The Best Version of Yourself

I went looking for the phrase on a whim, it seemed quotable enough, marketable, even. Turns out an Australian Catholic self-help guru named Matthew Kelly nearly has a patten on it. I went to his website and didn’t see a lot of “god wants you to do this” or “god wants you to buy my book” so I do have to give him the benefit of the doubt; I remind myself all the time that occasionally people really do need $22.95 worth of help to find their own ass with both hands. The principle he’s peddling is simple enough, it’s self improvement, the constant and vigorous kind that I am always so interested in. The implication of the phrase, also, is that this can be done without being someone who’s not you- which is the part I like.

What I’m wondering about, really, is what sort of environment allows you to be the best version of yourself? It’s easy to achieve that in separate isolated moments, but on a day-to-day basis, it’s a struggle to be the best version of you. Everyone around you has a different idea of what that best version of you looks like, too. My boss considers my best version of myself a good salesperson who pushes sales, my co-workers consider my best version of myself a sarcastic wise-cracker who keeps things just a little bit risque, and still yet, my customers/clients consider my best version of myself a helpful customer service slave who never thinks of anything but how best to make their day easier. There is a marked difference between the best version of yourself and the perception of your best self reflected from others.

I guess the point I reach is questioning; in what environment am I most rewarded for being my personal best version of myself? Human beings rarely commit repetitive behaviors without any sort of physical or psychological reward- that’s the whole idea behind the human reproductive system. It’s psych 101; Pavlov’s dog. We continue positive behaviors or negative behaviors for a variety of complex reasons, but generally because of reward or punishment. I should be putting myself in situations that reward me for those behaviors which make me a better person. I think that personally I am extremely fortunate in having accessible knowledge of what I think my best self should look like. Which is why I’m taking advantage of that self-knowledge and moving to a place I hope will reward me for being my very best self.

I’ve experienced a lot of resistance to this decision, and it’s troubling to me. It’s hard not to see the caution of others as proverbial rain on your parade when you’re pursuing a dream. Most Minnesotans don’t want you to leave Minnesota. They see the rest of the country, maybe the rest of the world, as a threatening space outside the safe bubble of Minnesota-nice and a culture of Norwegian hospitality and kindness. I know this because it’s the way that I feel from time to time. It sneaks up on me in quiet moments and I’m overcome with anxious fear of these “other people,” these non-Minnesotans. It’s that exact fear though, that presses me outward as well. Not for a sense of adventure or danger, but in hopes of knowing and understanding these “other people.” I feel as though I’m justifying or defending now. It’s so much more simple than that. I am a person that needs to grow, always, constantly. I’m bumping my head on the ceiling in the mid-west, so I’m headed for the coast, to find rewards for being the best version of myself.

Self Interview

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Teaching…something, and writing in my spare time. I’d love to live on the west coast but I wouldn’t mind somewhere in the Midwest to be close to my family. I’m starting to despise that question though, seems like everybody’s always asking me what my plans are and I’ve always firmly believed in not having one. Here’s why; if you have a plan, that’s an inflexible construct in your head. You know where you’re going and where you’re going to be. Then, some amazing opportunity comes by, and you’re forced to think twice about it because it doesn’t fit into your plan- maybe you miss it. All because you have this flimsy construct of certainty in your mind. I don’t want to miss any opportunities.

What kind of opportunities do you imagine when you’re thinking about opportunities?

You name it- collaborative projects, getting to know people, love, places, experiences, and jobs- I love new jobs. I love and hate new jobs because they scare the shit out of me but I always like to expand what I perceive I’m capable of.

Does that effect your writing?

Everything does. I think the more I experience the more I want to write because it expands my curiosity and curiosity is a great fuel for writing. I used to think that certain experiences blocked my writing- especially the best of experiences, but now I think that’s a worn out idea. You have to write past the superficial surface feelings you get from happy experiences and then it becomes worth while. There’s a hidden gem in everything.

You were recently given your first publication in the Bare Root Review, how did that effect you?

The whole experience was not what I expected at all. The Bare Root Review is an internet publication, and that’s tough for me, mentally. Because my writing has been on the internet for people to read for years now. That was the first place I found a voice. I think it means I’m going to be read by a different brand of person, but I don’t expect to be “discovered” that way or anything.

But you’re serving a different audience in a literary publication, right?

I’m not sure just yet how much it matters to me who is reading. I’ve always just been tickled that there are readers at all. Writing is to some extent about communicating for me and as long as I’m understood, I don’t think it matters who’s listening. Then again, when I’m writing what work I truly enjoy, a literary audience is more likely to “get” what’s being said and what’s unsaid. My dream is to find a group of those people, who really understand my words, and feed that audience.

Then you want to write for a particular audience?

No, mostly. I’ve seen how that turns out. If there’s anything watching as much television as I have has given me, it’s an instinct not to write for the gratification of the reader. Once you start pandering to the whims of a certain crowd things go down hill quickly. My hope is that if you produce enough solid work on a regular basis, your audience that loved you even before they knew about you will find you. I’ve had that experience as a fan, and I’ve always wanted to be on the other side of that exchange.

And who’s work would you classify yourself a “fan” of?

Anyone who’s work I have consistently sought out and loved. On that list would be, Toni Morrison, Alanis Morrisette, Joss Whedon, Sarah Mclachlan, J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, Russel T. Davies, Baz Luhrman, and that’s off the top of my head, really. I have a fascination with the fan experience because I think very often it’s misconstrued as crazed hero-worship. I think that is completely unfair to the fan experience and fans out there.

How would you portray it then?

It’s connection. We have these ideas of other people, especially people in the entertainment industry, as these grand larger than life characters who we could never touch- or if we did, that would make us lucky, or part of that magic somehow. I think I grew up with a similar misconception, and it kept me from imagining things beyond a certain point, it put a strict limit on the breadth and quality of my dreams and aspirations. I think what new technology sometimes does for us is keep that world from filtering our perception. They can’t completely control that image anymore, and suddenly all these “stars” or whatever start to look more and more like regular people. I love that in every way except that I realized that it might be the case that a handful of my favorite actors might be fantastically boring people. That was tough to come to terms with.
But anyway. Fans. What people take for granted is that it is a two-way experience. There’s the person producing the art, and the person enjoying and validating the art, and that’s a kind of communication in itself. It’s a beautiful experience to be touched and moved by something someone had created, but it’s also an equally beautiful experience to realize someone was touched and moved by what you made. This is the way it has always been. It’s just that in this day and age, that sort of pure exchange of ideas gets distorted by all that pretence of grandeur. I think eventually though it might be reduced back down to size and we’ll stop worshiping the television and start appreciating it for what it really is again. Which is one of the reasons why I’ve turned mine off.

You don’t watch television?

Not anymore, no.

Why not?

For just about the exact same reason I quit caffeine. I realized I had something in my life that was in control of me and I didn’t have control of it anymore. I am a big supporter of TV turn off week, which I think is a weird point of view for someone who would like so much to write for television. During the writer’s strike, I stopped watching television, and it was extremely hard. I was very surprised how hard it was, and that in itself was a problem. If I couldn’t just turn off the TV and be satisfied, I’d clearly become dependant on it. So I quit. Cold turkey. And when the writer’s strike ended, I had absolutely no desire to start up again, so I didn’t. Now if there’s anything I want to watch, I look for it on a website or order it from Netflix.

But if everyone did that, wouldn’t television die off?

Maybe. I personally think that’d be really cool. I think if we all unplugged for a couple years it would trim the fat off the television industry. All those reality shows and sub-par sitcoms would have absolutely no reason to continue once commercial values dropped- so what would you be left with? The people who do it for the love of it. The technology will always be there, and we can always pick it up later. I don’t worry about television surviving, I worry about what becomes valuable and whether or not what is valuable is about communication or art anymore.

You’re really interested in the evolution of technology, and there has been a lot of talk about what that means for the written word, can you weigh in on that?

Not in any informed way, really. I think that Newspapers and Magazines should be worried, but as for books- I don’t think books have one thing to worry about any time in the future. I think there will be a great deal of movement toward integrating technology and literature, and if that means more people are reading, that’s good. But there is nothing replaceable about a book. I can get the same experience from a newspaper or magazine that I do from an internet blog, but there is no replacing the experience of a printed book. There’s something innately sensory about that experience and even if the human race were to discard it, I do believe they’d come back to it eventually.

How are finals going?

Poorly. I’m too excited to spend time with my sisters and it’s ruining my concentration as well as my interest level. It makes me think about moving out of state and how painfully I’m going to miss my family.

Female Doctor Who?

Here’s a question I’m mostly just practicing for Quelquesfilles, but it’s been presented as an idea on quite a few Doctor Who boards. Now that it’s official that David Tenant will be breaking our hearts at the end of the year by bowing gracefully out of the role of the doctor, the big question seems to be; who’s next? Personally I’m still trying to pick my broken heart strings out of Tenant’s teeth, so forgive me if my reaction is still a bit emotional.

The first I heard of this question was on a YouTube vlog I’m not particularly crazy about, his name is Nerimon if you’re interested, but I’m not going to link to him. Nerimon presented an idea Russel T. Davies shared. It was having the next regeneration of the doctor be played by an actress instead of an actor. Davies also said he thought Amy Winehouse would be an excellent choice. To which I was immediately like, holy shit, Davies, WHAT have you been smoking and are you hoping to share it with her?

Leaving aside the obvious lack of brain it takes to think a woman who no acting experience and a drug habit can even begin to fathom a role of this size, the question of gender does interest me. Especially given the overwhelming reaction to that very question. Here’s the thing: whenever this idea is brought up in any blog, there seems to be a very clear trend among the male fans of the show especially. I hear comments about alienating a young male audience, things that demonstrate a loud ignorance toward the very definitions of gender, sexuality, and transgender individuals, scathing comments in which “feminism” is used in an unfriendly tone, and various people who don’t seem really so very concerned with the character as with the fact that the character stays white and male. (I even caught a commenter waving DrW as one of “the few male shows still out there” but commenting on THAT would require a whole other entry…stay tuned for my extended thoughts on women in science fiction some other day)

Now I can’t really blame these comments much, this is coming from a society that has conditioned itself to think of gender as a fixed biological concept. They’re simply reacting to what ideals they’ve been given. They want to protect the character. Making the doctor’s face, sexuality, romantic history, background, name and such ambiguous would just be wron- OH! oh…wait a sec, that IS the doctor, isn’t it?

I think my main concern is that if something like this is going to create such a backlash and open the forum for discussions like these…doesn’t it seem to imply that this might be…and forgive me…just what the doctor ordered?

Final list?

This might actually be the final list of grad schools I plan to apply to.  (Applications due January to Februrary 2009) These are pretty much listed in order of desire.

1. California State University, Long Beach

2. University of California, Riverside

3. Antioch University at Los Angeles

4. The School of Art Institute of Chicago

5. University of Washington

6. Minnesota State University at Mankato

First weekend of finals

I’ve got a thesis going for the paper I’m going to spend all weekend working on- I have to remember to pick up my ILL book from the library so I can start grinding away tomorrow.

“The Psychoanalytical school of thought has long considered the accepted psychological origin of homosexuality as a disruption in the completion of the oedipal phase.  However, modern gay fiction and memoir is redefining the oedipal complex in it’s own image.  Specifically, the application of the oedipal phase as the desire for the parent with the gender of one’s sexual preference as seen in the works of David Sedaris, Edmund White, Dorothy Allison, and my own personal experience.”

What I probably won’t have time to cover thoroughly is the reputation psychoanalysis has gained for turning homosexuality into a “diagnosis.”  Or the fact that Freud himself has likely been completely misinterpreted on the subject of “curing” homosexuality.

I’m kind of wondering if this is just a fluke of literature or if this is a legitimate trend.  Of course it’s not the purpose of the paper to conduct any kind of research on the psychological landscape of the question or it’s legitimacy, but if it were I think I’d have my work cut out for me.  People are by and large uncomfortable with many of the ideas in Freudian theory, and I think that’s what makes it such a great place for literature.  Why is the idea of any sexual desire for a parent so very threatening?  I think Freud is really saying that we’re simply playing the parts we’ve been assigned.  Whether that assignment is biologically inherent or learned.

My sources for this paper are A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White, Trash, a collection of short stories by Dorothy Allison, and Naked, an autobiographical novel by David Sedaris.  All three of these novels deal very intimately and candidly with what at times seems to be an obsession of sorts with the parent of the same sex.  When I read Dorothy Allison for the first time I was truly relieved.  I felt like she’d seen some of the darkest pictures in my mind, leaned in and whispered, “me too.”  There’s something you never forget about confessional literature like that.