Physical Violence
Unruly boys, who will not grow up must be taken in hand,
Unruly girls who will not settle down, they must be taken in hand -
A crack on the head is what you get for not asking,
And a crack on the head is what you get for asking!
The Smiths, 'Barbarism Begins At Home'
Haven't updated in a while, possibly because I didn't feel like distilling the complexities of my life into specific words (mark that I don't plan to do that now), even though I think that well-chosen words should convey any condition in as accurate a way as it can be observed. I merely mistrust my ability to choose words well sometimes. Anyway, after all that hemming and hawing, here's a little morsel for the starving masses.
Was thinking yesterday about how, in the places that I spend my time, the threat of physical violence generally gains one remarkably little. Acts of violence result in ostracism pure and simple. Having trouble thinking of specific examples of this occurring. Oh, hang on. Here's one: Michael kicking Stephen in the face at Terracon in 1999. Wasn't a popular fellow in the aftermath. This thought about the complete ineffectuality of violence as a means of conflict resolution was prompted by the inordinate number of threats of violence I've heard being made in the past week or so. Around here, if I was in an argument with someone and they threatened me with a beating, I'd actually be quite pleased, I think, unless I thought they were the kind of sociopath that would actually risk social exile just for a chance to whack me in the nose. Although a prolonged argument with me could possibly cause my interlocutor to suffer from temporary sociopathy, since I'm a bit of a prat and annoying to talk to, so perhaps I wouldn't be too happy if I received such a threat. Wow, that last line was a little raw.
Have been feeling a little paranoid about friends and companions of late. A sort of anxiety: that people I know well are happy enough not talking to me, or seeing me, for extended periods of time. That as little as they mind having me around, they would just as easily forget I existed, our friendship withering and closing up like a disused piercing within a matter of hours. This has been resulting in a weird desire to make myself as indispensible to as many people as possible, which is rather difficult when my main social modus operandi is to be a fringe operator, standing on the sidelines making snide remarks.
Anyway, I have enough perspective to realise that all this is probably nonsense, so I've been doing a bit of self-investigation. I think the paranoia goes back to two things.
Firstly, I've acted in a way that may have ruffled a few feathers or hurt a few people's feelings lately, and I fear some minds have become poisoned, or at least partially contaminated, against me (although I haven't really had any evidence to that effect).
Secondly, bizarrely enough, the Guild elections. People have been rabbitting on so much about how it brought them all together, and how it was such an important, character-building experience, and back-slapping and handing out kudos right and left, and so forth, and actually, for me, it's all been rather alienating. Or maybe (entirely possibly) I just feel a bit outclassed by such a titanic display of self-motivation and teamwork. The number of times I've opened my mouth automatically to spit out a strategic, position-defending disparaging remark and bitten my lip for fear of being swamped by the likely retaliation, is quite large. Partly (I can hope) I have been biting my lip because I'm trying to work on being more gracious and less sullen at the moment. At some point in the increasingly distant past I became obsessed with eliminating my character flaws, which are numerous. The obsession itself is a rather major character flaw, of course. Pity the way everything has to spin back, precessing in vicious circles like that.
All this said, I'm rather angst-free most of the time. I've been contemplating the production of another couple of Mr Negative scripts: I have a feeling they might pop out some time fairly soon. They seem to take months to gestate but the period of labour is usually around five minutes. I hope everyone I like still likes me: I've been feeling a little spread thin lately, so I may not have been the vibrant, ebullient person I can be on the good days. Work to do, people to see, places to be, life for the living.
Ah, and I have a ticket for Morrissey's Perth gig in a couple of weeks. So sweet.
Unruly boys, who will not grow up must be taken in hand,
Unruly girls who will not settle down, they must be taken in hand -
A crack on the head is what you get for not asking,
And a crack on the head is what you get for asking!
The Smiths, 'Barbarism Begins At Home'
Haven't updated in a while, possibly because I didn't feel like distilling the complexities of my life into specific words (mark that I don't plan to do that now), even though I think that well-chosen words should convey any condition in as accurate a way as it can be observed. I merely mistrust my ability to choose words well sometimes. Anyway, after all that hemming and hawing, here's a little morsel for the starving masses.
Was thinking yesterday about how, in the places that I spend my time, the threat of physical violence generally gains one remarkably little. Acts of violence result in ostracism pure and simple. Having trouble thinking of specific examples of this occurring. Oh, hang on. Here's one: Michael kicking Stephen in the face at Terracon in 1999. Wasn't a popular fellow in the aftermath. This thought about the complete ineffectuality of violence as a means of conflict resolution was prompted by the inordinate number of threats of violence I've heard being made in the past week or so. Around here, if I was in an argument with someone and they threatened me with a beating, I'd actually be quite pleased, I think, unless I thought they were the kind of sociopath that would actually risk social exile just for a chance to whack me in the nose. Although a prolonged argument with me could possibly cause my interlocutor to suffer from temporary sociopathy, since I'm a bit of a prat and annoying to talk to, so perhaps I wouldn't be too happy if I received such a threat. Wow, that last line was a little raw.
Have been feeling a little paranoid about friends and companions of late. A sort of anxiety: that people I know well are happy enough not talking to me, or seeing me, for extended periods of time. That as little as they mind having me around, they would just as easily forget I existed, our friendship withering and closing up like a disused piercing within a matter of hours. This has been resulting in a weird desire to make myself as indispensible to as many people as possible, which is rather difficult when my main social modus operandi is to be a fringe operator, standing on the sidelines making snide remarks.
Anyway, I have enough perspective to realise that all this is probably nonsense, so I've been doing a bit of self-investigation. I think the paranoia goes back to two things.
Firstly, I've acted in a way that may have ruffled a few feathers or hurt a few people's feelings lately, and I fear some minds have become poisoned, or at least partially contaminated, against me (although I haven't really had any evidence to that effect).
Secondly, bizarrely enough, the Guild elections. People have been rabbitting on so much about how it brought them all together, and how it was such an important, character-building experience, and back-slapping and handing out kudos right and left, and so forth, and actually, for me, it's all been rather alienating. Or maybe (entirely possibly) I just feel a bit outclassed by such a titanic display of self-motivation and teamwork. The number of times I've opened my mouth automatically to spit out a strategic, position-defending disparaging remark and bitten my lip for fear of being swamped by the likely retaliation, is quite large. Partly (I can hope) I have been biting my lip because I'm trying to work on being more gracious and less sullen at the moment. At some point in the increasingly distant past I became obsessed with eliminating my character flaws, which are numerous. The obsession itself is a rather major character flaw, of course. Pity the way everything has to spin back, precessing in vicious circles like that.
All this said, I'm rather angst-free most of the time. I've been contemplating the production of another couple of Mr Negative scripts: I have a feeling they might pop out some time fairly soon. They seem to take months to gestate but the period of labour is usually around five minutes. I hope everyone I like still likes me: I've been feeling a little spread thin lately, so I may not have been the vibrant, ebullient person I can be on the good days. Work to do, people to see, places to be, life for the living.
Ah, and I have a ticket for Morrissey's Perth gig in a couple of weeks. So sweet.
