~~ mopey meta, man. oh yeah.

[reenka]

I keep talking in third person, even if I say "I" all the time. I pretend that if I try to take the higher ground, I can magically explain everything and it'll be okay. Except it won't. The questions remain.

I feel things-- I read stories-- I like them or dislike them. But then my mind goes over it and over it, asking "why". And it's like, the person who answers the constant whys isn't exactly me. It's some construct of my mind, imbued with my opinions but stripped of a lot of my personality-- if that makes sense. Why is it so important to me that I like -this- story but not -that- story? And why do I keep asking myself that question? See, there I go again. It's layer upon layer of distancing and third-person observation of myself, all the time.

I used to think that this meant I should be a scientist-- something in psychology, maybe. It's like every story is a mirror of both myself and the world, and yet I use them to escape both. I think it's all about that certain emotional charge some writers have-- they're still writing about relationships, the same characters in relationships, even, but it's different. It's not as empty. It's got its own heart, not just something implied in the characters. It -glows-... warm and filling and -real-. People don't seem as real to me, a lot of times-- they don't give off this heavy of a burn. It's like... they're not on all the time.

A good story is like falling in love-- there's just you and the world you're drowning in, the emotional landscape you recognize, that sense of danger and safety all mixed together. Music and art can be like that, too, except it doesn't engage my conscious mind as much-- it draws me out rather than occupying me, weighting down my mind with foreign ideas and emotions at once. Right now, I'm in love. I feel like the world is far away, and I'm just looking for that same high of -touching- something real again, the way I did with -that- story. Reading another story about the same characters-- even a good one-- that doesn't always give me the same rush-- which is just... frustrating.

That's probably why the right sort of intense language & the right characterization are most important to me. Plot isn't something I can get emotionally attached to. It's background, it's a mental exercise, like a strategy game. Maybe that's why I read love stories more than a lot of things. I've always used stories the way most people use rock music, I guess-- as an emotional outlet. It just has to hit the right notes, has to get to me the right way, has to give me the same high.

It's funny, thinking that I'm often seen as a thinker, as someone who-- I dunno-- processes things logically. I guess I do. I take the tangle of emotions and try to untangle obsessively, just 'cause it's something to -do-, to distract myself, to make the whole riot of feeling more bearable. I think because otherwise I'd drown. But my constant question is "why", not "how". The people who ask "how", "when", "where"-- those are the usual sorts of thinkers. Order in the chaos of one's thoughts-- that can be therapeutic. Is therapeutic. Without the pretense of analytical thought, I'd probably have thrown myself off a building by now, music & art & writing be damned. There's only so much drugging you can take before you burn up, I think. But. Anyway.

This reminds me of the question going around LJ at one point: what's your One Story that you always seek out or write. Mine would probably have something to do with the way our passions can save us or destroy us or both. Something about how important it is to let go and really live out your dreams, accept the fear and -do- it. The choice between fear and passion-- stories about choosing passion. That's what I read, anyway. It doesn't have to be a lover's passion-- it can be passion for knowledge or magic or art. I think most of my stories are about how passion can nearly destroy you, and the stories I seek out are about how passion can save you, because that's what I want to believe.

Funny, because I don't see how passion can save -me-. From all indications, it's discipline and hard work that'll let me have what I want, whatever that may be. It's not enough to -want- things, that's the lesson life teaches you. It's not enough to -feel- things. It's especially not nearly enough to -know- things. You have to -do- things. And those things have to be the -right- things-- not just passively creative-- they have to be actively goal-oriented. Life laughs at dreamers who don't fight for their dreams.

Anyway. This bout of angst brought to you by the letters B and S, and way too much angsty smut for my peace of mind-- and also the knowledge that I'm procrastinating to the point of criminality. And now every time I say "angst" I hear layha saying "it's what's for dinner" in that H/D vid. Okay, now I'm laughing. Ah, the cycle continues.

Comments

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

It's like that Oscar Wilde essay 'On the Decay of Lying.' When he says that the people in his life have never burned so fiery red and gold as the characters in a certain book, and the tragedy of their lives was one of the central tragedies of his. and when I read it I was like, 'I get you, Oscar.'
I get you, reena. *snuggles*
Passion does save us, I think. Not in that huge practical way, because what's practical about passion? But in those moments when you lift your head and smile for no reason and bubble, because there's an undercurrent of passion in your life, imaginary or subconscious or... anything so long as it's passion, and we'd be so much poorer without it.
/ends sappy.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*hugs!* Thinking-- knowing-- that you get me gets me all happy to the point where I don't know what to say~:)
I mean, I get that feeling a lot-- of really understanding people-- well, dead people who don't exist, even. And like, I do believe it (I feel like I get Oscar pretty much all of the time), but well-- if you've never talked to them, it's not as good. You could always be delusional. You make me feel less delusional, in other words :>
<3

Yeah. I think that passion is related to happiness in that way-- in that, I mean, just because you're happy doesn't mean anything in practical terms (and often for me, it means I don't actually do the things I'm supposed to be doing, in terms of survival, 'cause I'm just that distracted). But isn't that what most people want, anyway? Happiness? Intense happiness, distracting happiness? Heee. Life is so contradictory. It's like, it's set up with the parameters configured in such a way that it can never really be -balanced- and -resolved- and -okay-, exactly. It just -can't- be okay. Something will always be wrong. Like the Rubic's cube from hell.

But yes. There are still the good things, the smiley things and the teary things. The worthwhile things, I guess~:)

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

I think it's all about that certain emotional charge some writers have-- they're still writing about relationships, the same characters in relationships, even, but it's different. It's not as empty. It's got its own heart, not just something implied in the characters. It -glows-... warm and filling and -real-. People don't seem as real to me, a lot of times-- they don't give off this heavy of a burn. It's like... they're not on all the time.

I think that's what is so addictive about fiction, and there's no way that I can pretend I'm not addicted to it. And... maybe it is just that stories only give you the big moments... the on moments, and skip the rest. I don't think that characters in stories are inherently different than real people, but we don't have to know them when they aren't burning... when they are just drifting like real people do so much of the time. I don't know. I'm not sure I'm making sense. It is definitely the thing I love about fiction, the thing that draws me in and keeps me there. I just can't decide if it is good that I like it so much. I wonder if it makes me expect impossible things of real people.

/pointless ramble

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're definitely making sense~:) I'm glad I'm not alone, and there are other people-- out there-- even if we've all got the same problem of being lost in our own little world. The person I fell in love with the most in my life had this thing of being on like, 90% of the time. Mind you, most of our interactions were online, so... I mean... that's a buffer, too. But it was very addictive, and then of course we crashed and burned. I'm not sure if this burn isn't considered "unhealthy" in real life-- I mean, I think it is. Maybe that's even true-- maybe it is. It can't last, anyway. Stories have got that distance, that safety there. But if it was real, then it would be... rather dangerous. Not that I mind that. But mostly that's because I don't mind losing all control and I'm very far from practical or future-oriented :>

So anyway, it's probably better to do it through fiction than real life, since real life burn leaves you seriously depressed afterwards, heh. But yeah, the "not good" thing? That's prolly part of the deal-- part of what -makes- it good. Ahahahah I think my relationship to fiction is a lot like Buffy's relationship to Spike and Draco's to Harry :D :D!!

Maybe that's why I felt like I understood love way before I fell in it~:)

[ljash.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, too. Sometimes it worries me. Like when I fall in love with a story, like you said, and I'm enraptured and captured and nothing at all, no other story nor real life, is as real as that one story. Then I come back out of it eventually. It's that moment where I get the most worried. I wonder why nothing in my real life has ever moved me so much (though that's probably not quite true, it's at least much less frequent). I wonder why my real life seems empty compared to the way my heart was rocked by that story. Isn't that going to be bad?

But I wonder if maybe stories can have a power that real life doesn't have. And not even exactly the way dorrie6 said, that it can give us just the highlights. Stories come wrapped in a plot and a timeline. Even if it's one of those fragments that leaps in the middle and doesn't have a concise ending, you still are being shown that particular fragment for a reason. Stories have meaning.

Sometimes I think real life isn't that powerful until we've made it into a story. We tell stories about our own lives. If we want, we can make them as dramatic as the things we read. A friend of mine thinks that we are story-making creatures and that is all that singles us out. That everything we think of as the history of our lives is just a story we made up, sometimes with very little bearing on what actually occured.

I don't know. To me, the only time real life is intensely powerful is in little fleeting moments. Little things that are unrepeatable and hard to make sense of. Stories are easier. You can hold them as a whole and see all their parts (eventually). I've loved fictional characters in a way that I don't feel about real people. Maybe because you can see a fictional character more clearly. Because you get to see inside them and understand them, whereas people change from second to second, it seems.

I also ask "why" all the time. I'm told by most of my friends that I think too much. But that's just how it is.

I also like stories about passion. Actually I find that I like the kind where the character is surprised by passion. That seems to be a big element to me. I noticed a while ago that I was drawn to gay stories containing people who thought they were straight, or het stories with people who thought they were gay (this was way before the whole slash discovery). I liked the idea of someone being so powerfully drawn to someone that they don't just love who they're taught to love. They don't just go looking for a hot guy/girl because that's what people do, which is what most relationships seem to be like. It seems more genuine when it takes them by surprise and they find love and passion in a place where they would never have looked. And they have to overcome things to get to it, things that are burned away by passion.

I was actually just thinking recently that I like the sort of stories you are drawn to and I was wondering if you have a recs page. I was thinking that I wanted to read some more of the ones of characters overwhelmed. (This actually came from another interest that indirectly brought me back around to H/D--perhaps all roads lead to H/D.) :)

I have to go--I should get back to this, though, because it's interesting and there's something still to get at that I would like to understand.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

That's definitely true, about storytelling about one's life. I quite often notice myself doing it, though I don't tend to do it literally on paper. I just kind of do it in my head. It pains me to talk about the various angsty and drudgery-type things that I go through, and I think my major dissatisfaction with my existence prevents me from sharing it in a literal way. When I fell in love, that was different. Then I wanted to tell stories-- though I wrote poems instead, because I always embellish and elaborate and no one could probably even -tell- what I was talking about, but in a very real way, I did write a history. Becuase it was important, because it burned and I was proud of how intense I felt, maybe, in a way, even at my most miserable.

Whereas in most of my day-to-day life, I don't feel that height of passion about anything, and it's all just kind of embarrassing and not very funny or meaningful. Maybe what I need is a change of attitude, I don't know. Actually, the thing is, my life hasn't been dull or boring. It's been kind of wild and ridiculous and hard to believe-- the most extreme things keep happening to me-- I just rarely enjoy them. At the time, I'm usually just going ":T" and wishing it would all -go away-. Life tends to happen to me against my will. I don't know, that's a weird idea.

Probably that one boy I fell in love with and still like telling stories about is one of the very few things I did as an exercise of will-- because I wanted to. Even if it ended badly, even if it was a huge mistake-- I -wanted- it and even if for a little while, I -had- it. I felt like that was really living, miserable as I was. So I can tell stories about it. It felt -real- because I -chose- it. Whereas, I mean, most of the things in my life, I didn't really choose, so they sit ill with me. I feel like, "this is more okay" and "this is less okay", but it's not really -mine-, so I don't even feel like it's -my life-. Which is frustrating and I prefer not to think about it. But I do think that this relates to why I don't really tell my own story most of the time.

I know what you mean about fleeting moments-- I think for me, it's usually something deeply physical, linking emotion & perception-- like seeing a particularly beautiful expanse of sky, really -noticing- my surroundings, really feeling myself breathe and eat and walk and all that. Those moments of feeling like a -creature-. They don't feel like they have a story, exactly, but they feel important. They become a story later, though, if they occur in rapid succession-- this usually happens when I'm on vacation in some exotic place a lot. I remember things clearer and live more intensely 'cause everything is a surprise and I -have- to notice it, so I do. And it's like, an excuse to live. Which one can do anywhere, but then, where you -are-, there's usually all this history and baggage to weight you down. *sigh*

I really really like stories about passion-as-surprise too. 'Cause there's that element of surprise that's a base ingredient, I think, in really living. Real passion is always a surprise-- sensation itself is a surprise. But yes. I feel a bit more pervy, even, liking gay-boy-likes-girl stories, but I do. I loved `Chasing Amy', man. It hit so many of my kinks :D :D :D!!

I almost get disappointed in people who're comfortably bi, 'cause they don't get to have that element of surprise, which is so delicious. I think all my favorite love stories are about surprise, even if it's traditional m/f romance, eheheh. I mean, Buffy/Spike, man. Duh. Vampire/Human, Spike being the last person in the world she -should- love (AND SHE DOES, DAMMIT), etc. Other things, too. Like-- the bad boy, the boy you're not supposed to like. I always go for that~:)) The very idea of "supposed to" makes me want to rebel. I hate it. I want it to diiiiiiiiiie :D

Er. Anyway. Yes. We do love similar sorts of stories, yes. I do have a recs page here (http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~lorien/story/_fic.html), and I think I must've linked you to it before :> It's just a list of links, though, 'cause there's just -so- many stories I bookmarked-- eventually I'll get to sorting it more. *sigh* This is prolly why I am still into `Irresistible Poison'. The title says it all, doesn't it. :D

[ljash.livejournal.com]

Hell, where to start. I think with the storytelling of one's life, I didn't necessarily mean things you write down or even things you tell. Just that any coherent memory will be made into a story. Like the way you remember your childhood and all that. It's probably 90% interpretation.

I also find that my day-to-day life doesn't excite me. In fact it seems to have nothing to do with me at all. But sometimes I get really excited about something or other. It's not always a piece of fiction, though usually it's an idea. I'm not usually excited about going somewhere or things like that. I need to do that more, I think. I need to get excited about something physical, like learning to ice skate or similar. I think that feels more alive in some way.

Not that I'll ever forsake my ideas. My most passionate interests seem to still be stories and ideas.

I think I know what you mean about the falling in love, something I do very very seldom. Even the painful parts feel good in some way--it all feels intensely real. I'm not sure if I'd say it feels chosen, but it does feel yours.

this usually happens when I'm on vacation in some exotic place a lot. I remember things clearer and live more intensely 'cause everything is a surprise and I -have- to notice it, so I do. And it's like, an excuse to live. Which one can do anywhere, but then, where you -are-, there's usually all this history and baggage to weight you down. *sigh*

Yeah--why is that? Why is it so hard to be yourself and really notice things and live each moment when you're surrounded by your life? Shouldn't it be easier to live in your life? But it's not. There's so much maintenance and goal-thinking. Can't just live for the moment because you have to insure there's success in the next moment. Or something like that. Anyhow, it's deadening. Haven't figured out how to escape that. Probably takes more courage than I have right now.

(but I am moving! Everybody cheer)

Yes to the Chasing Amy--such a great story. And the miserable ending was also just right. Though why is it more pervy to like the gay-boy-likes-girl stories? Seems just as pervy as the straight-boys-can't-resist-each-other stories.

apologies if I send this twice, I'm not sure if I sent it already

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oftentimes I get excited about like... fun things like going to Starbucks or a bookstore or a movie. I'm insanely excited about smallish things like drinking my favorite milkshake. I'd go on a train 40 minutes there and then back, just to have that. But then, I'm extremely hedonistic~:) Ideas are kind of my constant thrill, but sensations are the things I chase after most obsessively. I mean, in a way, I'm chasing after an endorphin rush even with the reading :>

I think to enjoy your life, you have to be significantly satisfied with your life. It has to be -good-, to be -chosen-, that's what I was implying. If you like where you are, what you're doing-- that's what important. I think. There's still drudgery, but there's also the slow-burning pleasure of knowing you are where you want to be. There's fulfillment there.

Sometimes I think I don't fall in love very much 'cause I just don't know that many people well enough. But it's not about knowing someone very well. I think-- loving people is easy. People are lovable. But falling in love isn't about them, really, as much as it is about them igniting something in you. Suddenly, everything changes, just because you know they exist. Everything seems new, like you're just starting your life. I dunno, it seems like something out of a story, but it did happen to me, so at least I know they're not making it up :>

I dunno why it's pervier-- I think it's because less people write it, so it seems more... freakish :>

Also. Um, here (http://www.echonyc.com/~stax/Buffy/herself/Disenchantment.html) is the Buffy/Spike fic that set me off. If you have any interest in the fandom/pairing, I'd recommend it on the basis of unfettered passion, impossible things coming true, and people surprising themselves & each other in a big way~:)

[failing-light.livejournal.com]

Sorry to randomly pop up in your journal, but I was surfing lj and this really hit home with some of the things I've been thinking about today. I was going to pull out specific things to respond to, but there's too much to choose from so I think I'll just go. . .

I read something earlier today that said, 'We read in search of more life.' And I think that's it exactly. Stories can pull you in, take you inside the language and the characters so that you are quite literally alive inside the story. And this adds depth to your life, these things become a part of you, part of your emotional experience if not your physical one. For someone who is a Reader -- whatever that may be -- there is not only this one world, this one life, there are as many worlds and lives as there are books that can draw you into them. And that's the desire, I think, that's the pull that stories have over us -- this desire to live as deeply and as intensely as possible.

And I think this is all deeply connected with passion. Because what is passion but living with intensity? It's easy to lose that in everyday life, easy to slip into complacency and routine and abstraction. But stories -- the stories that you're talking about, the stories with heart -- are born out of the author's passion, the author's connection with these characters and this story. So maybe it's easier to find that in books than it is in real life because it's already there for you? If you can only access it?

Hmm, not sure if any of that made sense, but thank you for making me think about this. May I friend you? I've seen you around before and you always have such interesting things to say. . .

--Autumn, who also asks "why"

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Kind of oddly, the first thing you've made me think of with "the author's passion" was that maybe that explains why I keep falling a little bit in love with the suthors of my favorite stories. It -is- their passion that underlies it all, and if I feel a connection with the story, I feel I have a connection with the writer, and in fandom I get to -know- the writer often enough, so it's even more real. Visceral, even. Okay, so I've never actually had a thing for anyone 'cause of what they wrote, but it's a special connection, definitely~:) Eheheheh, I'm feeling so sane right about now ^^;

I definitely know what you're talking about, though it's hard to say anything right now 'cause my brain is so very fried. "In search of life". I like that. I've always been, I think, in search of another life. I've wanted to escape into books, -literally-. It burned me for -years- that there was no way for me to go to another planet, or to fairyland, or even to Sunnydale. I've always wanted -this- life and -that- life to merge. I wanted to -live- that life, not just... in my imagination. I hate the separation, the constant knowledge that things -could- be different-- brighter, deeper, more intense-- but they -aren't-. Or maybe they are, but not for me.

I think... you know what the funny thing is? I think life -is- intense-- more intense-- for people who don't think as much. Who just -do- things-- who go out there and interact. The dreamers are mostly doomed by their own dreaminess to spend their life at the other side of the looking glass, their very reflection stopping them. Heh.

I think... it's just... if you already live inside your head, then books allow you to feel less trapped-- to feel alive. It's... it's like virtual reality. Your whole approach to living would have to change, if you wanted to escape this whole prison of ideas. We are mostly trapped by who we are rather than what we do-- read or not. Or at least, the things we -don't- do say as much about us as the things we do actually do.

Anyway. Not sure if that made sense, heh. My head really hurts. Waaayyyyyy too much B/S fic with little else for -days-. I'm falling over. But! No need to ask about friending me, man. Is a good thing, generally, especially seeing as this is a public journal. Heh.

~reena, who asks "why not" just as often :>

[failing-light.livejournal.com]

Haha, I definately know what you mean about falling in love with authors. . .but the less said about that, the better :)

And I've often thought myself that life is more intense for people who don't think as much. In fact, I've often found myself frustrated by the feeling that I'm at one remove from life, that I somehow can't get out of connecting to things as story and over-thinking things and just LIVE. But then, would I really want to trade the breadth of experience that you can live in stories for a narrower life that is more easily lived intensely? Isn't that a challenge in itself, to find a way to do both, to have my cake and eat it too?

I think we've all wanted to live in Fairy Land or Middle Earth or Narnia or Sunnydale. Isn't it interesting that those barriers seem so much more permeable when we're younger, before we learn to question and interpret and analyze? We lose something, I think, when we learn those fine distinctions between fantasy and reality. When suddenly Narnia is no longer at the back of the wardrobe and Sunnydale cannot be found on any map of California. It's the eternal question of innocence vs. ignorance. Isn't it better to be able to ask the questions than to live an unexamined life? Or is that question already flawed, because we're predisposed to say yes since that's the kind of life we already live?

. . .this all made sense at some point, I swear. Existential questions at 2 in the morning -- generally a recipe for disaster.

And it just feels odd to go around friending people without their consent. *shrugs* It's the word that's at fault I think; friendship is such a relational word that it seems strange and stalker-ish not to ask. Or maybe that's only late-night insanity too. . .

--Autumn, who thinks maybe there are no right answers, only right questions

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It's weird how in stories I tend to want things I both -can't- get and don't -want- to get in real life. I mean, maybe that's the function of fantasy, but it's complicated 'cause I've always wanted to live in stories, too. So I was just thinking that... the sorts of romances I go for tend to be complementary, right-- fire & ice, good & evil-- some sort of opposites attracting thing. And yet... the people I seek out... my greatest pleasure is knowing that there are people -like- me. Which just seems so narcissistic and pointless, somehow, y'know? Like, if I spent loads of time with someone who's so much like me it's like, we can pass for each other, what's the point? It's like being alone.

Of course, that's taking it a bit far, I admit :> And yes, that was a complete tangent~:)

As far as living the examined life.... Well.... Yes, it -is- about balance, I think. On the other hand, too much balance can become boring, heh. So. Some part of stubbornly thinks that it'd all be okay if I allowed to be creative for a living. Be around people who understood me-- a circle of friends. Extend my little bubble into a -life-, something I could exist in because it stretches beyond just myself. There is a niche there for us, if we are brave and -take- it.

I know what you mean about reason destroying one's childhood beliefs. I mean, that's what happens to everyone-- it's -supposed- to happen. I dunno if it's so much a question of innocence, necessarily, because if you retain the ability to question reason itself, then something remains. I don't mean faith-- like faith in god or something. I mean... you could still... see reality in layers. And there's a layer of bricks and stones and maps, and then there are the looking-glass layers. Even though-- feeling they're there isn't enough, and believing with all your heart gets harder and harder. Gets scarier, with that specter of madness hanging over your head. Go too far into the dark waters, and you drown. There's a whole ocean of chaos and magic in one's unconscious mind and it isn't kind.

"Friending" is a bad term. Though I admit I generally don't add people I don't like~:) But I often don't add people I -do- like, 'cause they're... well... boring. What can you do? They are! They're wonderful writers, or beautiful people, but-- just-- they're boring in their journal! Mostly because most people don't talk about anything -real- most of the time. It's like, "blahblahblahblah" all the time. It wouldn't be so bad if it was really amusing or unique blahblah. Mostly it isn't. Then again, if I wrote about my real life, I shudder to think just how boring and horrific it would be, so. Can't talk~:)