April 16, 2004

Moments of Reconsideration

Sometimes, Life gets in the way of patterns and process and certainty. Sometimes, Life is distracting and full of unexpected moments. Sometimes, Life makes it hard to be jaded and miserable and alone.

I haven't written much here for the past week. I have several half finished essays, things I really wanted to write about, but I put them off, and they look different now-- so very different. It's a nice feeling, though: a reminder that texts, what we write or say or experience, aren't static and unchanging. They constantly take on new meanings and change trajectories. Texts are dynamic and interpretative.

One of my entries was about my struggle to write my Plan papers:

I've been sleeping better and less, feeling more content and sad, trying to follow the straight lines as they circle round and round. I've been feeling guilty this week for writing in my new paper journal, for blogging here, for thinking about the things I care about and make me happy and lead me to where I want to go.

I've started writing my papers for school, but they feel so forced and impersonal and passive. And that's the way it's supposed to be, right? I shouldn't fill my paper with overt uncertainty and self-reflection, because it's just not academic; it's not the way it's done; it doesn't fit the mold. Mold. Disintegrated organic matter, stale, historical, old. Mold, indeed. Even the uncertainty and self-reflection I relegate to the introduction seems forced, distanced, controlled-- moldy.

The Tibetan issue, regarding independence, regarding identity, regarding moral choices for future action, is complex, multifaceted, and, much to the detriment of dialogue, highly polarized. As such, it is difficult, particularly for a student in the West, to sift through the varying positions of the debate, or even identify distinct positions at all, and try to settle issues of "what happened" or "who did what." Parsimony is a much-hailed outcome for political scientists, but it always comes at the expense of detail and complexity. To the extent to which details and complexities inhibit dialogue, parsimony is beneficial to understanding. But taken too far, it moves issues outside their context, exacerbates exclusion and Otherness, and leaves unanswered the most important questions, which are invariably predicated on complexity and uncertainty.

I speak of "a student in the West," but what the hell does that mean? I've jumped from cookie-cutter positivism to cookie-cutter post-modernism? What the hell does any of this mean? Why the hell am I writing these papers at all?

When Marx critiques the capitalist model, one of his approaches is from the vantage point of alienation. When we create something, make something, write something that isn't for ourselves, isn't for what we want, we don't connect to it, and the process leaves us feeling empty, automated, and inhuman. We're alienated not just from our labor, and from the products of our labor, but also from ourselves, our humanity. And that's exactly how I feel when I write these papers. Each line is a forced flow of factoids; the paragraphs are sewn together with arbitrary and awkward segues. And in the end, I've said nothing that matters to me.

I want to write things that matter to me. I want to write things that are true to me. I want to write things that make me feel something, or at least capture, in some small way, the things that I am feeling. I want to screw this school shit and move to Montana.

But I don't, of course-- at least not completely. I'm connected to, invested in part of the normalized way of thinking. I am complicit in my own surveillance, my own control. When I blog instead of write my school papers, I feel guilty. This is, of course, Foucault's critique: power is omnipresent, with multiple points of control, most notably on the sub-individual level. I don't need Seth or Lynette to yell at me for not writing, I feel bad already; the discipline and punishment is self-discipline and self-punishment. I am my own keeper; I am my own oppressor.

Foucault's world is deterministic and static. Power (and thus control) is everywhere, and acts everywhere. But what of agency? What of choice? I'm not comfortable living in a world so dystopian, so constricting, so depressing as Foucault makes ours out to be. I think the world is what we make of it, to an extent, and I don't want to make it follow Foucault's.

As I was writing that, I was thinking, as an aside, how easy it is to blog, to write about things that are important or meaningful to me. I could easily write several pages a night, if I wanted, yet I can't seem to write these papers for school. I can't seem to form my writing into that mold. I talked to Meg about my problem today, because Meg is awesome and makes my world go 'round. She invariably ends up saying the things I think about, but don't feel empowered enough to say or commit to. And today, per usual, she put my problem in terms of voice. I can't fit my voice into that academic model anymore, I can't force my writing to fit the mold. And so, perhaps, I should use another voice, a voice I'm more comfortable with. This voice, here.

There is a story to tell about China and Tibet, and it's not my story. I can't objectify it, or "study" it, though, because I'm not objective, and neither are my sources. But I can't confine that story to relativism, either, because the story is important, and it means something to me. That meaning to me becomes, itself, another story-- the story of my experience with the Sino-Tibetan story. That story is meaningful, intimate, and what I know; that story is what I can write about.

Another was about a girl:

Where a small knife tears out those sloppy seams
And the silence knows what your silence means
And your metaphors (as mixed as you can make them)
Are linked, like days, together
-The Weakerthans

She smiles at me for hours. I sit in the steel chair for just as long. We wonder, in our selective silence, if the other knows what we're thinking, if we are both playing the same Wittgensteinian language game. Does he know that I smile profusely because I don't know what else to say? Does she know that I sit in the uncomfortable chair because I don't want to leave? We sit alone, together, and watch the wall, and wonder what it means. And then we wonder why we're wondering, and wonder if we'll always just wonder.

Why does it take so long? Why does it take me weeks to know someone well enough to say, "hi"? Why does it take me months, or years even, to say, "Hey! You're funny, and caring, and wicked cute, and I wish you'd stop by more often"? Why can't I just buy into a language game, knowing that, yeah, it might suck, and I might misinterpret something, and your smile might not mean what my smile means, but maybe-- just maybe-- it might not suck, and I might be right about something, and your smile might mean what my smile means?

I worry about smiles in my direction. I worry that a smile if just a smile, but I make it out to be something far greater, because it's all I know how to do when I mean something far greater. I worry, too, that a smile might be more than a smile, but there might also be something bad, something mean, something hurtful behind that smile, and I should wait a while-- and wait a while longer-- to make sure it's genuine and true and meaningful. I worry, and I hesitate, and I get caught in my silence. My anxiety and fear paints itself on my face as disinterest and lack of commitment. My anxiety and fear keeps me alone.

I like you. You like me. But how do I know you like me? How do I know this isn't just a thing, a fling? How do I know when summer comes, or graduation comes, or graduate school or work or Life comes, you won't toss me aside like a half-spent cigarette butt? I can't do these things for fun; I can't do these things simply because I'm alone and would rather not be; I can't do these things incompletely.

I worry, and I hesitate, and I get caught in my silence. I don't know how to explain that "slow" doesn't mean anything other than slow. It's not second-guessing, it's not stepping back, it's not regretting; it's just taking time, and being certain, and relating in the only way I know how to relate-- in the only way I'm comfortable relating.

I watched ESotSM again, and it made me laugh, and cry, and wonder why I worry so much. I always worry, thinking that worrying will protect me from being hurt. Invariably, I end up hurt. After the measured spoonfuls and the marmalade and tea, I still think it's worth it, after all, and I'm okay with the possibility of ending up hurt. But why do I still worry, then, if, apparently, worrying is as effective as Mary Schmich says it is. Maybe we aren't playing the same language game, and maybe it won't work out, but maybe I should stop worrying so much.

Maybe I shouldn't leave this time; maybe-- just maybe-- I should stay, and not worry.

Posted by Sean at April 16, 2004 03:40 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jen at April 16, 2004 04:26 PM

Posted by: jo anne at April 16, 2004 04:54 PM

Posted by: Deb at April 30, 2004 06:25 AM