I've lived in the same city my entire life. (Except for a few months at a time spent at various camps or once at Central College.) It is, in fact, the 12th largest city in my whole country, by population. I had my childhood dreams of living out in the wilderness, some farmhouse somewhere, a cabin in the woods, what have you... & there's still a magical beauty to that sort of place that is unmatched by anything else. But as time has gone by, & I've learned more about myself, I've grown more & more in love with where I am. I can no longer imagine being truly happy living away from the pavement & the hustle. To be more specific, I know there are things about living in the middle of nowhere that would appeal to me deeply-- but they aren't what I need. I'd become lazy & stagnant. I'd see the chance to stop caring about people, to stop pushing myself to keep being around them & investing in them & sharing with them, & I am so scared that I would take it. I'd take it & run with it, hiding myself away with my own selfish pursuits. I'd have time to read so many books, to knit everything, to teach myself to draw, to master beautiful songs on piano & guitar, to watch & rewatch everything on Netflix, to cook & bake fantastic things... & I'd probably be happy. But so much potential would be dead, & I'd be a worse person.
In any day of my life here in the city, I am at least thinking of people, if not interacting with any of them. I hear the traffic. Someone brings mail to my porch. My 3DS might get a streetpass or two just sitting around. Loud conversations take place beyond my windows. This keeps me a part of the world, in a way that matters. I pray for these people. I think about what they think, what they accomplish, what they love. I look at how different they are, & how similar.
People are the most important thing.
Even if I never speak to the people in those cars, the postal worker, or the creator of "John" in my 3DS plaza... they are doing me a favor of broadening my mind & my world. They inspire me & remind me how important it is to be involved with the people in my world. I can get a little bit of this from various books/movies/music/games, from really looking at an object & thinking about where it came from, from deliberate use of social media, etc, but it's never as powerful for me as instant human behaviors going on right next to me. I have to be surrounded by life & potential & opportunities, or I'm going to let them pass me by, because not getting involved is "easier". I have to see the beauty of work & pain & laughter & play, to keep my perspective reminded that there are so many other people out there, & they're all as important as I am. No matter how pleased I'd be with a hermit lifestyle, it could never mean as much as meaning something to someone else, & letting them be meaningful to me.
I need sleepovers & game days & birthday parties & crazy things I've never done before.
I've really challenged myself these last couple years or so to make new friends & better care for ones I already had, & it has been amazing. I really have done things I didn't want to do, but those things have been rewarding. I've met remarkable people, & seen new sides of people I already liked. I need these people, I need these experiences, I need to be a part of things or I'll waste away. I need to give of my strengths, & I need to let my weaknesses be okay, too. My comfort zone is important for helping me have boundaries, but all too often it can be misused, as a shield from things that could be so good for me & the people around me.
Of course, my long-distance friendships are also very meaningful, & they challenge/exhaust/renew me in their own ways. But my perspective would be skewed if I chose to let that be my only focus. I can ignore a text, I can hide my feelings. I need to be pushed into situations I can't control, to help me stay real & to watch other people be real. All of my relationships benefit when I am forced to understand new things.
Related reading: Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
(Oh lands, please, if you don't appreciate the importance of people, read this book right now, & then read it again. Everyone matters.)
Related listening: Jackson Browne's Alive in the World, Guggenheim Grotto's The Universe is Laughing, The Elms' entire Chess Hotel album
Monday, March 30, 2015
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
My Earliest Fandoms
There's this really neat thing going around the internet, called 5 Fandom Friday... & I love some of the prompts... but not all of them, & I don't necessarily want to try to follow them week by week, so uh, I'm just going to sometimes refer to the list & steal the prompts for inspiration. Sorrynotsorry.
So, for my first 5 Fandom Friday inspired post, I'm adapting the very first one they ever did, Gateway Fandoms that Made Me Who I am Today.
My Very First Fandoms would I suppose be the things I had around me for longer than I can even remember, things that were there for my older brother already when I showed up...
-Ghostbusters
-TMNT
-Nintendo
-Disney/otherassortedanimatedflicks
But I'd also like to give a shout-out to some of the things I picked up a bit later (pre-teen years), but have been monumental & stuck with me.
-Star Wars (this was introduced to me & my bro at the same time, when the Special Edition was released- I was nine)
-Batman (our grandma laid out a couple of graphic novels with the intent of letting my bro read them, but I got to them first & it kinda changed my life-- I have no memory of what the bro was busy doing while I wandered off & made this turn of events occur, & maybe I should be sorry, but it was an accident & well uh um I can't be sorry for loving Batman)
-Sherlock Holmes (I won a copy of The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in a Bingo game on a summer vacation with my extended family)
It's interesting to me to look back on this sort of thing, for multiple reasons.
I can see how they influenced my interests & sense of humor from the start.
I feel really blessed to have had so much in common with my brother, in terms of these sorts of things.
...though I had very little truly in common with most girls around me. (Disney was my girliest interest. I liked stuffed animals & Polly Pocket, but not dolls or horses or makeup or boy bands or etc.)
I am the sort of person who feels most happy with what is most familiar, so this list is still very dear & applicable to me.
So, for my first 5 Fandom Friday inspired post, I'm adapting the very first one they ever did, Gateway Fandoms that Made Me Who I am Today.
My Very First Fandoms would I suppose be the things I had around me for longer than I can even remember, things that were there for my older brother already when I showed up...
-Ghostbusters
-TMNT
-Nintendo
-Disney/otherassortedanimatedflicks
But I'd also like to give a shout-out to some of the things I picked up a bit later (pre-teen years), but have been monumental & stuck with me.
-Star Wars (this was introduced to me & my bro at the same time, when the Special Edition was released- I was nine)
-Batman (our grandma laid out a couple of graphic novels with the intent of letting my bro read them, but I got to them first & it kinda changed my life-- I have no memory of what the bro was busy doing while I wandered off & made this turn of events occur, & maybe I should be sorry, but it was an accident & well uh um I can't be sorry for loving Batman)
-Sherlock Holmes (I won a copy of The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in a Bingo game on a summer vacation with my extended family)
It's interesting to me to look back on this sort of thing, for multiple reasons.
I can see how they influenced my interests & sense of humor from the start.
I feel really blessed to have had so much in common with my brother, in terms of these sorts of things.
...though I had very little truly in common with most girls around me. (Disney was my girliest interest. I liked stuffed animals & Polly Pocket, but not dolls or horses or makeup or boy bands or etc.)
I am the sort of person who feels most happy with what is most familiar, so this list is still very dear & applicable to me.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
Re: Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games
Hi friends! I've had in mind for a while now to start writing up posts about fictional characters & how I relate to them specifically. Because I think that's really one of the most beautiful things about fiction, really-- all stories are good for helping open our minds to new ideas, but now & then there's something special that draws you in & it's like you get to live more life, in a way.
Disclaimer: you know I like MBTI stuff, & maybe you like MBTI stuff too, but this isn't about typing characters. Part/most of it will be aspects that could be labeled under such terms, but it's not really the point-- I want to keep it more universal, more about anything that makes me feel a connection. (In this case in particular, part of why I relate to Katniss isn't even just about her, but also the characters around her & how she feels about them, & that has nothing to do with MBTI, sorry.)
(I do think Katniss is maybe ISTJ. But I think she suffers a bit from what I like to call Mulan-syndrome: sometimes she's just The Character that the Story Needs Her to Be.)
Disclaimer #2: SPOILERS INCLUDED, okay. I want to be able to get specific. & I figure if you care about how I relate to Katniss, you probably care because you already know about Katniss.
-------
I am not actually sure when I first heard about The Hunger Games. I think someone I know had just found out there was going to be a movie made based on the book, & was looking for someone with whom he could talk about how similar it was/wasn't to Battle Royale (which I have read, more recently, & they really aren't particularly similar except for the bit about kids having to fight to the death). What I do remember is slouching around the ol' apartment & DEVOURING the trilogy in a matter of days. & it's not that they're the greatest books, really. I was actually a bit bugged about at least one particular writing choice, & I still think that the movies are better than the books so far (I've only seen the first two)... but what really got me, what made the story mean a lot to me, was how deeply & how quickly & how specifically it made me feel a connection with Katniss.
One of the first things the story establishes is that Katniss has a best friend, Gale. Gale is a little older than she, they met when she was a younger teen, he's an idealist & gets angered by injustice, they can talk together about everything or nothing, they're always there for each other.
I had a Gale in my life, too, & immediately made that connection.
Katniss cares about injustice & so forth too, she's just super practical about it. She & I don't dwell much on things that we can't affect ourselves. (& we're not out-of-the-box thinkers, so there's not much we DO think we can change in the world.) She/I will do ANYTHING to do what we see needs to be done, like Katniss hunts/sells/lawbreaks/keepshersisterintheclear. Our heart is in doing our absolute best in what we see as our place. It's not that we're lazy, or don't care about the world as a whole, we're just not that broadly ambitious! We'd rather commit to what we see as the most important, analyzing our present circumstance, & dealing with things as they come. We have limited resources, & don't want to lessen the good we can do in our chosen little causes by trying to do more good in more places. It's a weakness/strength.
Then, before too long, we meet Peeta. It didn't take me long to identify him with the Peeta in my own life. He cares so much, on a personal level, about everything. Because he sees in everything how it matters to the people around him. He's rarely actually happy, because his happiness is so closely tied to the feelings of everyone else. He doesn't see himself as anything particularly good or special or worthy... as long as there are still people hurting, he'll still feel a need to be better, so that he can help them. He has a way with people, of understanding what is really going on, & knowing what to say. So people listen to him.
I had mixed feelings when the whole love-triangle thing became a thing. WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LET A GUY & GIRL BE FRIENDS, I screamed internally. But, let's be real... when I was her age, I thought maybe I'd end up with my Gale. So. It's not so much that I was mad about the trope, as I was mad about my connection to the story getting deeper. Truth is, I've lost my Gale. I knew that no matter what happened to her relationship with him, I was going to have feels about it. I already warned you about spoilers, so I can go ahead & say that when they found him whipped nearly to death, I was about as close to crying over a book as I've ever been in my life. He's not even one of my "favorite characters", he's just one of the most REAL, well real to me anyway. Katniss freaks out & tries to do/feel/think everything, & goes a little crazy feeling helpless. It feels right to me, though I've not quite been in that sort of scenario myself.
One of my favorite things about Katniss is summed up by Peeta: she has no idea, the effect she can have. Ahhhhh, how refreshing to find a character who is oblivious & yet not considered better/worse for being so. There's this whole trend of having the socially-oblivious character be somehow endearing because of this flaw, but I like that it isn't used to make her adorably awkward (well, maybe just to the characters around her, for that bit in the second book), it's just a part of who she is. I can relate to that so much more. It is NOT generally accepted as adorable in real life to be that clueless to social cues. Not having any speck of intuition is NOT CUTE in everyday life. It's hard, & people usually just misinterpret your misunderstanding as something negative that you don't actually mean. So. GREAT to see it not represented as a GOOD THING.
...but somehow, yeah, "the effect she can have". This is where the Mulan-syndrome comes in. Why is Katniss somehow deeply loved/respected by 90% of people, even though she doesn't come across as very nice? Because the story needs her to. But hey, it's kinda flattering, from the perspective of someone who relates to her, haha. (I do feel like, VERY RARELY, I somehow instantly win people over for no particular reason, & it doesn't matter how awful I come across, they see in me the admirable things. But I consider that more of a good thing about them than about me-- their ability to interpret what I really mean has nothing to do with my own efforts.)
She really does need Peeta... she & I both. I married mine, too. We need someone who is nicer than we understand, the kind of nice we wish we could be but have no idea how it functions in real life. We need that buffer, someone who gets along so well with the rest of the world in the ways that we don't, someone who understands the goodness in us that doesn't always translate to others. It's a special teamwork-- they give us a much-needed perspective on the rest of the world, & we try to give them a perspective on their very self.
I think sometimes the story gets it right, that her best moments are when she can be thoughtful in details that make a difference. Trying to think of everything that would make life easier for everyone. Not the big outside-the-box change-the-world thinking, just the little what-can-I-do things. & I see heroism when she tries things outside her comfort zone. There's just a bit of disconnect when she does the occasional big flashy plot-driving thing... but hey, you've got to move a book along somehow. (In a lot of stories, if the main character was like me, it would NOT end the same way at all. ;-) Some huge beast guy says don't go in the West Wing? NO PROBLEM, I'LL BE IN THE LIBRARY.)
-------
So there you have it! The Hunger Games trilogy is special to me because almost everything she thinks/feels/does makes sense to me on a personal level, & I see in her two closest friends two of the people I've loved most in my own life. Her story feels like I could have lived it. Yay for good stories!
Bonus fun facts:
-The second book is by far my favorite of the three
-My favorite characters are actually Cinna & Haymitch
Disclaimer: you know I like MBTI stuff, & maybe you like MBTI stuff too, but this isn't about typing characters. Part/most of it will be aspects that could be labeled under such terms, but it's not really the point-- I want to keep it more universal, more about anything that makes me feel a connection. (In this case in particular, part of why I relate to Katniss isn't even just about her, but also the characters around her & how she feels about them, & that has nothing to do with MBTI, sorry.)
(I do think Katniss is maybe ISTJ. But I think she suffers a bit from what I like to call Mulan-syndrome: sometimes she's just The Character that the Story Needs Her to Be.)
Disclaimer #2: SPOILERS INCLUDED, okay. I want to be able to get specific. & I figure if you care about how I relate to Katniss, you probably care because you already know about Katniss.
-------
I am not actually sure when I first heard about The Hunger Games. I think someone I know had just found out there was going to be a movie made based on the book, & was looking for someone with whom he could talk about how similar it was/wasn't to Battle Royale (which I have read, more recently, & they really aren't particularly similar except for the bit about kids having to fight to the death). What I do remember is slouching around the ol' apartment & DEVOURING the trilogy in a matter of days. & it's not that they're the greatest books, really. I was actually a bit bugged about at least one particular writing choice, & I still think that the movies are better than the books so far (I've only seen the first two)... but what really got me, what made the story mean a lot to me, was how deeply & how quickly & how specifically it made me feel a connection with Katniss.
One of the first things the story establishes is that Katniss has a best friend, Gale. Gale is a little older than she, they met when she was a younger teen, he's an idealist & gets angered by injustice, they can talk together about everything or nothing, they're always there for each other.
I had a Gale in my life, too, & immediately made that connection.
Katniss cares about injustice & so forth too, she's just super practical about it. She & I don't dwell much on things that we can't affect ourselves. (& we're not out-of-the-box thinkers, so there's not much we DO think we can change in the world.) She/I will do ANYTHING to do what we see needs to be done, like Katniss hunts/sells/lawbreaks/keepshersisterintheclear. Our heart is in doing our absolute best in what we see as our place. It's not that we're lazy, or don't care about the world as a whole, we're just not that broadly ambitious! We'd rather commit to what we see as the most important, analyzing our present circumstance, & dealing with things as they come. We have limited resources, & don't want to lessen the good we can do in our chosen little causes by trying to do more good in more places. It's a weakness/strength.
Then, before too long, we meet Peeta. It didn't take me long to identify him with the Peeta in my own life. He cares so much, on a personal level, about everything. Because he sees in everything how it matters to the people around him. He's rarely actually happy, because his happiness is so closely tied to the feelings of everyone else. He doesn't see himself as anything particularly good or special or worthy... as long as there are still people hurting, he'll still feel a need to be better, so that he can help them. He has a way with people, of understanding what is really going on, & knowing what to say. So people listen to him.
I had mixed feelings when the whole love-triangle thing became a thing. WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LET A GUY & GIRL BE FRIENDS, I screamed internally. But, let's be real... when I was her age, I thought maybe I'd end up with my Gale. So. It's not so much that I was mad about the trope, as I was mad about my connection to the story getting deeper. Truth is, I've lost my Gale. I knew that no matter what happened to her relationship with him, I was going to have feels about it. I already warned you about spoilers, so I can go ahead & say that when they found him whipped nearly to death, I was about as close to crying over a book as I've ever been in my life. He's not even one of my "favorite characters", he's just one of the most REAL, well real to me anyway. Katniss freaks out & tries to do/feel/think everything, & goes a little crazy feeling helpless. It feels right to me, though I've not quite been in that sort of scenario myself.
One of my favorite things about Katniss is summed up by Peeta: she has no idea, the effect she can have. Ahhhhh, how refreshing to find a character who is oblivious & yet not considered better/worse for being so. There's this whole trend of having the socially-oblivious character be somehow endearing because of this flaw, but I like that it isn't used to make her adorably awkward (well, maybe just to the characters around her, for that bit in the second book), it's just a part of who she is. I can relate to that so much more. It is NOT generally accepted as adorable in real life to be that clueless to social cues. Not having any speck of intuition is NOT CUTE in everyday life. It's hard, & people usually just misinterpret your misunderstanding as something negative that you don't actually mean. So. GREAT to see it not represented as a GOOD THING.
...but somehow, yeah, "the effect she can have". This is where the Mulan-syndrome comes in. Why is Katniss somehow deeply loved/respected by 90% of people, even though she doesn't come across as very nice? Because the story needs her to. But hey, it's kinda flattering, from the perspective of someone who relates to her, haha. (I do feel like, VERY RARELY, I somehow instantly win people over for no particular reason, & it doesn't matter how awful I come across, they see in me the admirable things. But I consider that more of a good thing about them than about me-- their ability to interpret what I really mean has nothing to do with my own efforts.)
She really does need Peeta... she & I both. I married mine, too. We need someone who is nicer than we understand, the kind of nice we wish we could be but have no idea how it functions in real life. We need that buffer, someone who gets along so well with the rest of the world in the ways that we don't, someone who understands the goodness in us that doesn't always translate to others. It's a special teamwork-- they give us a much-needed perspective on the rest of the world, & we try to give them a perspective on their very self.
I think sometimes the story gets it right, that her best moments are when she can be thoughtful in details that make a difference. Trying to think of everything that would make life easier for everyone. Not the big outside-the-box change-the-world thinking, just the little what-can-I-do things. & I see heroism when she tries things outside her comfort zone. There's just a bit of disconnect when she does the occasional big flashy plot-driving thing... but hey, you've got to move a book along somehow. (In a lot of stories, if the main character was like me, it would NOT end the same way at all. ;-) Some huge beast guy says don't go in the West Wing? NO PROBLEM, I'LL BE IN THE LIBRARY.)
-------
So there you have it! The Hunger Games trilogy is special to me because almost everything she thinks/feels/does makes sense to me on a personal level, & I see in her two closest friends two of the people I've loved most in my own life. Her story feels like I could have lived it. Yay for good stories!
Bonus fun facts:
-The second book is by far my favorite of the three
-My favorite characters are actually Cinna & Haymitch
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