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Fearful symmetry
Ooooh, this is not shaping up to be a good afternoon. I was crabby to begin with and I'm only getting worse.
You'll need to read the previous two entries to understand this one. Or you could be smart and avoid the whole thing. Cave Columbina.
REM just sent me this:
Please reread my Faust-test e-mail. I did not say that people who flunked weren't worth talking to; I said they did not have acquisitive minds. I strongly prefer people who have acquisitive minds, but I have friends who are not intellectuals with whom I enjoy talking. These people may have insights into people or different life experiences or other worthwhile qualitities. Would I want to marry one? No. But being a Big Brain is not the sina qua non of being permitted to associate with me.
I print this so as to salvage his reputation. I stand corrected - and now I will go off and pout: With the other correspondence, I can say they misunderstood what I meant. But REM understood what I meant perfectly - and wants to distance himself from that philosophy.
Fine. Distance away. I will stand out here on my limb by myself, wearing my best martyr's robes.
I don't know what "intellectual" is. Frankly, I suspect that "intellectual" is a code word for these people who have spent too much time in academia. I don't want to talk about the fine points of deconstructionism or Hegelian dialectic or any of that. It bores me, and although I can probably keep up my end of the conversation fairly well (despite my lack of academic experience), I wouldn't dare - my assumption would be that it would bore you too.
On the opposite side of the coin, going back to Iain's comments: I don't want to talk about daily life. I hate talking about daily life. Even as much as I enjoy my life, if I mention it in a conversation I will feel like I owe you an apology. Everyone's daily life is of interest only to them. I am not entitled to bore you. You are not entitled to bore me. Yes, work sucked. On a given day, work sucked for an average of ninety percent of the people in the free world. Does that mean we have to commiserate about it? I don't do commiseration. I'm not even sure I'm spelling it correctly.
I am not heartless. I understand why you hurt and I feel genuine sympathy. If you'd like me to help you with your problems, I'll be glad to see what I can do. But since talking about my problems to other people is of no benefit to me, I don't understand it the other way 'round. I'll buy you a drink, I'll rub your back, I'll lend you money, but don't tell me how much it sucked.
This goes for the opposite end of the spectrum too. If you tell me some good news - like, say, you got the promotion - I'll say "Great!" and I'll be genuinely pleased. Honest. I will be pleased for you. Again, I am not heartless. But watch how fast I try to change the topic. I don't dwell on my joys and I don't dwell on my agonies. Not in conversation anyway. Here doesn't count.
I want to talk about things which I think are likely to interest me. That doesn't necessarily mean I stick to a narrow range of topics I know and love: Sometimes something interests me because I know nothing about it, because it's new to me.
It does not make me an elitist, damn it. It may make me an uncivil, closed-minded bitch. That's fine.
I don't mind being bitchy or nasty or closed-minded or antisocial or any of those (Eric will now send me an email calling me all of them; he's perverse that way), because they're not smug. Elitism is smug. Smug is deadly.
If I avoid you, it's not because I think I'm better than you, it's because I don't think I'll like being around you. The latter is merely cranky; the former is inexcusable.
And if you don't understand why that distinction is so important to me, I don't think I can explain it, but I'll try anyway:
All of the true hates in my life are people who made it obvious that they thought they were better than me. I don't believe anyone is better than me. The corollary of that is that I'm not allowed to believe I'm better than anyone else.
Now it either all makes sense to you, or you think I'm dangerously crazy.
I am not betting on the former. But at least I tried.
© Columbine
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Tiger, tiger, and all that crap.
-William Blake
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