If a person of a writerly disposition takes a long car ride, has traveled for a while, and reads the entirety of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters in one day, rambling essays are bound to follow. Here’s mine.
One of the few internal tensions this trip has caused for me is the feeling that I’m not “indie” enough. Although I don’t possess the abject hatred for the indie scene that some of my friends do, I often feel ill at ease when in the company of people who fit the stereotype. Suddenly my t-shirt and jeans don’t seem creative enough, my head seems too undyed and unpierced, and I can forget packing my wallet in the name-brand purse that was handed down to me— God forbid someone think that I bought it new!
I’ve managed to dress pretty indie on this trip, and most of the time I feel that I can fit in, nodding knowingly about the obscure band that I just found out about yesterday because Tyler played it in the van. No, my body and clothes are safe from the indie attack on this trip. The same cannot be said for my artistic tastes.
The more I hang out with indie kids, the more I realize how terribly mainstream I am. I love Pixar films and watch them devotedly. I could listen to Viva la Vida all day without growing tired of it. Lord of the Rings is my favorite book and Les Miserables is my favorite play (they’re not “lowbrow” by any means, but still terribly common). And yes, I watch Stargate: SG-1 and enjoy it.
Today in the van I was contemplating why I feel so defensive about the art I like. All too often on this trip I find myself quietly fuming because someone has expressed a distaste (or even just a disagreement) for something I like. And almost all the time, I just shut up and let the conversation move on to the next subject. This is for two reasons. First, I have been granted with a measure of good plain hobbit-sense, which makes me realize that, even if I feel like something’s worth arguing, I know it’s not. Second, it’s not something that even can be argued. As much as I would love to give an intense intellectual discourse on why my new favorite band is not simply a Jars of Clay rip-off, why the second half of Wall•E is a work of art and not a festival of stupidity, or why I think Gerard Butler’s singing is superior to Michael Crawford’s— I can’t. Taste is not always a matter of reason. Sometimes, I like things because I like them. They touch me on some level, they reach me, they speak my language, they transcend what I see and hear. I am usually a harsh critic of this kind of emotions aesthetic, but the more I look inward, the more I realize that I do it all the time.
This raises the question, if I can enjoy something simply because it reaches me— not based on anyone else’s standards on what is art and what is not— then why do I feel so incredibly defensive about my choices? I don’t feel such a bitter sense of judgmental attack when someone ridicules Christianity. The truth is, my anger at someone else’s casual comment means that I have wrapped myself up too much in the art I experience. I must make a clear distinction, as I often remind myself in other situations, between what everyone should enjoy and what I do enjoy.
Taking this one step further, I also had to consider today the judgements that I foist upon other people. If someone tells me she loves Taylor Swift, or his favorite book in the world is Eragon, I immediately feel a sense of, “Oh, you’re one of those people.” That is probably how a fan of high-concept sci-fi would feel about my SG-1 love, or how my friends who watch obscure foreign films view my undying admiration for Pixar. I realized the reason I assume other people are judging me is because I judge others.
The conclusion of it all? First, I need to learn to disentangle myself from the art I enjoy so I can recognize it touches me but it doesn’t define me. Second, I must learn to stop judging other people for their artistic tastes. Third, and most importantly, I must continue to enjoy the art for what it is, without reservation, without worrying about what other people think. Fortunately, this comes the most naturally. Although I fret about my friend’s opinions much of the time, when I experience art that I love, all else falls away. The violin strikes an unexpected chord and I gasp; Jean Valjean shows mercy and I weep. I can be content with my t-shirt bearing the “overused” rosewood font because I like the pattern. I can cheer for Jack and Sam and Daniel as they blow up aliens in a highly-unlikely set of circumstances, because it’s heroic. I can listen to the song that has worn everyone’s ears thin on the radio for the past two months and taste a glimpse of heaven. And yes, I can carry that hand-me-down purse and keep my ears unpierced, just because I want to.
Conformity often presses on us from the outside, but all too often it comes from within. When my soul is free, I can approach all art, and all of life, with the childlike wonder that is a huge part of who I am. After all, to close in the infamous words of Dr. Seuss, “those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
~Lisa Shafter
Lisa, I've enjoyed all your rambling-type posts! This one is no different. It boggles my mind when folks are not content to affirm their personal preferences, but feel the need to go further and put down the personal preferences of others. It's a great mark of maturity, I believe, to avoid debating personal preferences, as you describe, and instead devote one's energies to appreciating each perspective manifest in the different preferences of those we meet. I have something to learn from everyone, so what does it matter that they like things I do not, or don't like things that I do? To filter everything with reference to myself would be a petty way of living in a wide world, and blind me to the joy of understanding others. Excellent post.
ReplyDeleteWow, just wow. I know exactly what you mean and I think about it often, especially after two incidents in the last few days: first, while I was staying with the Simoo's this week and decided to finally dye part of my hair. The feeling of really *belonging* was intoxicating -- for the first time I knew people didn't look at us and think, "Who's the mousy plain girl tagging along with the awesome ones?" Finally I was One Of Us, something I've never felt before except maybe with my family. It's such a beautiful feeling it scares me, but now I understand better why people divide into scenes and cliques and clubs. It's an innate human desire to be Us.
ReplyDeleteThe second one was yesterday while I was babysitting my younger siblings. When I walked in they were watching Power Rangers which just about made me retch, but listening to myself complain I sounded like the people who hate things I love like Mulan and Kesha's "Your Love is My Drug". I always want to punch that person. So I let them put on iCarly and acknowledged the positive (teamwork, creating rather than consuming, making the best of hard circumstances) while mumbling complaints about the negative (terrible acting and ridiculous pandering to children's sensibilities). And it led to an important discussion/lecture/wrestling match with Francis about getting his butt in gear and DOING something, for goodness sakes, before he ends up in a van down by the river.
I need to stop now. I hope what I said made sense and thanks for your thoughts!
I'm glad you both found something to chew on in this blog entry; it's the cumulation of years of thought, which have been intensified by the past couple of weeks. Sometimes it astonishes me how very many forms pride can take.
ReplyDeleteIvy, yes, I totally understand what you mean about the human desire for Us. It's far too easy to define Us as "we people who do/wear/think certain things" rather than "we who are the Body of Christ." Thanks for your insight in this issue, and I pray it's something that we both continue to think about.