So, I have a problem
Dec. 5th, 2008 20:22![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkfyre_museOK maybe not a problem but definitely something I need to get over. (Actually I have quite a few of these but, one thing at a time. (and thank you julesk for putting up with me whining about most of them)
So here it is. I seem to have this driving need to be part of a group. This was a big problem in elementary/jr high school, I sort of became jaded and ignored it for 15 years or so and am now back where I started. The return was spurred by my catalyst a few years ago, when I was turning 30, to start exploring who I was and who I wanted to be. This always leads to my general state of (not quite) awe that there are a lot of different 'me's' hanging out in my brain. (I like to think sometimes that this is something special but, really I am sure everyone is this multi-faceted) So I started picking through it all and discovering a couple things that I really felt a pull towards but had never really thought I was cool enough to live. Well fuck cool, I am long past trying to be society's version of cool. I'm lucky if I can manage to not make people look at me funny at work.
So I started looking a goths. I like goths. They read cool books, dress nice and like saying fuck you to those that sneer at being different. So I bought some new clothes for work, all in black. Dyed my hair red and started broadening my music collection. Then I fell into a classic adolescent trap, I wanted to be considered by others as goth. This is not practical. Firstly, I have never done the club thing. Generally this sort of casual social mixing is integral to most subcultures, and especially true here. Second I am getting into the game WAY late. No one wants to be a 30 y/o poser. And to be completely honest, I am not nearly as fringe as I would like to think I am. So while I am really uncomfortable calling myself goth for fear of public ridicule, I secretly wanted to be able to say that I am. (insert adolescent insecurities here)
But in the end I am and I'm not. I love concerts and clubs. People watching and being watched and having not quite pretentious conversation in interesting settings is a really great way to spend a saturday night. But I also like my green henley (sorry love, you're not getting that one back), the Gin Blossoms and REM speak to my soul and yes I watch too much TV.
In a similar vein I also have this weird fascination with being part of a generation. Well I am just barely old enough to claim membership in Gen X. I came of age to REM and flannel. I even played a college student in a smoky coffee shop at Pitt for 2 semesters sophomore year in HS. (And yes at 15 I played the roll of aspiring film student and angst-y artist, one day a week for months, quite well. Even got a couple potential dates out of it. Too bad I'm a coward.) But I wasn't looking for a job in the post dot.com recession and I was only 13 when I saw Singles and Nirvana changed the face of music. However, I am so NOT a Gen Y. I have used a typewriter and my first music purchases were vinyl. Also I abhorred this idea that moving back in with your parents after college, unless absolutely necessary, is even remotely acceptable. It may make financial sense but, holy shit.
This inability to be put in a box bothers me. And that it bothers me really bothers me. Really, though, reading through this I don't think it matters. I think I am looking for the security blanket of belonging but, am not so sure that it would be as comfy as it looks. Maybe my feet would stick out the bottom and the tags would rub.
I hate cold feet and cut the tags off my undies.
So while I get more content with who I am all the time, I can't promise that I won't show up as a poser some nights. Be nice, I don't foresee growing out of it anytime soon.
ETA: I'm not trying to be gloomy or mopey or something like that. Really this is just me doing brain dumps of things that are running through my head lately.
So here it is. I seem to have this driving need to be part of a group. This was a big problem in elementary/jr high school, I sort of became jaded and ignored it for 15 years or so and am now back where I started. The return was spurred by my catalyst a few years ago, when I was turning 30, to start exploring who I was and who I wanted to be. This always leads to my general state of (not quite) awe that there are a lot of different 'me's' hanging out in my brain. (I like to think sometimes that this is something special but, really I am sure everyone is this multi-faceted) So I started picking through it all and discovering a couple things that I really felt a pull towards but had never really thought I was cool enough to live. Well fuck cool, I am long past trying to be society's version of cool. I'm lucky if I can manage to not make people look at me funny at work.
So I started looking a goths. I like goths. They read cool books, dress nice and like saying fuck you to those that sneer at being different. So I bought some new clothes for work, all in black. Dyed my hair red and started broadening my music collection. Then I fell into a classic adolescent trap, I wanted to be considered by others as goth. This is not practical. Firstly, I have never done the club thing. Generally this sort of casual social mixing is integral to most subcultures, and especially true here. Second I am getting into the game WAY late. No one wants to be a 30 y/o poser. And to be completely honest, I am not nearly as fringe as I would like to think I am. So while I am really uncomfortable calling myself goth for fear of public ridicule, I secretly wanted to be able to say that I am. (insert adolescent insecurities here)
But in the end I am and I'm not. I love concerts and clubs. People watching and being watched and having not quite pretentious conversation in interesting settings is a really great way to spend a saturday night. But I also like my green henley (sorry love, you're not getting that one back), the Gin Blossoms and REM speak to my soul and yes I watch too much TV.
In a similar vein I also have this weird fascination with being part of a generation. Well I am just barely old enough to claim membership in Gen X. I came of age to REM and flannel. I even played a college student in a smoky coffee shop at Pitt for 2 semesters sophomore year in HS. (And yes at 15 I played the roll of aspiring film student and angst-y artist, one day a week for months, quite well. Even got a couple potential dates out of it. Too bad I'm a coward.) But I wasn't looking for a job in the post dot.com recession and I was only 13 when I saw Singles and Nirvana changed the face of music. However, I am so NOT a Gen Y. I have used a typewriter and my first music purchases were vinyl. Also I abhorred this idea that moving back in with your parents after college, unless absolutely necessary, is even remotely acceptable. It may make financial sense but, holy shit.
This inability to be put in a box bothers me. And that it bothers me really bothers me. Really, though, reading through this I don't think it matters. I think I am looking for the security blanket of belonging but, am not so sure that it would be as comfy as it looks. Maybe my feet would stick out the bottom and the tags would rub.
I hate cold feet and cut the tags off my undies.
So while I get more content with who I am all the time, I can't promise that I won't show up as a poser some nights. Be nice, I don't foresee growing out of it anytime soon.
ETA: I'm not trying to be gloomy or mopey or something like that. Really this is just me doing brain dumps of things that are running through my head lately.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 15:19 (UTC)Can you only associate yourself with a word if you fully, completely and only reflect that words total and absolute meaning?
It's funny that you have posted this, cause I have been struggling with the same thing -- not just for me but groups my firends are associated with.
For a while, I was afraid to use the word CHRISTIAN for many reasons. I do not go to church regualrly, don't testify, have friends AND understand their religion and feel it is good for them, I don't testify or read the Bible daily. Heck, some of my morals won't make the Christian DO list.
And yet I am one -- spritiually and religiously for what that means to me.
I'm a Christian who beleives there are many ways to pray, who lights candles and incense, pays attention to the placement of items in my eviorment for the possibility of enriched life, with gemstones and crystals to focus my wants, needs and dreams.
I am a hippie who doesn't smoke weed, believes in supporting our troups overseas, and feels you can change the system from the inside as well as the out.
My year of birth qualifies me as a baby boomer, and yet I have never felt like nor considered myself one.
I am a military brat who beleives talking, negotiation and peace is always the first solution, but proudly stand by my family and friends who fight.
I'm a clubber who can't find a night spot that doesn't make me fill ancient -- either the club is filled with young people or if its in the age bracket I enjoy, the music and dance floor are dead.
I've mellowed into a right winger with a decidedly broad and adamant left wing swath of expectations in my politics.
I am creative, without an ounce of Martha Stweart or Danile Steele to my blood.
I am a writer who can't spell,
Personally, I think of you as Goth with a tad bit of hippy, a sizeable metric measurment of geek and a person of grounded spirituality that you practise with regularity (your handwirtten journaling) in the mix. You are an extreme sport fanatic (fencing in war setting, fire dancing). You are a realistic, fighting enviormentalist, a manager type with a good dose of team member thrown in.
Make sense? Any of it?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 00:17 (UTC)Which is why the only thing that really bugs me here is the fact that I want to belong so badly sometimes.
and that you for making me such a neat person
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 19:12 (UTC)I'll go for quick.
Catch 22. Primate=colony/lg.family Modern society=individual small groupings. Never learn how to co-exist in lg. group but unhappy in small.
Rec. read Continum Concept
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 23:24 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 00:18 (UTC)hug hug
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 04:52 (UTC)I just invested in a pair of slippers that are designed to be portable (go L.L. Bean Packable Slippers!) and I wear my undies inside out so the tag is on the outside.
I spent basically all of high school wanting to belong somwhere, anywhere and when I came to college and found people actually willing to talk to me, I thought that was it. But for someone who wants to belong so badly, I get tired of individual in specific and groups in general so easily. So I cycle - I can look back and see where I basically turn over a whole new group of friends every five years or so, none of which I was very close to. I often feel like I'm on the edges of all the cliques but to be totally honest, I could be at the center of my own circle and not be able to tell - part of how I define myself to myself is as that person on the outside looking in.
I have some boxes: Navy brat, gamer, med tech, reader, stick shift driver, but I don't feel like any one of those or any group of those really says much about who I am - they all come with loads of assumptions, not all of which apply to me and it bothers me when people just attach the label and the assumptions without looking any deeper.
So while I want to be able to define myself, I don't want other people to apply those definitions to me. Dear monkey brain, please learn to logic.
I'll stop navel gazing on your journal now.