirely too literal.

How do you get the goose out of the bottle?

How do you get out?

From whuffle: Discipline, reticence, jitterbug, cheetah, cautious

Discipline: I was raised to be several adjectives, high
among them being "responsible", "reliable", and "polite".
Sometimes _not_ doing or saying something is discipline
keeping me from not being those adjectives. However, I
do wish I had more positive discipline focused on doing
either highly boring chores and/or highly creative work.
My laundry isn't folded, and my novels aren't written;
one wouldn't be too bad, but both undone is inexcusable.

Reticence: I've often found that showing one's feelings
leads more to avoidance (if the listener finds them
distasteful) or manipulation (if the listener has
evil or selfish motives) than sharing or connection.
I'd rather be simply invisible than actively shunned,
and I know my vulnerabilities too well to show them.

Jitterbug: one of the few places left in my life
where I have the energy and ability to be playful.
(I'd still like some of the others back, mind you,
and am pondering ways to return or to go on... but
at least for now I have this outlet for flow.)

Cheetah: as a kid, I read all the Born Free-type books
by Joy Adamson. I thought it would be neat to go live
with lions. Then, I read _The Spotted Sphinx", and my
allegiance shifted wholeheartedly to cheetahs for all
the things I saw we had in common. Nothing I've learned
since has done anything but intensify the feeling that
I would make a far better cheetah than I do a human.

Cautious: like Treebeard, making up my mind does not
take as long as going over all the facts. I think of
myself as a strong person with a lot of capacity for
intention, influence, or injury; thus I try hard not
to make bad decisions. I don't like to change my mind
once I have decided something, either -- even if the
situation around me has changed, I feel *I* may not;
or even if I *have*, I tend to honor my promises and
just wait for others to break theirs instead.

If you want to play along, reply to this post
by yelling (or even saying gently) "Words!" and
I will give you five words that remind me of you.
Then post them in your LJ and explain what they
mean to you.

I'd like to go to Italy
Just to eat the food
Just to drink the wine
Just to go
-Patty Larkin, "Italy"

So, this post is not about Italy. It's about Japan.

A friend recently commented that he didn't think of me
as a T-shirt and jeans kind of girl. :) I was entertained
because that's close what I think of as my "normal state",
but this friend has generally seen me (1) in contexts where
I should be wearing fancier clothes, or (2) when I'm cold
and wearing sweater or sweatshirt -- which are often hiding
a T-shirt.

(1) involves everything from work to dancing, and I get as
close as I can to social norms without sacrificing too much
to fashion; (2) includes everything under, say, 65 degrees.

But I have certain T-shirts that between physical comfort
and emotional meaning, I come back to again and again. Some
of them are so worn and tattered now that I only unfold and
don them for "special occasions". Others hang in there -- or
more precisely, don't hang because they often get yanked out
of the clean laundry basket before folding even occurs.

Two of them involve Japan in some way, which is why this post
comes out in this particular way and this particular time.

I went to Japan in Aug. 2007. Not to go to the Worldcon in
Yokohama (just like I went to Los Angeles in 1996 not to go
to Worldcon). As Patty Larkin would say, "Just to go."

Just to be.

I've lost my luggage in the Tokyo subway locker system;
bought a CD from a band named Hanamizuki playing free on
Minato-Mirai plaza; seen The Great Sasuke and Ultimo Dragon
performing at Korakuen Hall; stood in the Ghibli Museum
wearing my Princess Mononoke T-shirt; and climbed to a peak
of Daisetsuzan, aka the "Roof of Hokkaido".

And:

I've used the Internet to discover the best "jingisukan"
in Sapporo, and Lonely Planet to locate its two sublime
ramen-noodle alleys; stopped over in Tomokomai because of
a poster for an exhibition of matchbox art; experienced
shinkansen and subways, ryokans and train sleeping cars,
but did not try a capsule hotel; and discovered "umeshuu".

And:

I've chatted with train conductors, zookeepers, members of
art museums, convenience store attendants, early morning
sushi aficionados, temple attendants, and more: I, in my
stumbling Japanese, them practicing English eagerly in turn.

And:

I've been to Sendai. I have a picture of the train station
sign for Hachinohe because I loved its kanji. I've walked
the streets of Aomori, provided crazy gaijin amusement for
their police dept., and had to eat a "tako doonatsu" that
my kosher-eating companion bought by mistake while he was
still catching up to me on transliterating and translating.

My language is rusty again, and my bottle of umeshuu is just
about empty, but my expired rail pass is still in my backpack.
For I do miss that alien self, adrift in a stranger's world.

Clad in a T-shirt, and jeans.

So, my Japan: never #1 on my list of places I'd want to live
(that'd be a slightly smaller island known as "the Big Island"),
but in the top 3. Because I never expect to "belong" anywhere,
and I would even tell you I don't like to travel... just to be.

Even now.

So, send help if you can. Or at least a positive thought or two.

I'd like to go to Japan
So my passport would look used
Just to change my point of view
Just to go
-me, paraphrasing Patty

Donations:
Direct Relief International for the people and places
American Humane Association for injured/abandoned animals