Responding to J

This post is actually a collection of what would be comments on my own blog posts responding to @kostylomusic's comments on my posts, but it felt weird to me to separate such a compendium of ideas, many of which are vaguely connected, to the individual posts where they would have to be searched for and read in order to find context.

If you prefer it that way, I've provided links to the original posts as sub-heads, but my responses are collected here.

Power to the Sheeple

In essence, the first part of your argument is saying that we are all the same because we are all different and so the idea of a status quo to begin with must be false; I cannot deny that. But as an idea and concept, the status quo exists, and it is one of those vague, "normalized" notions that everyone understands but no one can ever quite define.

A lot of my background in this idea of normalization of society is based in my reading of Grant Morrison's the Filth and the "Status Quo" of that graphic novel and more generally, my experience as a student journalist through high school and seeing the kind of mass media effects on our country. So when I say something is agreed upon by society I generally mean the kind of agreement you would find were you to poll the general public.

I agree that parts of me will always fit into somebody's interpretation of status quo, but do the parts make the whole? Am I as a self-identifying individual defined by the facets of myself that other people label? And here we come to an impasse, because I don't think so and wouldn't want it to be so.

But I tend to follow a very Gestaltist line of thought on these matters and perceive problems and ideas as wholes, which is why I'm always trying to connect and build what I'm learning in say Eng 227 to Eng 238 to Eng 203 to Anthro 201 to Physics, Linguistics, etc.

In short it comes down to the difference between the 1 vs 100 line of definitions and which you follow. You make a good case here that I will always fall into the status quo in some way on the individual level and that is not a bad thing, but just as anything it does not hold true the wider and broader you open that lens.

People will always be able to put me into different boxes, but it is the act of defying the box that I attempt to seek. And so it comes with a level of cognition, being able to recognize the boxes and subvert them as much or as little as is in my power and desire.

There's an egotistical, arrogant side of me that I think unavoidably flavors posts like this one because they're about me and how I view the world.

myroommate-my-profile

"So what? … What happens now, Danny? What happens now..."

Much like the silence that permeated our classes on Wednesday, I don't really have a set answer for this, Joe. The most I can tell you is what I would like to see happen, what I can see happening based on prior experience and from a combination of the two what will most likely happen.

A Sudden Exodus

And here you've asked a question I've been asking myself for months. What do I want?

And I must say, there are days when I want nothing more than escape. Because you're very right in saying that I keep myself busy as a distraction. It is easier for me to become engaged in this, that and the other thing. It's almost a demand of my extroversion that I find something to occupy my times. Idle hands are the devil's playground.

Which isn't to say I don't like being involved in the things I keep busy with. Hell, I love them to death, but recognizing them as distractions from other aspects of my life poses a problem. Because of my inborn sense of order/honor/rules I cannot willingly abandon my involvement. I've made a commitment and intend to keep it.

But what of when that ends? And I'm no longer beholden to that activity? Perhaps what I need is a little devil in my life.

We Have An Infestation

Again, we come to the question of what I want. And in this particular context, I think I prefer not to answer the first part of your comment because after talking with Kai and Andrew during our Bacon Cookie (debacle? Adventure? Whatever you feel like calling it.) we agreed that answering this first part would only ever result in an incomplete answer. I would need some kind of reflection of how they view our collective relationship. In order to fully comprehend the nature of the relationship.

Yes, a lot of this is introspection on my part and there is value in that, but the strength in that kind of observation and critique would be in comparison, with perhaps an outside observation. Perhaps Kai and Andrew (and I think Tony since he's seen us together the most) would be willing to write a small piece on this three-way interaction.

As far as the second part goes, I think you hit the nail on the head as the saying goes when you ask if I have been feeding, guesting, leeching "all along, under the mask of the host." Because when it comes down to it, is not the rule of the extrovert to do so?

Relating again back to the Bacon Cookie Adventure, I found myself tired. At my youth mentoring that I do every Thursday afternoon, I sat and watched a slideshow, nodding off.

Change my context a few hours later though, put me in a room with friends, and I'm wired. I'm still tired. I'm rhyming apparently, but I have the ability to maintain the kind of mental focus I was unable to sitting and watching a slideshow.

In short, I was feeding off the energy of the room. And I suppose technically I was not host to begin with as we were at Andrew's apartment, but this interaction really applies to all of my relationships.