reenka

I'm kind of embarrassed now. Sometimes I just get emotional over nothing, and I think I sound like a t00b. Like, someone with a big nose and suspenders, and, you know, a nasal tone. "Blah-blah-blahbity-blah". I need to write more H/D porn. Still wankery, but more fun.

In an attempt to pre-emptively redeem myself from my own wankery, I found Spooky Muffin(!) who does Evangelion fanart. Who cares, you might say, and okay, maybe no one does. But duh! Good fanart here. Make porn, not wank, etcetcetc. I should take my own advice. And also, that isn't porn ><
    Still, this Shinji just sums up how I feel without all those rambly, pesky words. Also, he's gorgeous. Yum.
    And yes, it's rather sad that I've been seeing all this anime when I could've been spending time much more productively, but then... eh.
    In case anyone's concerned... no, no danger of me writing anime fanfic, heh. Thank god.

I've forgotten how truly -weird- fandom is. How fast the knowledge fades. I took a peek at my friends-of list and there's -another- wacked-out trollish journal. I mean... dude. I feel like we're living in our own parody. It's like a post-modern novel or something-- the fandom, I mean. It's all self-referential and meta up the wazoo, and I really wonder how anyone could -keep- from meta, 'cause fanfiction itself is referential and meta. Well, I've said that before, but... just... it's so weird when you're no longer talking about the books or movies. Talking about "the fandom", thinking about "the fandom", even knowing something called "the fandom" -exists-, just freaks me out right now.

The idea of an "entity" like that-- I can see how it'd be a microcosm reflection of (American) society at large, and American society at large is freaking scary, man, at least as of now. I can see how it could evolve, attempt to govern itself, attempt to make some fake silly "laws" or "edicts". That's what that latest journal possibly parodies, I dunno, haven't looked that closely.

You know what those journals remind me of? Those reality tv eliminate-the-weak-link shows. And maybe they're trying to go there, but the very idea of fandom paparazzi kind of blows my mind. Of course, reality tv freaks me out too. It's like we really -are- living in some sort of lite-version fascimile of 1984, except it's not the government that's Big Brother (as much), it's the media. And the fandom has its own media, its own propaganda machine, its own little cogs and wheels and wannabes and... it makes me almost physically sick.

I don't know if I'm just over-reacting or what, I probably am, but I can see it going there. I can see people creating pop media where there was none before. Like, if the corporate drones didn't oppress us, we'd oppress ourselves. And this is nothing, just random gurgles from the corners, I'm not saying it's a Big Deal, but I'm thinking more politically ever since I saw Michael Moore's gun movie on Showtime. That freaked me out, man. The Media Machine, the sheer implacable force of it and the way every "little guy" is complicit, is fake as plastic money just like the "big dogs".

I hate politics, really. Don't care if it's "real-life" or fandom or what, I just don't like thinking of the way people are when they're bidding for power, when they're jealous and envious and disenfranchised. The mob, that's what politicians utilize the power of, and I -hate- the mob (I don't mean criminals, I mean the masses). Maybe it's just that groups scare me in general, I don't know. I always felt like individual people are beautiful and when combined, they're... frightening. Unthinking. Not thinking frightens me. Not thinking and then -doing-. Going to war. Listening to hateful rhetoric.

There's good too, of course. My mother told me about that mayor in San Francisco who's started his own little revolution by marrying any gay couple that wants it... and I could just cry, even thinking about it, and I think it's silly that I ever thought that about people, because.... It depends on the leader, maybe. It scares me that it does, but it does. I firmly believe that people -want- to help each other, they want stability and peace for their families and simple companionship. A good life. People don't want to hurt each other. They just want their friends with them and everyone else to not bother them, to allow them to live.

My mother doesn't think gay people should get married. She thinks it's "weird". Why can't they just get a "civil union", she says.

So I went on a whole big impassioned speech on human rights & self-determination and the people seizing their own degenerated institutions, defining what those institutions meant, right now and not 500 years ago when women were property and men were the owners. Fairness, free speech, freedom from persecution-- those things mean so much to me, and I keep forgetting that because it's like the passion could burn me alive and I can't live, constantly butting my head against the will of the brainwashed masses. I can't deal that most people would be angry with -me-, would resist -me- if I tried to tell them what they didn't want to hear.

It's not that people can't do this; can't be kind to each other, can't respect each other's space. In other (Western) countries, there is peace within their own borders. In other countries, it's not like this. Yes, a lot of times there are other things, things America has that they don't, but they don't have this split, this awful hypocrisy woven through everything, this glib-faced smooth-tongued fakery that's just like sandpaper against my mind.

I saw that statistic about how there are only 39 gun-related homicides in Japan in a year, and I wanted to cry. It still makes me want to cry. They're people and we're people, so why are we so fucking different? What is it about this country that makes people so violent? So unhappy? So awfully, awfully unhappy and afraid? Why is it -us-, the -people-, who want to take away rights from each other, rights to conduct our private lives as we please? We aren't being ruled by a dictatorship here in the United States. We aren't being forced to eat hard bread and live two families to an apartment, not by the government, not the white folks, not yet.

This is a wide country, isn't it? So much room... so much potential....

I don't even know what I'm talking about, or why I'm suddenly so upset; maybe it's just because I don't understand. The people I meet-- they're, as one, good people. I haven't met any kind of "wrong sort" of people in my life, but then I don't think it takes the "wrong sort", that's the awful thing. Somehow... it's something else. Because my mother is a kind person, an intelligent person, too kind for her own good even. She called me a "liberal Democrat" and I wasn't sure what she meant by that, if she thought it was a dirty term. I think it's a dirty term. Bleeding heart, right. Out of touch with "harsh reality", can't see the forest for the trees. I'm like that, I know I am....

I've never been an activist. I'm no rabble-rouser, I can't stand the idea of winding people up, causing trouble and confusion and "furor". Some people like that, like the attention and publicity and chaos, but to me it just seems like an underhanded way to hurt people, to prevent them from thinking for themselves. I want to teach, but I don't want to preach. I hate it when people imply that's what I am, in this journal; preachy, unapproachable, impenetrable. I sit there and I hand down the truth, or maybe that's just what people are conditioned to see, I don't know.

People are bound to think you're self-righteous if they don't agree with you & you get on a roll, start speaking passionately without thinking, spouting things as they come to you, using your gift of rhetoric without thought for consequence. That's what I do-- I have my ability to use language and I do it without a second thought, throwing it around this way and that. That's what other people do, too, and they enjoy it, but I hate it. I could never -want- that, couldn't be out there telling people "the truth" about their society or the world. I can't tell you what you're doing is wrong; what's more, I -won't- tell you that. I refuse to tell you that. Perhaps I get rather self-righteous about that, too.

That's what being corrupt is, if you're part of the media. Using language without thinking, without considering your real impact on people. Everyone does it in their small way, but the media-- it reaches almost everyone. That's a frightening amount of responsibility. Is it extreme hyperbole to say that if I was, in fact, self-righteous, that would mean I'm (morally) corrupt? When looking for fault, I would always start with myself.

We-- us-- the people bound together by some sense of community on livejournal-- we have this power over each other. That's what being a known member of "fandom" means to me, why I don't like the idea-- having that voice, the implied ability to wield it. Everyone is published, everyone can be heard if they speak long enough and loud enough, online.

That's why reality tv, propaganda, current politics, paparazzi, all those things-- they're all in that corrupt area of mass communication. You can't really -avoid- distorting the truth, but when you purposefully do it, when you set out to brainwash people and make them believe blatant lies-- you are hurting them. I would even say you're enslaving them, taking away their basic, central freedom, the freedom of thought. And you'd think everyone would/could think for themselves no matter what, but that's another lie; it's not that simple. Thinking is a learned skill just like writing or reading. Without the right impetus and knowledge, people's capacity remains but their skills in practice atrophy and degenerate to the point where they mistake others' words for their own.

I don't know, maybe that's why people are talking about that "Passion of Christ" movie. On the one hand, I think it's ridiculous that a movie-- any movie-- could get anyone that uptight. It's... just a movie. And yet... it's all in what you bring to it, isn't it? On the one hand, there's my unshakable belief in freedom of expression which overrides anything and everything else-- but on the other hand, there are people who believe this story, believe that it is true, so one must tread carefully. We are dealing with truth. In a way, all art deals with truth, of course, but a "true story" without any veneer, that purports to be just that... that's a dangerous thing, yes. Few things have more power, really.

I don't know where I'm going, no. I'm just all... scattered and emotional right now; went to a really powerful poetry reading by a guy who grew up in the 40s and 50s black America. He has a stunning -voice-, and he's a really strong poet, and I could -feel- what he was saying. But as strong as his voice was, as passionately as he spoke-- he was speaking, reading, only of himself, from himself. It was his voice and no one else's. I listened and I -heard-, but I wasn't overwhelmed. Instead, I was drawn out. I feel stronger, somehow, more alive. That's what art could be. That's what art -should- be.

I don't know how to get there. I -certainly- don't know how to help others get there. All I know is that it's like a haven to me; like heaven, even. A unity without conformity; a voice that's strong and clear and passionate that resonates and shakes things up but leaves them clearly and unmistakably what they are even as they're growing into what they could be. Helps people grow in its influence but allows every listener their own beat, their own texture, their own tune in the shifting, moving harmony of the reader and the writer. The harmony of understanding, of kinship. I speak, you answer. You speak, I answer. We speak, we speak, we speak; we sing.

Together, we live......
~~

...Okay, that was really kind of self-indulgent and semi-disturbing maybe, wasn't it. Er. -.- *shuts up at last*