[meta rec!]

I know this is sort of silly, reccing meta, but worldserpent's recent series of posts on desire vs. self-realization in pairing preferences (here, here and here) are totally fascinating & enlightening on the topic I always keep harping on about (ie, the nature of romantic love in fiction, duh! hahah)

I don't really have time to go on about it myself right now (must write! write! write!), but I think it's so cute that apparently there aren't many people who write meta that defend the viewpoint that even though two people are bad for each other or whatever, what really matters is how much they want each other, because essay-writers tend to be more rational than that. I like being a rare and precious flower of irrationality, man.

Though honestly, I don't think it's that rare for romanticist poet-types to write meta-- or at least it didn't used to be (there used to be a much greater link between philosophy/psychology & poetry/romanticism, in other words). It didn't used to be so embarrassing to defend the beauty of transient love, the glory of a sunset, the majesty of god or Nature or the human body, totally seriously and at great length-- for a largely secular writer in say, the 18th century, I believe. So I think in large part, it's the current culture that so rigorously separates the 'creative' and the 'rational'. The whole concept of gleefully embracing the madness of the poet for a 'normal' thinking person is rather rare if not unheard of these days, right? And we're all the poorer for it.

So maybe in a larger sense, this isn't about people not writing much meta about shoujo manga (except me, clearly), as much as about the 20th & 21st centuries changing the dominant approach to what Truth is. It's funny, isn't it-- even the theists are using the rationalist language to draw people in these days, trying to sound like lawyers or faux scientists, trying to appeal to common sense & reason. Actually, my favorite quote in recent days is probably here, from a response to a rant on how Vulcans can't be homosexual: Homosexuality is logical.
    Tongue-in-cheek as it was, I think it's representative of a general philosophical trend in lit-crit at large.

I think it's especially ironic for me because I grew up worshipping logic-- I mean, my first serious crush was Sherlock Holmes when I was around 9 or 10. So perhaps it makes a sort of karmic sense that eventually, I would end up defending all things illogical, irrational, twisted and divine.

That said, happy New Year! Hopefully I'll be writing angsty, semi-doomed H/D when the clock strikes home.