Me, Myself And Our Explanation To the World

I got my new cell phone today *and* I now have a song that is all about Stargate Atlantis (hopelessly hopeless - isn't that a cool turn of words?) in my head, so much of the antsyness I was experiencing yesterday has past.

A lot hasn't, but I feel relaxed so there is always that. At least I'm not climbing the walls like I was yesterday.

I also keep needing to explain that this - fandom - is an outlet. I *am* a very interior person. I connect deeply with stories that are told in a serial format. This is just how I am and this is how I have always been. So - the fact that I connect deeply with these stories and have this constant internal monologue and an extremely rich fantasy life - this is not something that I just happened upon one day.

I've always been like this.

To find out that there are other people like me - that do this exact same thing - well it is very exciting. To find out that you can create something that other people will enjoy... also exciting.

Hell, just thinking and then finding out that other people are interested in what you think? Unless you have lived a portion of your life censoring yourself and how you interact with the world... and how do I demonstrate this so it is understandable?

Okay - an example.

You are 13 years old. You are sitting at a lunch room table with your friends and the most primary feeling you have is one of relief in that you have found some friends and you have them to sit with. I think this is universal, regardless of popularity or any outside factors, when you are a teen. You need a social group - even if you have nothing in common with them. You can just make it up, after all. You're good at making up stuff.

So - you have your group and your friends and your long term goal is to remain a member of the group. You do that in the short-term by assimilating with the groups stated interests and beliefs. You ensure it in the long-term by using your inherent fantasy-based ideas to further the groups common interest.

So, there you sit at the table and you are avidly involved in discussing whatever it is your group cares about; beit whether or not if you hit pause just right, you can see Patrick Swayze's privates in "Dirty Dancing" or who is dating who or plans to have a party in the near future or is WHAM! really breaking up?

But the entire time this is going on - in the back part of your mind, the place you really and truly feel like yourself - the place where you never make concessions to fit in with the group or to gain acceptance, because that place is your place. There you are thinking about Charles Wallace and "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" and you know there was an adventure between "A Wind In the Door" and "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" and so you are telling it to yourself.

Because you learned early on that most people don't do this. You thought they did - but they don't. It still shocks you, even at 13, to realize that most people are actually thinking about what they are socially engaging in. For them it is enough. For you, it barely tips the iceberg.



So to find out other people, people you are NOT related to do this as well... It is a wonderful thing.


And so we get to the wasted energy portion of my explanation. Part of me just wants to not even do this post. I've nothing to explain and I believe that. Another part of me wants to explain because on my best days I believe that we need to understand one another as people and be tolerant and everyone deserves music and we can hold hands and sing and get along and you go your way and I'll go mine.

I believe this is true. On my best days.

On my worst days, I despair of any of it ever working. No. Actually, no. On my worst days I believe that everyone *does not* deserve music or respect and on those days I quit listening and trying to understand and I just become part of the problem. I become one with the giant morass of hopeless humanity on my worst days.

On my worst days, I will dismiss something that someone else does as stupid and a waste of time, without ever attempting to think outside my own head or walk in someone else's shoes.

And not to get all religious on anyone, but a major tenant of my belief system is to not pass judgment and to always try to see another person's point of view (the ol' "walk in my shoes") and to treat other's as I want to be treated, and I fail all the time. Every day I fail, but that really isn't the point. The point is to try.

So here is me explaining myself:

Yes. I spend a lot of time watching TV and reading comic books. I also like novels and movies but not as much as TV or comics because I like stories told in a serial format. We've already covered this.

I spend a lot of time thinking about these stories, as well. I spend a lot of time talking about this with other people who also spend a lot of time thinking about it. We actually get a lot out of it. We are able to take a text and analyze it and tear it apart and apply it to something. We are able to take a fictional character and think about the situations this character has faced and we can then speculate on how this character would react in another situation. We can wonder what this means for us as people and how this affects our own outlook on the world. We can look to the fake person that someone else created and find something of value in our own lives.

People are not shitting when they say Buffy taught them how to be strong.

We can do all of this - AND - we can do it in space. Or in the Ice Age. Or in another galaxy or with superpowers.

None of this is new. Humans are kind of built to respond to stories and fiction. It just pings more in some people than in others.


As far as me wasting my time...no, I don't think so. I'm interacting (and not just online) with other people, I am thinking and I am more spiritually at peace now than ever. I feel involved.


And really - I don't know what I could be doing to serve society any more than I already do. I suppose I could volunteer more - but we can *all* say this and I was saying this before I ever knew what fandom was. I am not going to cure cancer or write a symphony or even ever be published - so what else can I do?

I work. I spend time with my family. I spend time with my friends. I don't really like going to bars anymore (boring) but if you want to see a movie or go out to eat or need someone to go shopping with or want to come with me to the dog park - I'm always up for these things.

I like to be at home. I'm not into going out and partying until 2 am. I have done that. I still like to do it occasionally - but I am at a point in my life where that is just not fulfilling. It isn't fun. And yet, when I do feel pressure in real life? When I do feel like I have people breathing down my neck about "You never go out, you are a hermit, you are just shutting yourself off" it is because I don't feel up to going and sitting in a noisy bar and drinking a beer and not being able to hear anything anyone says and totally feeling shut out of conversations because of this and just sitting and being bored. I've done this - I'm over it - life is too short.

It'd be different if I could smoke in the bars here - give me a cigarette and I can amuse myself for at least a good seven minutes. Cigarettes are fun. God, I miss it. What was I saying?

Oh yeah - I will never change the world, I am just not that kind of person. I do think I can change my own small section and I am working on it. I think I can change me and that is my favorite project. I want to be totally the me-ist that I can be: the best Me.

I don't think that is a waste of time.