Morphing

The lyrics of a song that I like by a weird french band called Elsiane are going to be the inspiration for this post. Because I feel like what I am taking away from this class, or this semester in general, or this period in my life, relate to this song. The title is "Morphing".

Look in the interior it's all full of life
look in this shadow but always leave the light on
mysterious all full of life
loom into shadows but always kept the light on
I'll discover it over I'll be hovered and mostly gone
I'd like to restart it all over with mountains full of gold
Discover the way only in the inferior
Constantly followed holding into light
Mysterious all full of love
Doom into shadows but always leave the light on
I realize it's in my mind installed
I find it's in my mind in stone
I'll discover it over I'll be hovered and mostly gone
I'd like to restart it all over with mountains full of gold
I've been stumbling all over I'll be stuck in this lonely and
I'll minimize the evil kind of love destroying
All the evil kind of thoughts installed
Settle down my evil start minimize my evil side

One of the most intriguing concepts discussed in class this semester, in my opinion, was that of "Viral Information". Fetishes spread because people are made aware of the fetish. Fetishes are created because someone with a bizarre perspective posted it on the internet. Information can change us - and one of the environmental factors which dictates how we are going to 'play out' in this world is exposure to ideas. 100 years ago someone with an identical genome to mine would not have been the same person. There would have been a LOT of similarities, for sure. Maybe even the same general temperament. But she wouldn't have birth control, she wouldn't know about apotemnophilia, she wouldn't be studying Computer Science and she would probably have been raised either orthodox Jewish or Catholic. Can you imagine? Because I really can't.
What I am taking away from this is simultaneously humbling and empowering. It is a realization that hurts my pride, on some level, and it is this: There are in fact things that I don't want to know. I have taken pride for a long time in being someone who wants to know everything, all the time. I thought that a great sign of my strength and awesomeness was that I could know things, experience things, and come away with little to no baggage. But I'm getting older. I'm realizing that there is always baggage. I'm realizing that there are a lot of things that, once known, will never allow me to go back. I can do my best to learn new things which are better than the old things, to construct fantasies which allow me to cope, to "cast things in a new light"... I can do mental push ups and exercises in emotional control, but fundamentally, my own brain is a black box, even to me. And that is scary!
While walking in the rain today, I tried not to kill earthworms. But when I see a centipede, I want it to be dead. Immediately. I am not a rational being. I can try to rationalize the impulses I have using my toolbox; evolutionary psychology, past experiences, things which turn randomness into concrete, validated reality. But Sartre was right - we are just justification machines, and what we learn at any given moment, what we decide about a thing at any given moment, is tweaking our self projection into both the future and the past. And even with that, I don't feel consistently "me". I can't tell you why my knees were shaking at my final performance yesterday. I can't tell you why I was desperate for my boyfriend's attention on Tuesday and nearly indifferent enough to break up with him on Wednesday. Sometimes I just want to conclude that I'm crazy - but then I look around, and I realize - the very desire to rationalize my actions, to be consistent, is making me crazy. Because its like trying to fit a square peg into a circle. And in that sense, sanity is just accepting the bliss of ignorance - it is accepting not that you can't know, but that sometimes there really isn't anything to know. There is no way to take control. There is the black box sitting on my shoulders, taking information in and doing who-the-hell-knows-what with it. But I HATE that! So I am going to keep trying to force myself into some rational framework, I know it.
So this is two-fold, I suppose. On the one hand, destroying some of life's illusions can really take the fun out of things. Plenty of illusions can't be destroyed, but some are destroyed by science, by studies of human nature, and by statistical 'facts'. On the other hand, when you learn things, the knowledge can change you.

Here are a list of things that I have recently considered that I don't want to know:
1. When and how I am going to die.
2. When and how my future relationships will fail (or really, even that they are all statistically likely to fail. Whoever told me that, I hate you. And thanks, I guess.)
3. Older men are attracted to younger women (my dad is 20 years older than my mom and pretty much hasn't dated a woman his own age since he was 20.) Pretty much I am just going to believe that, if this is a general truth, I will be the exception to the rule. Alternatively, I will never get married because I don't want to be fighting stupid ugly human nature.
4. People are highly likely to cheat on their spouses.
5. I'm never going to be a super hero. Or if I am, I will probably never be 100% sure I am totally, rock solid, doing the right thing.
6. There is a fetish for young amputee girls.
7. I am prone to alcoholism, and it makes me stupider.
8. I like beer.
9. Hangovers suck.
10. Growing apart is easier than growing together.
11. My brain is going to trick me into making the same mistakes twice... or a million times.

Alright, enough of this moroseness. Happy summer, everyone! I had a great semester with y'all.