I notice that this week I've experienced a self-consciousness to an extent I do not always experience self-consciousness. It's meeting up with several of you, plus some of my wife's relatives, that has me going into self-consciousness. I don't mean the good kind of self-awareness, but the pointless kind of "worrying about things based on insufficient data" and "worrying based on sadly sufficient data but insufficient basis for worrying because you don't control the variables at work" kind of self-consciousness. Hence, I feel badly, for example, that the scheduling did not work for me to get together with one (actually, 3) of you, or that I said things wrong in other places, or what have you. Let's leave that stuff behind--it's just wasted brain cells.
As tonight I have already set out a post which helps me chronicle a vacation, I was tempted to write a meme. I almost went with that old stand-by, the "I'll turn off the IP logging, so post anonymously whatever you wish to tell me". After all, when one is experiencing insecurity over something inconsequential, nothing helps focus one on things to be really insecure about than random praise, denigration and non-sequiturs from people who do not identify themselves. As I type that, it sounds more fun than I originally thought, but tonight I'm going a different direction.
I notice that I've been using a lot of declaratory sentences this week in my "non-LJ" life, with myself and others, such as "I'm rarely surprised" or "The reason I care about this worry is pure vanity, not worthy of credit" or even the familiar and warm refrain, more familiar than a gospel song sing, "I must have done xyz, or jlk would have happened".
I began this paragraph cataloguing yet another fault, but abandoned the attempt when I inquired of myself whether life ties up so neatly.
But the idea of bathing my weirdness in a meme still appeals to me. This surpasses the "needy" approaches I might use to respond to this situation, and instead substitutes an appealingly absurd form of surreal need-indulgence.
Would you like to join me in mutual absurdity? Here's how to play:
1. Leave me a comment. Don't post it anonymously. Ask me three questions--dealer's choice;
2. I'll reply with a comment. I will be public about it. I'll ask you three questions--my choice.
3. Reply to my comment with the answers to my questions.
4. I'll reply to your comment with the answers to your questions.
5. If you have further questions you'd rather cover by e mail, send me an e mail.
6. I'll do the same.
My plan, by the way, is to find questions that are not about your intimate life, your marital woes, your boss's unreasonable demeanor
or your secret crush (by the way, I typically find that "crush" is a misapplied word, as I have friends who I think are the absolute bees' knees', but I have no plans to have any wild and crazy soap opera moments in my life, being happily married--a "crush" is not really about that, nor even gender interplay, for that matter, but just about thinking people are really, really cool). I would write "I'm too boring" for that, but "I'm boring" is just one of the dozens of commonplace affirmations I've been making this week, in person and in weblog, which kill conversation rather than advance it. I say those things in person and on line out of a fear of seeming too arrogant or self-promoting. But it's just an artificial way of speaking, not real science. I should just be more humble and less arrogant, rather than using such devices. Heck, my questions may touch a nerve, but they will be different nerves.
What do I hope to gain? I hope to learn more than I would learn in an anonymous meme. I hope to interact with you. In short, I ambitiously hope to have the interactive experience for which I weblog. As to those of you with whom I regularly have such experiences in LJ, I hope to have richer experiences. I want to reach out, and touch you, and not live my life in anonymous memes and pointless worry.
Too much for you to do on-line? Well, I can do e mail. That might be fun.
But shall we play in public? Game on! We can transform this comment space from a hall of mirrors into a place of concourse and concord. I'll be home Sunday evening, hoping a fair few of you have rutabaga in your souls.
How do you play?
Title your reply "Rutabaga!" (as it is suitably absurd to do so) and leave me three questions.