Going, Doing, Being: A Small Svithe

Today's musical number in my parent's sacrament meeting was a lovely arrangement of "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go"--a former ward member arranged and sang it. He did something vaguely familiar that I believe I'd heard at the end before, combining all the key verbs from each song so that it ended with, "I'll go, and I'll do, and I'll be what you want me to be."

And it struck me: some (not all, but some) of the struggles I've faced are a direct result of my insistence on being, going, and doing what I want to do. And let's face it, someone else has better vision here. More eternal vision.

I hope to be better in the future at going, doing, being at the direction of someone infinitely wiser than I am.

The Future, Goals, Dreams...and Lostness, of a Sort

Tolkien has invaded my brain. Okay, that's not a fair thing to say. Circumstances have been such that a few key words he wrote have been rotating around my head, weaving their way in and out of any given actual situation in my life, and repeating themselves over and over while still somehow--miraculously--managing not to sound too much like a broken record: "All that is gold does not glister. Not all who wander are lost."

I suppose that they've been on their own special rotation because my life plans have, once again, changed. And these things always change based on my feelings that it either is or decidedly isn't time to do something. Also, in a way, I think I'm wandering right now. And I'm hoping to heaven that I'm not lost.

A long time ago, I made the discovery (what seemed--at that stage--far too late) that when I act based on my feelings, I tend to feel much better overall about everything I'm doing (or not doing) with my life. So when I recently felt a need to halt my progression toward more school, my inital thought was "Huh?" Closely following on its heels, surprising even myself a little bit, my second thought was "Ok, then."

That promptly sent me into a tailspin of a sorts, except I didn't spiral downward so much as spiral all over the place. Mostly because I realized that this frees up a few possibilities that I couldn't pursue if I gave up the next four or so years of my life. The most important of these possibilities, I decided, is that it frees up some time for me to the write the novel that's percolating in my head. The one that has come out, to a certain extent, in choppy notes. The type of notes that could become something interesting. If I let it.

And I also realized something else, as I recently told a friend: I tend to use school like a crutch. Yes, I tell people, look at me! I'm achieving! But I'm doing it because, after my own initial impetus, there are people telling me what to do. What I need to do. And they're telling me how to do it. Bossing me around, in a way. I work very well within a system. My grades are good. I achieve (at least) the minimum requirements.

But I want to develop my own projects. Be my own boss (in some things, anyway) for the next while. See what I can do when I have absolutely no impetus but my own goals and dreams. I have a feeling this ride will be bumpy. But fun.

Having Multiple Areas of Interest

In life, I'd have to say that all of the most interesting people I've known have always had multiple areas of interest. Many things they are interested in. While yes, reading and language and such-like are my primary interests, I like to think that I have multiple areas of interest and that having those interests makes me an interesting human being.

What I forgot about grad school (yes, in the approximately three to four ish months that I've been gone): graduate school requires, yea verily--demands--a narrowing of multiple interests to something finite that can be included in a statement of purpose.

To which, tonight, I say:

Crap.

Ways of Seeing, or Thoughts about Visual Representation

Lately, I've been wishing that I knew more about visual arts.

I've always had a little bit of a preoccupation with sight: three guesses why. (If it takes you three, that's kind of sad. Not that I'm judging. Except that I am. Just a little bit.) And I've been thinking about visual representations for the last couple weeks(ish) for different reasons: Inception, for one. Maus, for another. The illustrated copy of Dante's Divine Comedy I recently acquired.

(To detour for a brief moment: I don't think it matters whether the top stops spinning at the end of Inception. Cobb clearly thinks he has found exactly what he wants, so even if he'll eventually wake up, he's still happy for the moment. That said, I thought the film was masterful. Props to Christopher Nolan.)
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Anyway, I have a lot of knowledge--some useful, some not--in my brain about literary representation. I've never felt uncomfortable analyzing my way through novels and dissecting different points of view, different descriptions, etc., etc. But I've recently found myself reading (Maus) or rereading (Persepolis) graphic novels, and I wish I knew more about analyze the artistic representations at work.

In some ways, I don't need to be able to analyze the art itself: writing a graphic novel, on its own, strikes me as an inherently interesting way to portray history and autobiography. Drawing a cartoony version of yourself acknowledges your own skewed self-perception, sometimes to a dramatic extreme. Persepolis actually features a page devoted to Marjane Satrapi drawing how she perceived her visual appearance changing as she grew older--and unsurprisingly, she's fairly hard on herself.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out the effects, either, of Art Spiegelman choosing to draw Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and Poles as pigs in his narrative. I don't need help with that part of artistic representation. But I also can't help wondering if the way Satrapi and Spiegelman draw holds other stylistic significance. Are they showing clear influences? How much does their artistic style correlate with their heritage? (From what I've read, Satrapi's style shows clear Persian influences... but I'm taking others' words on that.)

For now, it's a mystery. But I'm starting to hunt down more information about visual art, so hopefully it won't remain a mystery forever.

Some Thoughts about Possession

And when I say Possession, I mean the concept and the book. Feel free to drift here if you'd like to actually read a book review, because I don't want to repeat myself in that vein. And if you're too lazy to read the whole review, just know that I wholeheartedly recommend this book and that I love it. I loved it the first time I read it several years ago, and I love it even more now that I allowed myself to revel a little in A.S. Byatt's amazing language artistry.

This book started me thinking about possession as a concept: what do we actually mean when we say that we possess something, and what does possession imply? For some things, it's very clear cut. Possession is, quite simply, ownership. When I say that I possess my books, I mean that I own them. I paid for them, and in many instances, I marked them. (In some circumstances, I'd say the markings indicate possession better than a receipt might.)

Yet there are other, far more nebulous things, we often talk about possessing. Knowledge. Talents. Sometimes even other people.

Possession like that becomes inevitably more tricky: just because I know something doesn't mean it's mine alone. Just because I have a talent doesn't mean I'm the only one who has it. And who, really, can possess another person?

The novel is about many things, but primarily it's about love and scholarship. I feel I'm a decent scholar, but I'm bad at love. That's neither here nor there, just a bit of a confession, I suppose. But I think I hesitate when it comes to relationship because of the concerns that are explicitly and implicitly addressed in the book: is it inevitable--must you--lose some of your own self-possession if you fall in love and choose to share your life with another individual?

Clearly, I don't know. While my relationships were successful, I rarely felt that I was relinquishing ownership over myself to aid in either relationship's success. But selves aren't really things to be owned, are they? They are things we simply are. Not to say they can't change, by any means, but isn't people-possession a little bit ridiculous? (I mean, we abolished slavery for a reason, right?)

The two contemporary-timed characters in Possession come to feel linked to each other because of a common pursuit. The two past-timed characters fall in love, but it's heart-wrenchingly complicated and sad because both of them already have attachments to others. But they also want, in some sense, to belong to each other.

Is belonging the same as possessing? I posit no. But I'm immensely curious if anybody has some imput about these rambles of mine...

Vicarious and Lived Experience

"So much of what I see reminds me of something I've read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?" --from You've Got Mail

Books are wonderful things, non-fiction and fiction alike. They are methods of metaphysical and intellectual transport when actual travels are not a physical or fiscal possibility. Books have the ability to take us to new places, to introduce new modes of thought, to allow us to fall in love with the types of characters we usually think we hate in real life. (And let's be honest: sometimes they're exactly like real-life people we hate, but sometimes they're not. And liking a hateable character means that somewhere, we have the potential to like a hateable real-life human.)

Bookworm that I am, though, I sometimes worry myself: is it possible to become entirely too wrapped up in the imaginary and in my own thoughts? Do I ever occlude real-life experiences in favor of experiencing something vicariously?

The answer, I am sorry to conclude, must inevitably be yes.

And before you think I'm being too hard on myself, let me say that I think this may be the case for many of us. I grant that books may not be the chosen vehicle for everyone's vicarious experiences, but I think sometimes we retreat to various types of mediated experience--of someone else's experience, even--in order to experience something that we're too scared to experience ourselves.

Perhaps everyone doesn't experience things vicariously due to fear. In some ways, I think vicarious experiences are imminently practical. But I also think such vicarious experiences are not, on the whole, entirely satisfying: once they end, I don't feel they have changed me in the same ways that actual experiences have. And I worry, to use a horrendously awful cliche, that I sometimes let the fear of striking out keep me from playing the game. (Although for the record, I've played baseball. And I didn't enjoy it. I do, however, enjoy watching it. When it's live. Because the only thing more dreadful than televised baseball is televised golf. And the only thing worse than televised golf... oh wait. Nothing's worse than televised golf.)

I've decided that I need to keep myself open to experiences: new experiences, continued experiences, things I haven't experienced in a while and might just do well to experience again. And here, dear readership, is what I ask of you: what types of experiences (good, bad, and ugly) have you had that you've dearly grown to appreciate? And what types of experiences do you think I should have?

If your experience strikes me as something that I too should undergo, I'll do it. (Some of you may want to recommend experiences regarding--ahem--dating. I'll take them under advisement, but that's all I promise.) And then I'll blog about it. All I ask is that you bear in mind that I don't drive.

I want to live a braver existence. This seems to me a logical first step.

Blending In, or Thoughts on Spies

These thoughts come primarily, I suppose, from following USA's Covert Affairs. Also from watching Alias when it was on NBC. And also from watching Chuck. (About Covert Affairs: I keep hoping that it's going to get better. It keeps disappointing me. And I keep watching anyway, because I think Christopher Gorham is attractive.) I suppose, too, my question is also somewhat influenced by The Pretender as well.

What, me, a spy-fic nerd? What are you getting at?

Anyway, I always wondered why all of the spies are always so pretty. To be clear: I understand the theory, particularly with female spies. They have to seduce their way into information sometimes, and that clearly works better if they are pretty. I would make the assumption that if seduction rates were translated into batting averages, I imagine the prettiest of women would be batting .360 or so.

But how much of espionage is about seduction? And how much is actually blending in? It has occurred to me that most run-of-the-mill sneaky work would probably be best done by people who have those faces. You know the kind I mean. The kind of people who look like dozens of other people.

What do you think?