Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Excessive compulsive disorder.
Yes, I meant excessive. It's my new disease. You know, the loss of self respect leading to loss of self control thing.
I'm trying to navigate the subtleties between self control and self indulgence. It's trickier than I suspected.
Did you know that exercising self-control reduces glucose levels in the brain? I find this fascinating on a lot of levels. The whole physio-emotion-brain-functionality correlation fascinates me anyway, and this new information is adding new dimensions to my little philosophy hobby.
Van Gogh keeps coming to mind. What if a couple doses of insulin were "all" he needed to stabilize his issues? A little extra self control could have prevented the fatal gunshot. What more art might he have given us had he not died so young? But. then again, would a more emotionally stable Van Gogh see the world in the Van Gogh eyes we admire and gasp and sigh over? The talent would no doubt be there, but maybe the vision, the genius, would be lost in the glucose stability.
I'm no Van Gogh. I'm not comparing myself to Van Gogh. No way. I'm just saying, you know, lack of self control isn't necessarily a bad thing.
There's the excessive issue, though. What's the difference between a lack of self control and just regular excessive indulgence? Well, the glucose issue, for one thing. But apart from that sorting out the nuances isn't easy.
Since I've lost self respect it should be easy to lose self control, right? I mean, I thought it would be super easy. It's not, though. So either I have more self respect that I think I have, or, self control is actually a very powerful force.
So I tried to make a list of all the ways I exercise self control. That's not as easy as I thought, either.
Here's my attempt.
I don't drink to excess. But not due to self control. Well, not really. More due to the fact that I tend to fall asleep before I get falling down, slurred speech drunk. And booze is expensive. I don't have the money required to drink to excess. And the desire isn't really strong, either. Sure, occasionally I like to have a couple drinks, enough to numb the emotional pain and reduce the inhibitions, but I don't really like to drink often, like every day. It's interesting, when I was laid off I didn't start drinking at noon and get a good drunk on by 3 PM. I could. There's nothing and no one stopping me. But I'm not tempted. I think merely because I can do it, I don't. There's no real self control there, no fighting temptation or choosing the right choice. I'm simply not interested. Note to self: Try getting rip roaring drunk by 3 PM on a Tuesday just to see if you can.
I don't sleep around. But not because of self control. I'd sleep around if I could find willing partners. Then again, is that really true? Have I truly tried everything possible to get laid? There are blind men and old men and men with STDs who have difficulty finding willing partners, I could make more of an effort to find these men. I could scour the "intimate encounters" section of Craig's List and probably find someone willing to have sex with me. I haven't tried that (yet), but more out of fear than self respect or self control. I don't mind dying, but I don't want to die in some embarrassing scenario that would upset and humiliate my mother. Just because I've lost all self respect doesn't mean I have a right to disrespect my mother and her feelings. Crap. That's self control, isn't it? You can't be considerate and lose self control at the same time. Dammit. See what I mean? This is actually kind of difficult. I wonder how you deplete the glucose in your brain? That would help me lose self control.
I don't spend money. Mainly because I don't have any. That's not self control. Then again, I'm not robbing banks or stealing things or conning people. If I really wanted stuff I wouldn't let a little thing like a lack of money stand in my way, right? But I don't want to take anyone down with me, I don't want to hurt anyone but myself. I don't want to break laws. Crap, that's self control, isn't it? See? This is really difficult. Speaking of wasting money, can someone clue me in on the whole enormous chronograph watch thing? My theory: They're the new expensive red sports car. Direct correlation between the size, functionality and cost of the watch and the size and functionality of the penis. The bigger and more superfluous dials a watch has, the smaller the penis of the man wearing it. That's just my theory. And hey! I let go of some self control and espoused my theory on penises which has zero research to back it. (See above, not getting laid.)
Drugs. Yeah. Not interested. No self control required. I'd do Dexedrine if I could afford it and could acquire it without getting it from a back alley dealer or a questionable doctor. But there again, if I really wanted it I'd get it, I'd do it. I would have been doing it for a long time. I know the benefits of Dexedrine and the risks. I'm not pharmacologically opposed to it. But I dunno, if I truly wanted to do it I would already be doing it.
And why Dexedrine?
Food.
Ahhhhh. Yeah. The mother load of my self control. My name is Trillian and I'm an anorexic.
This is what scares me about self control. I spent a lot of years with hyper self control over food. I didn't eat. I exercised excessive self control. Which is, perversely, a lack of self control. Deprivation is a weird, involved and thorny issue. Lots of psychology behind it. It's not as trite and simple as television psychologists make it out to be. For me, self control is eating. It's easier for me to not eat than it is for me to eat. A lot of anorexics have control issues. They feel they have no control over anything in their lives and food is the one thing they can control. Not eating empowers them. Control wasn't my food issue. Self esteem was. I got a lot of negative attention because of my boobs. Every ogle at my chest made me feel objectified. (Oh, how times have changed, what I wouldn't give to be objectified these days...see above, Craig's List) I wanted my boobs to go away, or at least be smaller. I wanted people, men, to see me as something more than boobs. I wanted people, men, to respect me and not desire me for my boobs but for my personality, my brain, anything other than my body. (In my ideal world, I still feel that way. But I don't live in an ideal world. Growing up, having life beat the idealism out of you, kind of sucks.) I tried to lose as much weight as possible to shrink them, became anorexic and that was that. Fortunately I had a bad health scare, had a doctor who understood and cared and helped me. I made peace with all of that, and my body, and started forcing myself to eat. It took a lot of self control to eat. A lot. But I did it, I do it. I have an almost healthy, normal relationship with food these days.
So. Yeah. This is clearly where I need to begin my journey into a lack of self control. Just stop eating. It's that easy. It is easy for me. And without self respect it's even easier. Thank you, telemarketing job, for robbing me of the remaining shred of self respect I had! Now I can go back to not eating and from there, who knows?! Maybe I'll start drinking at noon, stealing stuff, taking Dexedrine and trolling Craig's List for sexual encounters! Losing self control could be a lot of fun!
Ahhhhh. But is that just being self indulgent? The disturbing truth is that I liked being anorexic. I knew exactly what I was doing. I did it with intention. Not to hurt myself, not to get attention or to rebel against my parents. Nope. I did it to deflect attention away from my body so that people would see me as something other than boobs. I did it so that people would get to know me, my brain, me, the person my parents raised and educated me to be. I'm not saying I was anorexic for them, but, certainly a nice by-product of my anorexia was that my parents hard work in raising me wasn't completely lost behind my boobs. And I'm pretty sure my dad slept better when my boobs were smaller and old men weren't ogling his co-ed daughter's chest.
But I dunno. There's a strong element of self indulgence to anorexia. I'm still trying to figure out the difference between self indulgence and self control. I know there's a difference. And I want to be sure I remain on the self control side. I've merely lost self respect and I want the loss of self control that goes with it. I don't want or need to indulge myself. I just want to live in accordance to the seething hatred I have for my life and what I've done to it.
