Even I'm getting sick of it at this point. From studpoet.com: Nigger, Dyke, Faggot, Spic...these are a few of my favorite things:
in my life i have met many people. to be honest the people that i learned most from were white supremacists. you may wonder why. well, the ones that i have met (not the meatheads who are the muscle) were well educated and in fact knew more about people of color than most people of color know about each other. one day i asked why. the answer was simple...Machiavellian in its purest form..."know your enemy as you know yourself."for them it was a matter of survival, although of course we could argue that point of view, but that was what they believed. if you don't know your enemy how can you not counter their actions?
the same should hold true for us as people of color and/or gay. stop being afraid of what they are saying and embrace it, study it, challenge it, redefine it...don't hide from it. there will always be bigots, homophobes, racists etc. so hiding under a bush or trying to stamp out their freedom of speech will not make it better it will only be worse.
Or, to quote Beetlejuice once again instead, "I'm not afraid of sheets. Are you gross under there? Are you 'Night of the Living Dead' under there? All bloody veins and pus?"
Or, keeping with the supposed theme of the day:
Smith: You destroyed me, Mister Anderson. Afterward, I knew the rules, I understood what I was supposed to do but I didn't. I couldn't. I was compelled to stay, compelled to disobey. And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed - I'm unplugged - a new man, so to speak, like you, apparently free.Neo: Congratulations.
Smith: Thank you. But as you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here. We're not here because we're free. . .
. . .we're here because we're not free.
From Reloaded this time. Later, I'll discuss how people favoring the fucking Hobbit movies over the Matrix films convinces me that the apocalypse cannot possibly come fast enough.
np: Strong Hand, Emmylou Harris, The NoneSuch Collection.
Update: minor edits. And is there a way to prevent MT 2.64 from pinging studpoet (to take an example, namely, this entry) every time I update this thing, or do I gotta upgrade?
Now, now. I have no intention of hastening apocalypse.
Well, ok. Let's try aagin.
Define 'apocalypse,' please?
Garrity, more Death than Tower, if you want to be all Tarot-y about it.
Expanding on that a bit, I meant the good sort of destruction. Been doing quite a bit of that lately -- of beliefs, habits, a couple friendships -- and I gotta admit. . . it feels good.
So maybe apocalypse ain't the best choice of words up there. Does English have a word -- hell, does Western society have a concept -- for destruction of that which needs destroying?
No. We tend to think that we should leave our junk behind us on the roadside in a pile, for other people to trip over or something, instead of burning it to ashes and dancing round the bonfire nekkid, as Goddess intended. However, I think 'purge' comes closest to the real concept you're describing, in our fair speech.
We tend to think in terms of progress, and that may be part of the problem. We don't 'destoy' old belief systems; we 'change' them to something better. We 'move on.' We 'grow.'
It's seriously dishonest to focus only on the outcomes and goals, like that. You know, you gotta kill a lot of grass to plant a garden. To ignore that reality makes us try for change without destruction, which means we only add a layer of fresh paint over the surface of the old bullshit. Bullshit remains.
Man, you've given me a lot to think about, on this one.
I'm going to have to disagree with Garrity a little here, as much as it pains me. There is the old saying, "to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs", which is the right idea, although it reflects ambivalence about the process.
I'm going through some of that process as I move. It's painful to break the eggs, but I can smell that omelet cooking, and I really look forward to trying it when I'm done.
i guess i'm not sure why you used my post in your post?
Oh, touche, Ginger!
Although I do think the acceptable selfhelpspeak often leans towards the gentle and positive, though, and tends more often to downplay the destructive element. On some level, it's awesome that you bring up that example, because it's such a 'mother wit' sort of sentiment - honest, unflinching, gut-driven, one you're unlikely to find in a Dummies Guide to Spiritual Renewal.
Crunching eggshells is very satisfactory. I hope the omelet is tasty.
You're 100% right about the selfhelpspeak, Garrity. I read a self-help book last year that dealt a lot with essentially the concepts you're talking about. It was all about how to get more "absolute yeses" in your life: the things you really want to do.
One of the things the book said about how to make room for the absolute yeses was to practice "extreme self-care" to stop doing things not on the yes list. There was even this little canned speech the author (a woman) suggested readers give people when begging off commitments that used that term, something to the effect of "I'm sorry I can't [x], but I'm practicing extreme self-care and can't do that," which struck me as totally passive-aggressive psychobabble bullshit that I would resent hearing.
I'd much rather hear "I'm sorry, I can't," without explanation than hear the bullshit reason. Burning it down is one thing; expecting the other people you're setting on fire to be happy about it for you is another.
Ginger: "Extreme self-care" sounds kind of dangerous, actually. That's a new one by me. And yeah, it does sound all P.A.-bullshitty to me, too.
"Extreme self-care" sounds suspiciously like "selfishness" to me, although that may be at least partly onaccounta the fact that I was basically brought up to believe that anything one does for oneself that might inconvenience others (however trivially) is de facto selfish. Yeah, the therapist is having a field day with that one.
Ok, I have some half-formed notion about how the lack of a corresponding/equivalent "male" saying for "can't make an omlet without breaking eggs" -- and hence the idea of destruction/letting go -- might explain violence (or at least general unpleasantness) of ex-boyfriends or -husbands. And something about that (apparently fake) psycho ex girlfriend web site of recorded phone calls, which I never really saw the humor of.
But this requires coffee. And lots of it.
StudPoet, check your email.
Karin, there has gots to be a middle ground there.
Ginger, I'm still trying to find a way to avoid doing too much damage to the people involved in things I'm getting rid of. And probably failing miserably.
garrity, "purge" about does it, yes. Thanks.
Wow, Aaron, another swift kick to the pants . . .
Your pardon, sir. I had no real intention of suggesting that the 'break eggs' saying ought to be intrinsically read as encompassing or representing feminine gender. That phrase 'mother wit' was one I picked up long ago (reading Maya Angelou, seems to me) to refer to old saws that had a lot of real meaning to them and were expressed in a fairly no-bullshit sort of way. Funny that we should gender such things female. Funny that I sholdn't even have noticed. Funny that I'm such a bonehead.
Um, I think I'm going to creep away for some caffeine now. No, I had caffeine yesterday. Damn.
Oy. Sorry, garrity, didn't mean for that comment to come off that way. Perhaps I should refrain from posting the half-formed notions.
Nah, that's the entire site, right there. I'll just work on wording stuff better.
Like the embryonic (or maybe zygotic) bit about Zora Neale Hurston that came to mind when you mentioned where you thought you'd read/heard the expression mother wit.