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Jan. 22nd, 2003 12:58 amI was thinking just now -- why "likeaclown"?
My username comes from the chorus to Radiohead's "India Rubber":
The song, so far as I can tell, is about the frustration of putting all your energy into someone who you really hope will appreciate it and want to give you love back, and then finding out too late that the object of your affection didn't give a crap.
I haven't been in quite this position in a long time. The last person with whom I was unrequitedly infatuated for a long time was Lauren, five years ago, and she's become one of my best friends, so that specific meaning -- in the broader context of the song -- doesn't exactly apply.
But the narrower context of that chorus totally strikes a chord with me.
Many times, I have found myself at the service of those I care about -- or at least perceiving that I am. I'll go to the ends of the earth to please someone I've designated as a true friend, and doubly so for a lover. I see this as a virtue, but the trouble lies in my not quite knowing where to draw the line sometimes.
The last girl I dated -- with whom I'm still friends -- told me that her mom said that in 25 years or so, she'll be really sorry she gave me up, and the girl knew that. Even though we weren't super-involved, I was constantly doing things for her, with her, etc., to the point that she said she was afraid that I'd let her manipluate me if she tried; she said she felt it already beginning, unsonscious though it may have been on her part. (For mine, I didn't feel quite manipulated, or taken advantage of; in the end, what I do for people I do because I want to, not because they convince me that their motives are somehow better than they are, or that I'll get something worthwhile out of it.)
In several instances with her, as in many others over time, I stepped over the line separating kindness and generosity, and "supplicating myself into her hands." And I knew it -- at all times, I was aware of it enough to say "I am doing this, I am being over-generous, perhaps, and I take perverse pleasure in it. I kind of like it. I know I could refuse, but I feel powerless to do so."
That's the dark side of what I know is my lovability. I can let the desire to be loved get the better of me, sometimes.
Or maybe I'm such a nerd that I'm just excited about aligning myself with a pop song that uses the word "supplicate."
---
Re: my last entry,
Why do I take such pleasure, such a high compliment, in the notion that my work is worth money? Is it really the money that I'm concerned with, or is it the admiration, the validation, that's implicit in someone's forking over cash for your work? If the latter: why am I so tied to that symbolic representation of acceptance?
--
OK, so I'm not yet the commercial writing prostitute I fear I could become if the price were right. Today, when the owner of a small business came in and said "You might be a genius" for what I wrote about him, it made me all bashful-happy, whereas if writing equaled money for me, that wouldn't have meatn anything.. I've been getting a little desnsitized to praise, though -- I hate to sound all schmucky, but I've been getting a lot of it, and it all kinda sounds the same after a while, and I start to think "Shit, I hope I'm not just writing what people tell me to." I don't think I am -- in fact, I'm not -- but I dunno...I'm really paranoid, with all this business feature stuff I've been doing, that I'm gonna turn into a tool for the marketing forces that drive this conspicuously-consuming paradise we call Santa Barbara. But then again, I'm writing about little inventors of cool musical gadgets, and veterinarians who open up pet stores and actually care about animals, and other independent success stories, not the local limb of some mega-bloated corporation. Yeah, that's it -- I'm sticking up for the little guy.
Now to get some depth into the ol' social life outside of work. That's all I fucking write about lately, and it's starting to irritate me more and more.
My username comes from the chorus to Radiohead's "India Rubber":
I tumble like a clown
Into your baying hounds.
I supplicate myself
Into your hands.
The song, so far as I can tell, is about the frustration of putting all your energy into someone who you really hope will appreciate it and want to give you love back, and then finding out too late that the object of your affection didn't give a crap.
I haven't been in quite this position in a long time. The last person with whom I was unrequitedly infatuated for a long time was Lauren, five years ago, and she's become one of my best friends, so that specific meaning -- in the broader context of the song -- doesn't exactly apply.
But the narrower context of that chorus totally strikes a chord with me.
Many times, I have found myself at the service of those I care about -- or at least perceiving that I am. I'll go to the ends of the earth to please someone I've designated as a true friend, and doubly so for a lover. I see this as a virtue, but the trouble lies in my not quite knowing where to draw the line sometimes.
The last girl I dated -- with whom I'm still friends -- told me that her mom said that in 25 years or so, she'll be really sorry she gave me up, and the girl knew that. Even though we weren't super-involved, I was constantly doing things for her, with her, etc., to the point that she said she was afraid that I'd let her manipluate me if she tried; she said she felt it already beginning, unsonscious though it may have been on her part. (For mine, I didn't feel quite manipulated, or taken advantage of; in the end, what I do for people I do because I want to, not because they convince me that their motives are somehow better than they are, or that I'll get something worthwhile out of it.)
In several instances with her, as in many others over time, I stepped over the line separating kindness and generosity, and "supplicating myself into her hands." And I knew it -- at all times, I was aware of it enough to say "I am doing this, I am being over-generous, perhaps, and I take perverse pleasure in it. I kind of like it. I know I could refuse, but I feel powerless to do so."
That's the dark side of what I know is my lovability. I can let the desire to be loved get the better of me, sometimes.
Or maybe I'm such a nerd that I'm just excited about aligning myself with a pop song that uses the word "supplicate."
---
Re: my last entry,
Why do I take such pleasure, such a high compliment, in the notion that my work is worth money? Is it really the money that I'm concerned with, or is it the admiration, the validation, that's implicit in someone's forking over cash for your work? If the latter: why am I so tied to that symbolic representation of acceptance?
--
OK, so I'm not yet the commercial writing prostitute I fear I could become if the price were right. Today, when the owner of a small business came in and said "You might be a genius" for what I wrote about him, it made me all bashful-happy, whereas if writing equaled money for me, that wouldn't have meatn anything.. I've been getting a little desnsitized to praise, though -- I hate to sound all schmucky, but I've been getting a lot of it, and it all kinda sounds the same after a while, and I start to think "Shit, I hope I'm not just writing what people tell me to." I don't think I am -- in fact, I'm not -- but I dunno...I'm really paranoid, with all this business feature stuff I've been doing, that I'm gonna turn into a tool for the marketing forces that drive this conspicuously-consuming paradise we call Santa Barbara. But then again, I'm writing about little inventors of cool musical gadgets, and veterinarians who open up pet stores and actually care about animals, and other independent success stories, not the local limb of some mega-bloated corporation. Yeah, that's it -- I'm sticking up for the little guy.
Now to get some depth into the ol' social life outside of work. That's all I fucking write about lately, and it's starting to irritate me more and more.
