The time has come to stake out some territory here: the space within which I write my fiction, the sensibilities that inform my characters, the ideas that underpin my current project.
No, really. I've got this whole Thing™ going on. Aren't you just thrilled? I know I am.
For those who will find this all too long, pedantic, and dull, I'll have a short, pedantic and dull summary of all three parts in a few days.
Part One: Transgression
Normalcy is a primate thing. Get too weird and the troop will kick the crap out of you and run you off, to fend for yourself and forage for your own berries. If you've got behavioral or intellectual proclivities that put you at either end of the bell curve, you’ve got two conventional social choices: hide them from everyone, or find other people who live at or near the same end of the distribution. That’s it. Both choices serve the same purpose. The first normalizes via concealment. The second normalizes via association.
Most of us know what hiding looks like. It’s the closet. The pleasure wrapped with guilt. The deep dark secret that gnaws at us. In our media-saturated culture, we see the consequences of exposure almost every day. The Congressman whose pages did a bit more than coffee runs and filing. The evangelist who swears he only paid for massages from that nice young man. We also see what happens to those who are pulled from hiding: shame, ridicule, jail...even death.
The second choice--finding your kindred at the narrow end of the distribution--seems a better solution. You gather with other people who share your particular brand of quirk, and you've got a troop that makes the primate bits of your brain happy. There's support, and acceptance, and all of those other warm and fuzzy things that make us feel safe and content while we loll in the sun and poke sticks into termite nests for a tasty snack.
A wise villain who killed Captain Kirk once said, "Normal is what everyone else is and you are not." That was supposed to be evil and oppressive and make us feel bad for Geordi LaForge, but in point of fact it's the truth. If you're into getting wrapped up in latex, hog-tied, hung from an eyebolt screwed into a dungeon's ceiling joist, and flagellated by dwarves, you're not usual, not ordinary, and certainly not normal.
And there's not a damn thing wrong with that.
When you find yourself a group of dangling latex-wrapped hog-tied whipping boys or girls to hang out with, what you've done is stack your local deck with people like you. You've created a little bubble of normal, but that bubble remains aberrant within greater society. The normality is an illusion, and if you happen to find yourself outside of that bubble, thou art Freak once more.
There's a phenomenon of justification that often finds expression in such bubbles which, I think, hints at an underlying problem of self-acceptance. There seems to be a need to make certain things acceptable by trying to shoehorn them into some existing form of social normalcy. A popular example these days: "Homosexuality is okay because it's biologically determined." But that's not why it's okay. Because the Jesus Jumpers have framed it as chosen sin, they've forced many of the sane among us into a rhetorical corner, where "choice" is equated with "unnatural" and is therefore evil. God forbid someone should do something simply because it feels good and right, instead of being compelled to do it because their DNA has been coiled up in a certain way.
This is the root of the problem. There are plenty of people who believe that God has, in fact, forbidden that very thing. "Transgression," in modern parlance, carries with it more than a hint of sin and the overwhelming connotation of violation--of moral codes, of law, and so on. That's why I began this with the word's etymology rather than its definition. It's the Latin root that is of greatest interest: transgredi, to "go beyond." The word, for me, has to do with identifying boundaries and moving beyond them.
Pushing boundaries is exciting. But people in all sorts of situations back away from that, seeking safety in numbers or in rationalizations. There's nothing wrong with seeking community; far from it. But first?
Make no apologies. Adopt no bluster. Offer no excuses.
Normalize yourself, by yourself, with yourself.
Next: Friendship and Love
No, really. I've got this whole Thing™ going on. Aren't you just thrilled? I know I am.
For those who will find this all too long, pedantic, and dull, I'll have a short, pedantic and dull summary of all three parts in a few days.
Part One: Transgression
transgression:
1426, from O.Fr. transgression (12c.), from L.L. transgressionem (nom. transgressio) "a transgression of the law," from L. "a going over," from transgressus, pp. of transgredi "go beyond," from trans- "across" + gradi (pp. gressus) "to walk, go" (see grade). The verb transgress is recorded from 1526. Transgressor is first recorded 1377.
Normalcy is a primate thing. Get too weird and the troop will kick the crap out of you and run you off, to fend for yourself and forage for your own berries. If you've got behavioral or intellectual proclivities that put you at either end of the bell curve, you’ve got two conventional social choices: hide them from everyone, or find other people who live at or near the same end of the distribution. That’s it. Both choices serve the same purpose. The first normalizes via concealment. The second normalizes via association.Most of us know what hiding looks like. It’s the closet. The pleasure wrapped with guilt. The deep dark secret that gnaws at us. In our media-saturated culture, we see the consequences of exposure almost every day. The Congressman whose pages did a bit more than coffee runs and filing. The evangelist who swears he only paid for massages from that nice young man. We also see what happens to those who are pulled from hiding: shame, ridicule, jail...even death.
The second choice--finding your kindred at the narrow end of the distribution--seems a better solution. You gather with other people who share your particular brand of quirk, and you've got a troop that makes the primate bits of your brain happy. There's support, and acceptance, and all of those other warm and fuzzy things that make us feel safe and content while we loll in the sun and poke sticks into termite nests for a tasty snack.
A wise villain who killed Captain Kirk once said, "Normal is what everyone else is and you are not." That was supposed to be evil and oppressive and make us feel bad for Geordi LaForge, but in point of fact it's the truth. If you're into getting wrapped up in latex, hog-tied, hung from an eyebolt screwed into a dungeon's ceiling joist, and flagellated by dwarves, you're not usual, not ordinary, and certainly not normal.
And there's not a damn thing wrong with that.
When you find yourself a group of dangling latex-wrapped hog-tied whipping boys or girls to hang out with, what you've done is stack your local deck with people like you. You've created a little bubble of normal, but that bubble remains aberrant within greater society. The normality is an illusion, and if you happen to find yourself outside of that bubble, thou art Freak once more.
There's a phenomenon of justification that often finds expression in such bubbles which, I think, hints at an underlying problem of self-acceptance. There seems to be a need to make certain things acceptable by trying to shoehorn them into some existing form of social normalcy. A popular example these days: "Homosexuality is okay because it's biologically determined." But that's not why it's okay. Because the Jesus Jumpers have framed it as chosen sin, they've forced many of the sane among us into a rhetorical corner, where "choice" is equated with "unnatural" and is therefore evil. God forbid someone should do something simply because it feels good and right, instead of being compelled to do it because their DNA has been coiled up in a certain way.
This is the root of the problem. There are plenty of people who believe that God has, in fact, forbidden that very thing. "Transgression," in modern parlance, carries with it more than a hint of sin and the overwhelming connotation of violation--of moral codes, of law, and so on. That's why I began this with the word's etymology rather than its definition. It's the Latin root that is of greatest interest: transgredi, to "go beyond." The word, for me, has to do with identifying boundaries and moving beyond them.
Pushing boundaries is exciting. But people in all sorts of situations back away from that, seeking safety in numbers or in rationalizations. There's nothing wrong with seeking community; far from it. But first?
Make no apologies. Adopt no bluster. Offer no excuses.
Normalize yourself, by yourself, with yourself.
Next: Friendship and Love
Yes, well said, thank you very much. I eagerly await parts two and three.
Would you prefer to publish this series on a slightly larger platform? This seems right up Girls with Insurance's alley, at least my interpretation of it. Lemme know, thanks.
Might do, might do--thanks very much for the invitation. I'm away from my Real Computer at the moment--but you can e-mail me at the gastheer address under my pic to the right there, and tell me what you have in mind...otherwise I'll get in touch with you this evening.
'Course, Part II might blow the whole thing, so there's that to consider.