Ask Me Anything December #3

[mhalachai]

For the Ask Me Anything December meme - Day #3

Today’s question comes from jjhunter : What do you carry with you?

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Literal answer: Phone, headphones, chapstick, $40 in cash, a bookstore loyalty card, and my house keys

Philosophical answer: Loneliness. I have a hard time understanding social interaction and people really mean in any given social setting. I have a hard time making friends; I get the social signals all wrong and am either too clingy or too aloof, and it ends up with me sitting by myself too tired to try again.

And having said that in all its depressing glory, I try not to let that define me. I get up, go to work, perform all the obligatory social interactions (how was your weekend? Any holiday plans? Etc.) and live my life.

And and, I’m ok with alone. Lonely hurts sometimes, but alone is within my control. Alone is, I can go out and see people and then leave those people and be home  and knowing exactly what’s in my personal space and be in control of my own destiny.

Also I carry with me the lingering repercussions of childhood poverty and low socio-economic expectations, but I’m saving that particular topic for my autobiography.

Comments

[jjhunter]

I spent my commute and work day without my smart phone or any other electronics today (had federal jury duty summons), and have been thinking of you and this post off and on all day.

I do feel more connected these days than I used to, and that many of the connections are load-bearing, but I have had some very lonely stretches of my life, where I wasn't settled with myself and trying to sustain connections with other people was exhausting. (It's strange to reread ""What I Mean When I Say 'Depressed'" and remember so vividly what it was like to be in that state; at least "Load-Bearing", written several years, had momentum to it.)

Anyway, there was something about not having my iPhone available in my bag during the to and from, or the breaks, in the jury duty selection equivalent of a work day, that made all those connections feel unsettlingly fragile and tenuous, an anxious separation from the potency of immediate initiation or resumption of connection ready at hand if I chose.

I did settle into it, even found some peace in the quiet sense afterward that I'd brushed up against a system that, yes, has faults but also something beyond just mundane worth striving to keep fixing. I found the quiet within that can let me enjoy some separation from insistent connecting and actually enjoy being alone without being lonely in it.

Re: your bookstore loyalty card (I've got one too! except it makes my wallet heavy, so they look up my mobile # instead) - I don't know if this is true for you as well, but I've grown up feeling like books are friends, are portals of second hand experience and intimacy and glimpses into how all this social stuff works, anyway.

(I've always done fairly well 1:1 or in very small groups; I had to actively learn how to track social signals within larger groups fast enough to catch multiple people's signaling valence fast enough to fake it, and have gotten more comfortable with practice. It's still draining, and I do continue to get tripped up by things now and then - still learning, WIP, and all that jazz.)

Anyway, there's a kind of intimacy, at least one-sided, on my part as a reader when I read the works of an author I really enjoy. It's a wonder of DW that I can subscribe to authors like you of fic I absolutely adore and get to know you outside of the gifts of fic you share. But I guess if I don't muster spoons to comment, it's not like you can reach out through the interwebs and magically read my mind and know how much I've leaned on some of the fic you write to shift an evening or a commute from lonely to in company with your stories.

So - thank you. I'm glad you have home and keys to it and control over a space that's yours, and the means to get books you want and not have keep the acquaintance temporary. I hope there's less loneliness to carry in the year ahead, but sounds like you know how to balance that load when you have to.

Speaking of being settled or unsettled with oneself - do you have have that problem too of trying to read your own signals? I was reminded of another poem of mine in an earlier comment thread, and this one may or may not speak to you (but it has a metaphor that consistently makes me crack smile partway through, so there's that): Sensuum

[mhalachai]

I’ve been re-reading your comment and it really hits home for me. I’ve gotten so used to having my phone with me (email, e-books, all my music and podcasts) that on the days I’ve forgotten it at home, I feel slightly off-kilte all day. It’s so interesting how we get used to what we have (in pre smart phone days, for me, it was always having a book and an mp3 player. This is a lot easier on my spine aka lighter satchel)

}}spoons to comment

This. These days, commenting feels like so much work, and I suspect that it has to do with vulnerability.

I think that one of the thing we lost with the move away from comment-heavy forums like LiveJournal to Tumblr, is that writing a comment has taken on more weight, is seen as more emotional labour and opening oneself up to more vulnerability. I find that I am extremely hesitant now to “cold comment” on other people’s blogs, as I don’t know if anyone really wants to hear my opinion in their space. At least on tumblr, when you reblog something and add a comment, it’s on your own real estate.

Maybe that’s what I should focus on in the new year – opening myself up to vulnerability by engaging with others (I mean, within reason :)

I have to run out the door but will look at your poem when I get back in – ‘tis the season of enforced family events.

[jjhunter]

Hope your event offers sustenance (literal and otherwise) as well as obligations!

I'm glad my comment was welcome; I have a tendency to write either very short or very long ones, so I think my own thing to focus on in the new year is to practice shorter comments, or at least put less expectation on myself that my comments must be somehow Profound, Spot On, or at least Witty In Some Fashion to be worth leaving as a comment. Lower the activation energy expectation threshold, self!