Sorcha's Scribblings

On Criticism -- consuming becomes conversation

I've always loved to read criticism. Much of the criticism I've read in my life (and all of what I read in the first 30 years of my life) was read at one remove. That is, it was published somewhere (in a book, a newspaper, or a magazine) and I read it.

The critic encountered something (a play, an opera, a book, a comic book), engaged it and reacted to it, and then sat down and wrote a review of that something. Whether it was a capsule movie review in the San Francisco Chronicle Pink Pages or a novella-length essay, once the writing was done, the review went out into the world, to be picked up by readers like me.

As readers, we read it, reacted to it, pursued the something that had triggered the review (or not), and moved on. Very few readers actually responded to criticism directly. Oh, there were the occasional letters to the editor of serial publications, but even then readers had to compete with those who wished to comment on the latest Congressional antics or the chances that the 49ers would ever in a million years make it to the Super Bowl.

For the most part, criticism was a one-way process. The critic pontificated and the reader read. I don't mean this in a negative way, really. It's simply that the nature of publishing in those days meant that most published material, including cultural criticism, went one way from its author to its reader.

On Criticism -- consuming what is critiqued

In among all the blog-talk about criticism lately, I was very struck by Keith Phipps' comment that "We’re not bullies and we’re not, though this sometimes gets forgotten, consumer guides. We're writers who think what we write about matters."

It is this approach that makes the best critics worth reading: the passion for film, for food, for comic books, for opera, that drives the devoted critic to stand to one side and analyze his reaction to a piece of work, the thrill or the disappointment or the odd mix of the two, and then to explain that to me, the reader. Good criticism is indeed not a consumer guide.

On Criticism -- a consumer's viewpoint

There's a lot of talk in various web locations about the nature of criticism, mostly written by people who engage in it for a living. I thought I'd take a whack at it from the point of view of someone who does a small amount of it as a hobby (see: Amazon reviews), but who most often relates to criticism as a consumer of it.

Here's a critic's take on some of the talk about criticism lately. This whole discussion has made me think about why I like to read good criticism. (Note that to my way of thinking, "good criticism" is not necessarily "criticism I agree with".) It also started me thinking about what criticism really is, and what it's not.

. . . And here we go again

It's apparently been two years since I last posted, ending (to jump on the bandwagon of a dead and decaying cliche) with more of a whimper than a bang. Well, that's no longer okay with me. So I'm going to cautiously start this up again, more for me than for anyone (good, since no one else is still reading it). Next up, low carb recipes I invented (tired of having to root around in old email outboxes to find them all), musings on the novel-writing process, and maybe some more general posts.

Pain and suffering

Celera has a lovely thought-provoking new post.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with a co-worker just yesterday. He was telling me about the suicide of someone he knew who had left small children behind. Now, both this co-worker and I know about depression. We know what it feels like to come very, very close to losing the battle. We know about the pain that drives people to suicide, and how helpless it feels to be victimized by this ugly, painful disease.

That being said, I am furious at my co-worker. He said he was tired of hearing people say of his acquaintance that this fellow had hurt his children, perhaps damaged them, that his choice was enormously selfish. And then he said, "It's not like he could help himself." He went on to say some dismissive things about the pain these children must be suffering now, and the pain they will deal with for the rest of their lives.

Excuse me? There is pain enough here to go around. It's not like I deny that the suicidal man's suffering was intense if I also acknowledge that his way of dealing with it caused pain for his children, now and in the future. Nor am I dismissing the pain his children will suffer or the agony of wondering if it was their fault, if they could have stopped it, when I say that he suffered from a horrible disease, and in the end it defeated him.

Everyone suffers here. I am tired of hearing people who are trying to educate the world about the horrors of depression dismiss the suffering of the indirect victims, the wife trying to hold her family together while her husband fights for his life, the children whose father chose what will seem to them like the easy way out instead of staying with them. Depression has other victims than the one with the illness. And I am equally tired of people saying "Suicide was selfish, he had no right". Of course it's selfish -- a person who chooses death is a person who has been backed so far into a corner that he believes he has no other choices. The suicide is a victim, too.

We're all victims. Those of us who struggle with depression, and those who love us helplessly while we struggle. Don't diminish the pain of anyone touched by this disease.

Somewhere in all this pain, I seem to have found some moral outrage. I guess that's a good thing. I seem to have found compassion for people who suffer watching people like me struggle not to suffer.

I just want to say how sorry I am that this disease is a burden on the people who love me, too. I wish it weren't. I hope I get a chance to make it up to you sometime. But know that your love is often the only lifeline I have. This depression thing is a solitary battle, but it's a hell of a lot easier to survive and (I hope) triumph when there are people out there who love me.

Surprises

I was struck today by how odd it seems when I find out something I did not know about someone I know well. With new people and vague acquaintances, part of the point of talking to them is finding out random facts about them I did not know. And while I love deep conversation with old friends, and love to learn more about what goes on behind their eyes, that kind of learning is not what I am talking about.

For example, if I have known someone 20 years and they mention that they are allergic to strawberries and I did not know that, I am surprised by that. How could we have shared so many meals, and I did not know that?

Or if someone I've been friends with forever suddenly tells me she has published several novels and is all "I swear you knew that!"

It serves to remind me, I suppose, that we never really know another person as well as we might think we do. And makes me wonder two things. What things about me do you not know that would surprise you? And what things do I not know about myself that would surprise me?

Day Two

One habit I picked up somewhere in my lifetime is to track the progress of everything in terms of percents. When I am killing enemies in a computer game, and I have a set number I have to kill for some reward, a little piece of my brain says "Six dead! Twenty-four more to go. I am 20% done with this task." When I was writing papers last year, I did the same thing with pages: "Whee!! 15 pages done, only 10 more to go! I am 60% finished."

And here I am today, 6.66% of the way through the project of writing here every day in November.

No, I didn't write this down just to fill space. I don't think it ever occurred to me until today that not everyone tracks progress with percentages like that. (I should have realized. I've taught math at the college level, and I have a realistic notion of how many adults can actually cope with percents. Never mind feeling comfortable enough with percents to routinely use them to track progress through tasks.)

Anyway, what I find myself wondering is where this proclivity came from and what, if anything, it means about who I am. The Inner Critic wants to say that this is a way of distancing myself from experience, by focusing on cataloging it instead of living it. Another part of me says instead that it's just a habit of mind that lets me track the things going on around me almost automatically.

Mostly, it's background noise to me. I simply happened to notice it and start pondering it. So there is also the meta-question of what it means that I now find myself thinking about the meaning of this habit of mind.

Finally, I find myself wondering what idiosyncratic things other people do inside their heads. And at what point does idiosyncratic habit of mind become a "problem"?

Aging and death and stuff

A 22-year-old friend of mine told me the other day that he has no desire to ever be 80, and hopes he dies in his 50s. When I asked him why he doesn't want to see 80, he said "When you are 80, you either don't get laid or you have to have sex with old women. I'd rather be dead than do either of those things." I did a mental eye-roll and let it pass. It's gotten me to thinking, though, about life and attitude and how I live.

I had a lover once whose mother dropped dead of a stroke on her 37rd birthday. This lover of mine was absolutely convinced she would also die young, and was hellbent on fitting as much into her (presumably) short life as she could. (For the record, my ex-lover turned 41 on her last birthday, and when last heard from was alive and well.)

I have a friend who is convinced she will die young, and is so freaked out about it, that she fails to enjoy the days and years she does have.

I am pretty sure I am more than halfway through my life, and that is a sobering thought indeed. Part of me wants to live forever. The larger part of me just wants More Time. There is so much I want to do that I will never find the time for, because other things are more important or more pressing. Still, to know that it's likely more than half gone makes me stop and think. Am I wasting these moments I have?

I used to feel guilty and even almost ashamed for spending some of my time doing nothing much. I'm over that. For one thing, it gives me time to enjoy my own company. For another, it recharges me for periods of doing quite a lot. And finally, I am happier when I don't feel like I must account to myself for every second, demonstrating that it was spent in a useful or improving manner.

I think what I want is a balanced life. Moments standing in front of the places I want to see and being thrilled to be there. Hours of engrossing conversation. Times spent with a cat or two on my lap and a good (but not necessarily great) book in my hands. Sleeping. Loving. Cooking. Working. Writing. Cuddling. And did I mention laughing?

My one regret about my life so far is that I haven't taken enough naps. I'm going to go work on rectifying that now.

Deal-breakers

I've been trying to write about this for several days, without much luck. I'm just going to do my best, and since basically no one reads this but me and a few random people, it won't matter all that much that it's incoherent.

One reason it's incoherent is that I can't tell the story behind my musings, since I can't figure out how to tell it without violating someone else's privacy. Most of the time, it's not so hard to be vague or to change details a bit, but this time, I know absolutely that at least two of the people who read this would recognize the parties involved, and that's not fair to them.

Anyway.

I've been watching a situation with a couple friends lately, and it's been making me think (again!) about change within a relationship. There are really several lines of thinking and considering that have been on my mind lately.

What do you do when you wish your lover would change X thing about herself? Obviously, one possibility is to mention it to her. In the best case, she'll say, "Oh, I've been working on that for months and here is what you can do to help!" In the worst case, she'll say, "Sorry, I like myself fine the way I am."

In this worst case, what should you do?

Here's the thing, I'm pretty sure you have only two good choices now (and that all other choices are Bad Ideas). One is to determine that you love this person the way she is and can live with X thing being unchanged. (You better really mean this, and if it turns out you were wrong, you better have the guts to say "I thought I could live with it, but I can't" and leave.) Which brings us to the other good choice: determine that this issue is a deal-breaker and leave.

The thing is, what's a deal-breaker for one person is not necessarily a deal-breaker for someone else. I believe that there are some absolute deal-breakers (you hit my kids, and I leave, for instance), but most things are sort of local deal-breakers. I can live with someone who is distracted a lot, but I can't live with someone who never tells me what she is thinking, for instance.

Anyway, the bottom line here is I am sick to death of people who decide that This Person is perfect for them, except for thing X, and so they set out to change thing X about This Person. Without This Person's knowledge or consent.

For me, this is a deal-breaker, as it happens. I'm willing to discuss things I do that drive you nuts, and under lots of circumstances, I am willing to work with you or with myself to address such issues, but if you start trying to "fix" me without my permission, we have a pretty big problem.

Whose change are we talking about, anyway? Here's the thing: not only is trying to "fix" me disrespectful, unloving, and offensive, it WON'T WORK. The only person who can change me is, well, me. If I am motivated and patient and persistent, I can often change things about myself (although not my height or my crappy singing voice, I'm afraid). But if I don't engage the change process, it's unlikely that you will accomplish anything other than infuriating me.

Is it information or an ultimatum? And does it matter? So suppose you really want me to change thing X. What can you do, short of issuing ultimatums? I guess you can have a conversation with me, and we can see if we can achieve some common ground. Maybe we can. But what if we can't? What if I just can't stop smoking, even though I am happy to do it very much less than I used to and to do it outside?

Well, then you really have to go back to your two choices. Here's the thing about that at some point in the conversation over time about thing X, you owe it to me to tell me that it's a deal-breaker for you. If you ask me to consider changing the way I make the bed or to be more reliable about getting places on time, and if it is the case that in the absence of my making this change, the relationship isn't going to work for you, I deserve to have that information.

Not when you are angry. Not when it's too late, anyway, because you have used up your patience waiting for me to change X thing. But as soon as you know it's a deal-breaker, and as soon as you can be calm and loving in communicating this information. Perhaps that's what keeps it from being an ultimatum: the lack of anger and the calmness.

I don't know. I do know that not every pair of people who love each other can live together. And that it's sometimes the "little things" that rub us raw.

But it's just wrong to take someone else's life on as your reconstruction project. If you love him enough to be with him, in my view, that means you are able to love him as he is. And if you are very lucky, you will be able to love him as he grows and changes over the decades you spend together.

Because we all deserve that: to be with someone who knows us better than anyone else does, and loves us because of what they know about us. It's not the same to be loved in spite of what you know about me, or because I would be lovable if only I were "repaired".

Losses, large and small

Last week was my final therapy appointment after nearly 6 years of weekly therapy. It all began when my marriage blew up in my face. I'd been thinking about doing some personal work, anyway, but was reluctant because my partner had a very nasty attitude towards therapy and I really did not want to deal with that.

Once we hit the crisis, however, I went immediately into individual therapy and we did couples' work, too. For me, the individual work started as a life-line. I felt as if I were drowning and this was the only thing that might save me. Which it did. Now, after dealing with that crisis and then going on to do quite a bit of deeper work, the universe has started sending me the clearest possible message that it's time for a break. So, with some reluctance and some relief, I am taking one.

The end of this commitment to do this kind of work in this kind of way has got me thinking about loss. Since the timing is "right" for this break, it feels more like a small loss than the huge one it would have been had the work been interrupted even a year ago. Still, I am experiencing it as a loss.

I am struck by the way in which my summer has been full of endings: ended school, ended my time with Geek Central, ended therapy, and probably ended some other things I haven't noticed yet. A huge amount of space has opened up in my life, and I am trying really hard not to fill it up too precipitately.

Instead, I am pondering how change happens, and why it seems that in my life, anyway, change all comes at once. One nice result of the work i did over the last six years of hauling myself to therapy every single week is that I know, deep in my bones, that I will not disappear if the trappings of my life all do disappear. This makes loss of any size easier to bear, as I don't feel that I am losing myself as well.

But I am certainly grieving these losses, and looking forward, with some trepidation, to see what might come next. I remember Cris Williamson saying once that loss is hard, but you need it, to clear the space for whatever comes next. For the first time in my life, confronted with a series of losses, I am able to concentrate on the space they have opened up, which is not such a bad thing.