3400 words about an experience

[pseydtonne]

I'd written a piece about an event from a year ago. I still believe it's worth reading. I received some very good comments and I thank everyone that checked it out.

However, I'm closing the link indefinitely. I want to edit it a lot.

I also feel I'd putting more than myself at risk as well. I am not ashamed of what I wrote. I refuse to be deceitful about it. However, the present environment is not the best for honesty (though it's better than almost any other time in history). You can still go to jail for being honest; at least now you don't risk moral condemnation. More on all of this another time.

I must sound paranoid, eh? I should wrap this up. They've bugged my underwear...

-flying under radar, ps/d

Comments

warmfuzzicomfort?

[epanastatis.livejournal.com]

I'd been looking forward to this for a year, but find myself disappointed.

The problem with writing about such experiences, and one which requires intense scribal attention, is that they are essentially subjective. Egotism (in the philosophical, not the psychological sense) is the eternal pitfall in writing about subjective experiences. Few writers manage to overcome it. The last chapter of Ulysses is a great example, but we are not all James Joyce.

All I got from it was a sense of warm fuzzy emotional comfort. Which is the leitmotif of everything I've read about E experiences.

Editing is not evil. Secondary revision is what makes our dreams interesting, even if it is a result of the big bad Überich trying to censor the id.

Warmfuzzicomfort uber alles

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Err, ummm, sorry if the buildup wasn't worth it. I know I hyped this thing. However, it's an essay about an experience that mainly happens inside oneself. Things aren't actually happening. I suppose my editorial task becomes pulling more contextual elements into the story.

Example: I spent an hour sitting on the floor, petting a cat and staring at people. That's objective.

You know me, though, and you know my first reaction to most household pets has been "Gah! Run! It has fangs and it doesn't talk!" If you didn't know me, and many people reading this don't, they don't realize wat a milestone that moment was. I was comforatble with a cat crawling over me. I felt years of uptight reaction slip away.

Since then, I've been a lot better (though not as good as I was that moment) about pets. I've played with dogs and cats. I own a fish now, which is not a cuddly pet but it's a major step.

That could come off as "warm, fuzzy emotional comfort." What's so bad about that? We spend most of our lives putting up defenses so we don't take the boss seriously, don't expect our parents to have answers, don't get upset when trucks bear down on us at 80 miles an hour. We've wound up our internal rubber bands so tightly, especially when we have to pretend to mean "that's cool" when we really want to say "I don't get it, you vicious fucker, how could you?"

For once, I had a loose rubber band. I didn't feel the need to strut or preen. It felt so... here comes the warm you don't want to listen to.. nice.

Obviously, the band will tighten again. I've still learned that I have a rubber band and that I can study it. I can keep it from flying at my friends. I can see where I deal with people the wrong way.

Since all the reviews you've read about E seem the same and that view annoys you, maybe this drug is not for you. Then again, most write-ups come from people willingly taking the drug for this very reaction. Don't read Ziggy hoping that one day it'll turn into Boondocks.

Your point about editing is straight-on. I enjoy editing as much as I enjoy writing.

Writing about an experience, especially the modern method of having an epiphany instead of a climax (also known as "the sex sucked but the massage and the foreplay were nice"), is inherently subjective. No one punches anyone, no one finds the killer, no one makes Patrick Swayze watch his own films. If the personal nature of it grinds at you, the question then becomes either "why do I loathe dealing with other people's egos?" or "Honey, have you seen my flame thrower?"

Enough for now. I'm trying to get another posting set up before I go to work, and I bet I'll just end up mailing it to myself.

-"the king is never a subject," (a line from the movie Ridicule) ps/d

Re: Warmfuzzicomfort uber alles

[epanastatis.livejournal.com]

We spend most of our lives putting up defenses so we don't take the boss seriously, don't expect our parents to have answers, don't get upset when trucks bear down on us at 80 miles an hour. We've wound up our internal rubber bands so tightly, especially when we have to pretend to mean "that's cool" when we really want to say "I don't get it, you vicious fucker, how could you?"

For once, I had a loose rubber band. I didn't feel the need to strut or preen.

OK, this is exactly the kind of writing I had been hoping for.

Since all the reviews you've read about E seem the same and that view annoys you, maybe this drug is not for you. Then again, most write-ups come from people willingly taking the drug for this very reaction.

It could be the drug, or it could be the way the drug is received. "I found that essence rare, it's what I looked for; I knew I'd get what I asked for." The interesting social question, for me at least, is why has it become a mass phenomenon? Why are so many people interested in a guaranteed hit of that essence rare? Not something that I can answer from outside. But even if the experience did prove irksome, it couldn't possibly be worse than crack.

Boring day at work again. Never realized how Catholic NYC is until I walked in to find the office practically deserted.