pique part 2

I noticed some years back that when you are open about stuff, there are a very large number of folks who take this to mean they have license to throw all sensitivity to the wind in their response. I don’t mean that their response is equally open, if by open we include sincere as a necessary trait. The response is simply insensitive. This isn’t always so bad from anonymous strangers, but it sort of sucks when a friend or someone you respect has that sort of reaction to getting a glimpse at your unclothed inner self. The suckiest part is that often this behavior feels like it was invited if not deserved as a result of having been open in the first place.

Having had a couple of occasions to think about this kind of situation as it arose between me and others here and there, I've come to the following conclusion. Thinking being open means you're asking for inconsiderate, remote, socially conditioned responses which place a premium on upholding the disclosure ban (to the detriment of supporting a friend, lover, or even just a fellow human being struggling with some totally normal but perhaps distastefully negative aspects of the human condition) is like thinking when a guest is invited over, they are welcome to shit on the host's coffee table if they don’t like the dip, find the curtains tacky, or are allergic to the host’s cat.

Being open is inviting someone into your space. It’s like letting someone into your home. Of course anyone would agree an invitation to come in doesn't even indirectly imply that the guest could or should do something like that once they are in, not if the invite is into someone’s house. (Ok, fine, a guest could logically and feasibly do that I suppose, but you know what I mean.) Why does letting someone in on a less physical level mean a lower standard applies?

The most rotten part is that this gets internalized, even if you disagree with it. So when someone gives you the "too much information" response (in any of it's forms) to what is sincere and possibly quite necessary self expression, you feel bad. You are the one who has violated the social norm and you now can add guilt for that on top of whatever was going on that lead you to "there" or to express "too much information" in the first place.

I wanted to say for my friend and for whoever else has had a run in with the disclosure police that the desire to be open, to express oneself and even to do this in a forum as public as a blog is not deviant. Sure, at times it might be narcissistic. It might be self absorbed and silly. It might come across as boring or whiney. But those feelings are part of the human experience folks. Self absorbed silly shit come with being a person. Keeping your silly self absorbed shit just to yourself is no guarantee that you're going to move past that, if indeed that is your goal. Plus, who said that all literate introspection on one's personal life and personal response to a larger life is shit? Try reading some Yeats. Talk about mixing your political, personal, and even spiritual, and all out there in the open for EVERYONE TO READ!!!! My god, it's like a fucking blog.

Admittedly not everyone's writing resembles the skill or artistry level of a poet. But keep in mind the focus of the criticism lodged against people who give us "too much information" is not "you don't write in rhyming meter". It's "your personal stuff is up where everyone can read it...ewww!" as if no one ever put their personal, trivial, possibly not terribly stylish shit out there, ever. So untrue. This is nothing new. A quick history lesson should make it clear that this impulse to reveal and disclose even the less exciting and/or less pleasant details of a minor and otherwise unimportant life is about as normal as you get.

Before we had words, we some neolithic guy smearing antelopes across a cave wall in ochre and ash mixed with spit and god only knows what else. I wonder if anyone at the time was thinking "Oh-my-god. Thog so needs to get over himself"

A more direct lineage from ancient to modern expression of the mundane can be seen in graffiti. Graffiti by it's definition is not art. Mutating words into tags is not art. Lines about whether boys or girls give better head written in a ring that spirals out from around the toilet paper holder like some kind of sharpie galaxy of profanity is not poetry. Interactive stories, debates, prayers, curses, vows are not literature if they appear on a wall and not in a peer reviewed journal or magazine. But god damn people just feel compelled to put it out there on the fucking wall don’t they?

Graffiti, while it may be debatable in polite circles as a form of art, is without any doubt the best kind of snapshot of the individual embedded in his or her social contexts. It is therefore valuable if you are interested in what I guess I’m stuck calling “the human condition”. The sentiment hasn’t changed for a while now either. Consider the following from "The Walls of Pompeii"*
Marcus loves Spendusa.
Serena hates Isidore.
Thyas, don't love Fortunatus.
Sarra, you're not acting very nicely, leaving me all alone.
Restitutus has deceived many girls many times.
I have screwed many girls here.
When I came here, I screwed. Then I returned home.
Let him who loves, prosper. Let him who loves not, perish. And let him who forbids others to love, perish twice over.
Let him who chastises lovers try to fetter the winds and block the endless flow of water from a spring.
Lovers, like bees, lead a honey-sweet life.
I am amazed, o wall, that you have not collapsed and fallen, since you must bear the tedious stupidities of so many scrawlers.
Shelton, J. As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History Oxford 1988.

And here’s an adaptation of a sentiment that has also been around for a while.
Don't like the tedious stupidities? Don't read the wall.
Don't like the drama? Stay off the blog.

You can give someone shit for "going there" or for having disclosed "too much information". But recognize that your response and your need to vocalize it can be seen as being every bit as tedious and irksome as what you’re responding to, and 100% as personal.

Just for shits and giggles, here's the rest of Margaret Cho's "don't go there" bit (from Revolution)

I'm considered a highly inappropriate person. And it makes me a problem dinner guest because at some point during the evening the person seated next to me says, "Okay, uh huh okay, too much information. Yeah, don't go there." I live there. I bought a house there. I will take you there. Because to live as a minority in this country feels like dying of a thousand paper cuts and I ain't going out like that, so I always have to tell the story.

Like I was driving in my car and I saw this woman in front of me and she had a bumper sticker that said, "This car was built with tools, not chopsticks," and it was in this super chinky font that was really like "hi yah!" like that kind of feng shui hong kong fooey font that's really like "aaaieeeaaaiieeaiaai." You know, that kind of font? And I exploded with anger, like I just turned into the Asian Incredible Hulk. I got gigantic and yellow like, "boom boom boom Aaaagh!" And I rolled up next to her and I had nothing prepared. So I just started to scream like, "Aaaagh Aaaaagh Aaaaagh!" I just kept doing it and I kept doing it and I forced her to make a left turn against the red light.

And I felt really good about myself, because I don't want to be the better person. I don't want to rise above it. I don't want to turn the other cheek. I will show you what cheek I'm gonna turn, okay?