unknown places in the familiar

Larkin once wrote a poem called The Importance of Elsewhere. I think i only really understood that today; the great thing about places we know well is the books we read when we are not there. In fact, that is the good thing about reading any book anywhere other than where you are. I return home and i realise what my brain was showing me when i read this book or that book; i found the churchyard and marshes from Great Expectations and the eponymous Judge's House from Bram Stoker's short story linked by Union Street from Persuasion.
This is why i don't like front covers to books, they give you a little detail and form where this or that place might look like according to someone else, but you haven't been there, you don't know any more so either you have to create a place from other images in your head or your ideas fight with theirs.
There is one house which i have not been in for seven or eight years but it has been the setting of so many books in my head, i like that, if i went back there now i would see so many events from different books. This is a strange way in which i find books enrich my life.

Self-identification

When i was little and i left a cinema the question was not which scene was our favourite, what we had learnt, or the intentions of different characters, or their reasons for certain actions, how compelling we found the narrative, what we thought of the music or the camera shots; no, the first thing my brother and i would discuss was who our favourite character was.
Why we felt we needed to align ourselves with a particular character i don't know but what i do know was that we generally agreed. Sure, our nature and nurture were very alike but i think it was a sociological reason: we wanted to portray a particular image of ourselves, we liked characteristics of someone and we wanted not only others but ourselves to recognise those characterisitics in us. Leaving Star Wars 1 we both like Jar Jar Binks, most likely because he appealed to our juvenile sense of humour (Do we identify with characters to feel more part of the action, is that why i never used to enjoy Austen, because i could not see myself in these characters so they held no interest for me?). My friend and i discussed this, he said he preferred Obi Wan Kenobi and i professed my love for Jar Jar only to find out his sister's preference for the same character. Being immature i baulked at this realisation, i did not want to be like her but then i was left without a favourite character and a confused idea of my perception of Jar Jar.
I have the same reaction now when someone (cool is no longer really a word i would use any-more, its subjectivity being so limiting) who i would not like my views associated with because of our other disagreements on preference. They cheapen a band i like, a beer i drink, a work of art i enjoy. Why does their allegiance act to the detriment of these things? Why is it that one viewpoint of someone whose taste generally differs from mine (taste is such a good word it suggests no right or wrong just an appetite for different things) can sully something i enjoy?
I think association is the important point here. We define ourselves by our choices. By the things we choose to think, the things we choose to do and the things we choose to own. I see beauty in the lines of T.S Eliot but is that only because others have verified this beauty or his genius; if, when i read Ulysses, it had been written by someone not revered, maybe Roald Dahl, not James Joyce would i have seen the intelligence and the wit, am i only reading the Myth of Sisyphus because it is written by Camus and i want to align myself with him, or see his thoughts, if it had been written by J.K Rowling would i have even bought it in the first place?
I think this all ties into this theme of self-identification, how we want to see ourselves and how we want to be seen. As ridiculous and awful as it is that i don't want to have a similar taste to someone with whose taste i generally disagree, i do so because i don't want to be considered to share their penchant for slapstick humour, their disposition towards lager, or - to reverse it - their dislike of poetry; just as i did not want my enjoyment of the character of Jar Jar to suggest i enjoyed Barbie or petting horses (things that i did not see as worthwhile or enjoyable).
The other thing this all seems to tie in with is the idea of prejudice. As bad as it is, and as much as i try to judge everything on its own merits (i came out here to see some stuff for myself, i mean why leave the telling up to everybody else? Ani DiFranco), where do we start looking? Is a poem written by a friend ever going to get the attention i would give one by Cummings or Neruda and if it does is it because this is a particular joy i revel in in being associated with this person? I had to write a short biography of Larkin the other week and i left out his stash of pornography because i did not want readers of said bio to judge him on that, to think if they liked him they approved of that. We have a finite amount time on the earth to read (why we read what we read as children thus baffles me - to acquire a taste whilst identifying with something? - but a question for another time) so must we not start by being pointed in certain directions? Even those who go off the beaten track when finding something new and good try to point others to that and the cycle perpetuates itself unless we are selfish with our findings.
Can we and should we apply this to people? I bought a book of Chinese poetry to sample it - and i see it as potentially broadening horizons and opening avenues of interest - but i would be considered very strange to do that with people. The cliché that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover is only partly true. We should only judge people on their actions and their thoughts, clearly, but their thought is manifested in the action of how to attire themselves in terms of clothes, hair, tattoos etc. You should only not judge the book by its cover if the creator of the book did not choose the cover.
The issue of body is a strange one anyway. Is my body a part of me or just a carrier for my brain? I act so it remains strong so i am not inhibited by its frailty, it transports me to where i can further my self - what self? Do i only exist in other's views of me, certainly the corpse is no longer the person though it is a symbol of that person and some people very much disagree with the violation of that, i mean varying from the strange practise of necrophilia to dissection for medical purposes. We certainly use our bodies to give off an impression and it is composed of a serious of indicators by which the overall image of self-hood is partly constructed.
But i digress, or i think i do, there must have been a reason why my brain latched onto that idea. So the reason my brother and i chose favourite characters rather than discussing the story was because we wanted to see ourselves in these characters; i like my tastes to be shared only by those who share many of my tastes because we partly define ourselves through real people as well as fictional ones; and sometimes books should be judged by covers, especially if that book is a person - just as long as you are judging it on what it has chosen and not what it was born with.

sexuality

So i've been holding that last post for a while trying to work out my feelings on it but just decided to blog it to force myself into more action. So i have been thinking about gender a lot lately. Why would man ever have needed to subjugate women if he was in fact "superior"? Surely woman would just fall to the bottom if she were inherently inferior. Why men try to impose restrictions on women seems ridiculous to me (yes literally laughable - because if i don't laugh at men i will cry) - if they are incapable of something why not let them try? Man has clearly just been threatened by women. I had this thought that maybe it was some male insecurity in themselves that made them need an heir and they relied on women to help create this so men used their biological, testosterone fuelled bodies to repress women. Let me know what you think about that, just a thought in progress.
I digress from what i wanted to say though. I've been thinking about gender and then my mind turned a little to sexuality. It seems to me that the only logical reason that homosexuality was originally discouraged was so populations could grow and hence bring more profit for whoever made these decisions (china should go in for as much homosexuality as they can really shouldn't they?). Then everything was codified into religion but it's now a redundant point, please, someone modernise religion. Laveyan satanism tells us to live for pleasure (take devil worship out of your ideas of satanism, they believe in pleasure and being your own god, sort of life without a superego if you'd like to go Freudian, as most secular people live if you don't) ; the greeks seemed to have it right - live for pleasure. Sexuality is not a choice and why should it matter to anyone who you fuck? How is it anyone's business? How can it offend you? A good friend of mine quoted the fantastic lyric:
if you're not angry, then you're just stupid: you don't care.
how else can you react when you know so unfair?

I am angry, you should be too in a world of illogical prejudices.

gender binarism

So i was thinking about gender binarism today. It would be futile to argue the genders were not biologically different but i reject that there is a gender binarism culturally, or rather there should be no gender binarism. Being male or female is only one trait of a person (it is so hard to write on this subject - i use trait here to mean one facet of that person's identity but void of any connotation). This is all applicable to race and sexuality and I may draw on them later but for now i shall focus on gender. It seems so obvious, and as i write this i feel it doesn't even need to be said, but being a woman should not in any way influence our impression of a person (the same obviously encompasses sexuality and colour). People see one trait, whether it be gender or colour is unimportant in this instance, and make a judgement based on that. Clearly we are all individuals and should be judged not in relation to people who share similar physical traits to us (though our gender and colour may in part shape who we are due to social conditioning (baby girl’s rooms being painted pink; boy’s blue) or any experience we have had us (beyond any abuse we have taken for something which we had no part in deciding)).

This got me thinking that that didn't make sense though. I, for example, do not like cricket, the sport not the insect, and that view has been formed by my experience of watching and playing separate games of cricket. Though i have enjoyed some of these games they are in the vast minority yet i no longer bother watching or playing the game. I never give it another chance. Think about a type of food you don't like, it's the same, you try - to conform to apparent stereotype i choose sprouts - sprouts over and over from when your mother asked you to eat them all the way through your childhood all the way to...well when? When was the last time you ate one when it was your choice? Likelihood is that you have not eaten one for a long time because of your amassed experience of negative reactions and it is in our nature, and really the way of gaining knowledge (to judge something on a series of experiences about that thing). The difference with cricket though I think is that it is a series of codes which are unique to the game and are more than one criterion, like colour or gender is.

As I said: it seems ridiculous to even have to say this but can we please reject any gender binarism beyond biological factors. In a fantastic Youtube clip Ani DiFranco says “as people we have so much more in common than we have differences”. It is odd to come back to this but can’t we just all agree we are all children of the earth and should be judged as individuals beyond any presupposed ideas of race or gender? Please.

First Post

There would be a lot of pressure on a first post if i intended to tell anyone the url. This statement will no doubt be read and chuckled at with a bouquet of mirth once i am found here. I don't know if i will give up my hiding place on purpose or if i will be discovered like a ghost orchid in 'Adaptation'. Not just yet anyway. I like the idea of having a place where i can write as i please and be judged only by random people across the globe who have pressed "next blog" out of some baffling but beautiful wish to read about people they don't know and who don't fall into some celebrity category. I enjoy the freedom of writing whichever way i please, at this moment harsh and analytical and this floating through the trees of metaphor in a prolix bubble of verbosity avoiding the unequivocal rays of definite meaning and always reaching for more abstract thought.