why the list of literature in The Canon is interpretive

recently, i heard mention of the grapes of wrath as a fantastic work of cultured something or other.

no. not so, kool-aid.
at 18, i was instructed to read it, for my AP English class, something that pleased me mostly because i love literature like fanatic groupies love rockstars. literature is my Aragorn. this particular bit of paper, however, was nothing like Of Mice And Men, that soundbox which encased my heartstrings for Steinbeck to pluck as he chose. i don't know what happened between writing the two works, but a book that acts as victrola for too-finely tuned violin music did not inspire from this Shieldmaiden any sort of fondness. what it did inspire, in the november 2006 that first saw me hurl a book across a room, was the following:

A Waste of 619 Pages

John Steinbeck disappoints me. His work, The Grapes of Wrath, was supposed to be some amazing piece of literature that “galvanized” [1] the millions who read it. At the time, I didn’t even know what ‘galvanized’ meant (“to stimulate somebody or something into great activity”), but I expected to glance up from the novel in thought and suddenly be overcome with the feeling. An emotion did slap my face while I read, but it was far less pleasant and more idenifiable that whatever ‘galvanized’ was. That emotion was annoyance.

Here, in this novel, dozens of little plot turtles plodded along, waiting to be snatched up and turned into eloquence. Unfortunately, the only thing snatched away during my experience was my eager desire to read this book. Then I found out that either all the critics in the literary world are liars, or Steinbeck needs a new theme. After reading my 3,458^th thinly veiled ‘I hate Capitalism,’ I became convinced that it was that latter one.

Granted, Steinbeck touches on several interesting topics. Key word there, by the way, is ‘touches.’ As in ‘barely glances at it,’ or ‘briefly considers veering off the dead-ended Anti-Capitalism trail to pace other pastures.’ Former preacher Casy spends a lot of time organizing strikes that worsen the economy or praying over the dead and performing other priestly rites. Whenever he can escape the obligations he takes on, Casy takes a second to ponder the Over-Soul[2] and how we’re supposed to act when little pieces of our friends and countrymen are in our minds, influencing our subconscious descions.

For the most part though, Steinbeck just forces socialism-love down the throats of the thoroughly Capitalistic consumers who supplied his salary by using said despised economic system to buy the book in which he bashes the whole process. I’m relatively[3] certain that The Grapes of Wrath was simply a cathartic (though decades-late) retribution for failing Civics.

I understand that Steinbeck endured some of the worst aspects of Capitalism, but all at the fault of Steinbeck’s own generation[4]; the overspeculation by all parties, the uncontrolled inflation, the use of credit lines as toys, and the overall irresponsible excess of the 1920s caused the Great Depression more than anything. Pure Capitalism is not to blame, for the industrial capitalism eapoused by Adam Smith calls for an “Invisible Hand” that would force everyone to, by acting in their best interests, actually perpetuate the common good[5].

I think if Steinbeck actually understood the theories behind Captialism, Socialism, Communism, and especially the latter’s contrast to its root, Marxism, then he would have written a truly fantastic novel. As it is, I’m surprised Ayn Rand didn’t send her Objectivist friends to his house to beat him up. Later, recouperating in the hospital, he could appreciate the irony of their collective action.

1. on the back of the Penguin book, The Grapes of Wrath is described as “The Pulizer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized – and sometimes outraged – millions of readers.”
2. reference to Transcendentalism.
3. relatively meaning as certain about the truth of the following statement as the idea that molasses grows on trees.

4. Steinbeck was born in 1909; he would have been a teenager during the Roaring Twenties, and it was those younger generations that were most fashionable and radical, as the old ones were still recovering from the Great War.
5. by ‘best interests’ Smith meant in the long run, not just whatever’s interesting or wanted, but what’s needed. His capitalism works (splendidly) off of the definition of ‘best’ as what is of the highest quality or most suited to need.

two years later, and my disdain remains the same.

one does not compartmentalize oneself unless one believes the self has no potential

there is, it is said - by two people, no more, that i know of - something called the Quantum Theory Of Relationships. the addage goes: " [i] can't observe a relationship without changing it. If i stop to think about the whys and wherefores, it's destined to fail. i'm happy to let what happens happen for the moment." {http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html#2231860428554564075}

as i have my own ideas about the cosmic jokes that interfere with personal interplay (refer to the post where i posit that interpersonal relationships are simply facets of economics in a social market), i find anything intriguing that differs from what i conceive as fact. particularly when, as is the case here, that differentiated opinion is so blatantly Stoic.

a Stoic, you see, was invented in classical rome, by a manchild who blinked balefully at the world, and attributed to himself such importance that he imagined all misfortunes flocked to him. it was a curse of fate, he assumed; a displeasurable happenstance mapped out in the cosmos. but, he decided, one whose ill effects could be sidestepped. simply pack away all emotions, advised the Stoic, and treat each event as though the world weighing upon your shoulders will be joined by moons and stars.

essentially, the basic solution for someone who struggles, insisted those who peddled Stoicism, is to assume a grand design where all success is sabataged. and then to soldier onward, a shining star braced for expansion, for explosion. for death.

you see, Stoicism is secretly simply a crass bastardization of Zen Buddhism, an aspect of the philosophy i for which i find myself especially fond. guising itself as defeatism, it claims honor and fortitude in the face of pain. i doubt an epistemology which encourages overpersonalizing entropy and hiding from life experiences can be considered inspiring or hero-making, but Stoicism has garnered quite a following for itself, as observable by the quote that inspired this post.

i suppose the only good thing to come of that epidemic known as Stoicism is that now it has infested the emotastic blogosphere. perhaps there will be an end to those who formerly released tedious tantrums to cope with the lack of higher brain functioning that would have enabled them to blossom in the wake of frigid failures? may they cling to Stoicism like parasites, and the comfort of the ensuing silence will spare the rest of us from remembering them.

hmm. i had intended, i confess, to conduct this entry in a far different direction, but i suppose i got on the wrong train. i imagine no irretrievable loss, however.

all our stars are fallen embers

watching that Doctor Who episode "Turn Left" today, i contemplated destiny.

in the episode, a character's life is altered by one choice, by the simple decision to turn right instead of left, to be goaded into a safe lifestyle by her mother instead of believing in her luck and forcefulness to get her from uncertainty to where she wanted to be. because the show in question is of the science fiction genre, this It's A Wonderful Life plotline showed a dystopic diversion from what we the viewers know of the show, and in that one instant everything shifted. she stepped sideways; another realm took place of the one destined for her, and everything went to hell because of it. she never reached the stars, and so they plummeted without her to help hold them aloft.

“But all around the downpour of stars went on. And then the starless patch began to grow, spreading further and further out from the center of the sky…With a thrill of wonder (and there was some terror in it too) they all suddenly realized what was happening. The spreading blackness was not a cloud at all; it was simply emptiness. The black part of the sky was the part where there were no stars left. All the stars were falling."
- C.S. Lewis

someone once said that the idea of falling stars was a chilling one. "Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out." - Anthony C. Clark writers terrify with that thought, with the presentation of a celestial orb snuffed out. we fear this presumably because we always imagine them as beacons, cheering us up and guiding us home. guiding us to destiny.

but what happens when they fade out? we're not always watching for them; we spend our lives looking at our feet, carefully placing one in front of the other. so there is plenty of time for the stars to sneak away with our dreams when no one is paying attention. what destiny can manifest without the lamps to guide our feet toward the paths we must take?

worse still is the sinking of reality when one remembers that light takes oh so very long to travel, in a vacuum; by the time we're made aware of them, all our stars are long gone. all our dreams are dead. those guides are nothing but remnants of old ghosts.

so what of Destiny? as far as i know, i am certainly no fictional heroine. there is more chance that we on Earth will find a way to reverse global warming and the damages of pollution than that i shall voyage among the stars in a magnificent timeship piloted by a wonderful - yet terrible - and delightful man. i have little chance for anything fantastical in my life at all, let alone so much otherworldly adventure. what destiny is there, in this existence we know as reality? here, the celestial bodies are but residual glow from simple space gas, which itself has already burnt into Nothingness. so what of our hopeful guides can be found, when they have long since been absorbed into The Dark?

step sideways.

a plea for us all to get our heads out of our asses

i have a bone to pick with the psychiatric industry. i will use Borderline Personality Disorder {BPD} as a primary vessel for my arguments, as well as refer to Alcoholism/Addiction, and probably mention a few other diagnosable ailments in passing. as always in this blog, i do not proclaim to have a degree in anything (yet) other than my own bullshit (in that, i have a PhD) and the research & deductive analysis involved in writing these articles are made on my own presumably limited resources.

this particular entry is not about complaining or declaring that i have a better way of doing things than the way my nation chooses to solve its problems now [1]. with these words, i put to (digital) paper what has been floating around in my mind for a few years; i aim to point out what i see as logical holes in our consideration of the mentally disenfranchised [2].

that disclaimed, i write.

****

i read somewhere that BPD is often prescursed by emotional trauma, like abuse or something. and while my father was certainly a perfectionist, one to crap on my sense of self-worth if i made a blunder or spilled a drink or misacted in some way, i doubt that occasional belittlement - even by a figure central to one's childhood - would cause anything overtly psychologically dysfunctional in a person but a low sense of self-esteem [3].

i have, in light of noting that mental illness appears to claim a particular 'type' of person over all others, always wondered what exactly is it that - provided both subjects were raised in the same environment - inhibits one person's ability to maintain full control of ones mental faculties and reasoning centres, yet does nothing to anothers?

i recently read this one wikibook article thing that inspires me to dissect this into something more understandable to me (the following is an excerpt from the article/book/thing "Dialectical Behavioral Therapy/Borderline Personality Disorder/Bisocial Model" {http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Dialectical_Behavioral_Therapy/Borderline_Personality_Disorder/Biosocial_Model} and the empasis is mine):

BPD results from a biological predisposition to emotional dysregulation combined with certain dysfunctional (invalidating) environments which interact over time. The characteristics of BPD begin developing during childhood because the fundamental inability to regulate emotions is exacerbated by an invalidating environment. The vulnerable child fails to learn how to identify feelings or regulate emotional stimulation. She does not learn to trust her private experience as valid and real. BPD individuals fail to learn how to tolerate emotional distress.

As adults, BPD individuals adopt the characteristics of the invalidating environment in which they grow up. Looking to others for accurate reflections of reality and oversimplifying the ease of solving life’s problems characterize this self-invalidation.

Oversimplification of life’s difficulties leads to unrealistic goals. Those with BPD tend to have an inability to use reward instead of punishment for small steps toward final goals. When they fail to achieve these goals they are filled with self-hate.

part of the reason i believe that certain psychological disorders are in actuality psychochemobiological or neuropsychological or whatever the proper term for it would be, is because of phrases like "high-functioning" and "low-functioning" and the idea of a "disease" that has a "cure" vs. an "illness" that is "managed." when i say bring up such phrases, i don't mean the colloquial (and often incorrect) usage of the terms, but the defined codes under which they are applied in professional circles; sometimes people with mental illness get better - for ever - and sometimes they don't get anything but control, cleverly disguised as a heavensent cure - until the next time they end up in inpatient services, and are made to feel as though they have brought their circumstances upon themselves.

i keep coming back to that question: what separates the "crazies" from the "disaffected?" what is it that causes the formulation of conditions like BPD, where a person's entire worldview - even the reasoning she uses to sort out appropriate responses to stimuli - is shaped by the disorder, and why that mysterious Whatever sows severe illness in one person, but minor neuroses in another?

i can only imagine that there is a factor inherent in the individual's biochemistry that - at best - increases the risk of something going sideways in the person's psychological development. there have already been statements tossed around about "predisposition" to Alcoholism or Addiction, {http://neuroscientificallychallenged.blogspot.com/2008/06/impulsivity-and-predisposition-to.html} though the probability of that increases especially when a direct ancestor has struggled with either, and any adverse affects on the brain have been presumably passed down via damaged genes [4].

if that is so (that some people have neurochemobiological predispositions to certain psychological states, that is) than one can logically assume that such predisposition to psychological disorders extends beyond a tendency toward addictive behavior. this is further confirmed by the studies suggesting that some mental disorders are not only biochemical in nature, but genetic as well {http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/08/18/genetic-link-for-bipolar/2771.html}.

to tie this in with what i was originally rambling about: if it is true that some people relate to psychological disorders unusually because they are either predisposed to be vulnerable to that particular shade of illness (i.e. an inborn tendency toward addictive behaviors) or because they have a gene that hardwires their brains so that psychological dysfunction is - for them - normal (bipolar disorder, other mental illnesses associated with a person's biochemicals or neurons), then why is it that - as explains the article [5] i will quote after this sentence - most clinicians and doctors treat mental disorders as if they are indicative of a particular individual's personal failures, especially brain "software" illnesses like personality disorders? {http://news.thresholds.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=11198&cn=4}

"Mood swings in the context of borderline personality disorder are thought of as 'software' problems brought on by changes in the patient's perception and appraisal of their social situation. This is in contrast to bipolar disorder patients whose mood swings are thought of as occurring due to brain chemistry problems (e.g., a 'hardware' problem)."

if i understand what i read correctly (and i like to think that i do) then when someone has a genetic defect that causes her brain to process its own chemical regulation incorrectly, which in turn causes her to undergo intense sessions of mania or depression, that's acceptable, and she should be comforted and assisted, but if someone has developed an inability to process and react to stimuli with the degree of reason deemed socially acceptable [6], causing her to undergo intense sessions of existence at varied emotional extremes, that is shameful and stigmatized. how does this make sense?

"A personality disorder is a very rigid pattern of inner experience and outward behavior. The pattern extends across most of the person’s interactions, continues for many years, and differs from the experiences and behaviors usually expected of people. The rigid traits of people with a personality disorder often result in unpleasant experiences, which may cause psychological pain and social or occupational difficulties. Personality disorders typically become recognizable in adolescence or early adulthood, although some start during childhood (APA, 1994).

Personality disorders may disrupt many aspects of a person’s life and may also bring pain to others. They are among the most difficult psychological disorders to treat. Many sufferers are not even aware of their personality problems, and they fail to trace their difficulties to their rigid style of thinking and behaving. It has been estimated that between 4 and 15 percent of all adults may have a personality disorder (Link, 1997; APA, 1994)."

so declares the wikibooks article titled "A Textbook On Recovery Psychology/Unit 2/Ch3Personality Disorders," {http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A_Textbook_on_Recovery_Psychology/Unit_2/Ch3_Personality_Disorders} emphasis once again mine. from my research on personality disorders, the problems seem to stem (as said the first article i quoted) from a combination of stressful or invalidating environmental experiences, the exacerbation of an individual's innate personality traits, and the way they all play into each other, until the individual in question learns a deviant version of behavioural codes and contexts that seem perfectly reasonable to her.

one could contrast this historic refusal to understand (or even to seek out, in some instances) the underlying causes in the development of a personality disorder to the worldwide race to "cure" Autistic people of their natural brain biochemistry. explains the fact sheet at autism-help.org (empasis always my own):

"A genetic basis for autism has definitely been established and at this stage it appears that multiple genes may be responsible. There is currently no genetic test that can be done to detect autism.

There is much much research and discussion on possible environmental causes that could affect brain development, and many researchers believe that the causes of Autism Spectrum Disorders will prove to be an interplay of genes and environmental causes. It is theorized that these multiple “causes” interact with each other in subtle and complex ways, and would thus explain the wide range of differing outcomes and behaviors in each individual. ... Another non-medical view is that there is no one condition called autism. This view was put forward by autistic author Donna Williams. She presents a holistic model called autism as a fruit salad model and demonstrated how the severity of someone's autism could be linked to their degree of co-morbid communication, sensory-perceptual, gut/immune, neurological integration, mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders a person inherited or developed, coupled with cognitive and learning style differences and unusual personality trait collections"

until hollywood endorsed Autism, it was considered similar to retardation, and is still linked to Dennis Hoffman and to little kids screaming and bashing their heads into walls, as a survey of my own conduction discovered [7]. few other mental disorders could be so lucky as to have the muddled alliegence of a community on the outside of the Autistic one, clamoring to be let in so those well-meaning but ignorant outsiders can "cure" the Aspies (nickname the Autistic Spectrum community has cheerfully foisted upon its members with Asperger's Syndrome). and yes, that is fortune: most of the mentally ill are shuffled off to asylums or thrown in hospitals until they agree to be corralled into 'proper' modes of behaviour [8].

circling around yet again, i iterate: how can we decide that the mentally ill - those who are truly afflicted, and not the "high-functioning"elite simply prone to breaking from societal norms when stressed - are responsible for their own foibles when we are increasingly being handed proof that there is something larger involved in the entire affair than just people behaving badly? this calls for research. and when i say "research" i do mean the gathering of properly explained and understood information from the subjects themselves, via ethnomediology {http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/CURRIC/soc/ethno/intro.htm}.


[1] i will not hesitate to say that i totally am the most fantastic and capable person ever and should undoubtedly be elected Ruler Of The Universe, however
[2] how's that for a politically doublespoken euphemism?
[3] which isn't really a symptom of dysfunction in itself so much as a burden born upon anyone who has ever been made to feel as if her best effort achieved less than what it should have been able to, regardless of whether or not she could have actually achieved more than she did. nevertheless: digression
[4] not to say that the individual is damaged from birth, though i suppose the theory is that the brain is, which is why i don't know how else i would explain away how scientists have made the connection
[5] written by two people with the letters "PhD" after their names, by the way. here's hoping that's indicative of a doctorate degree in psychology, as opposed to my dad's master's degree in engineering.
[6] or, in some cases, simply with the only reaction that has been deemed acceptable in those circumstances.
[7] that sort of image was what 44% of the people i surveyed thought of when i mentioned Autism. classy.
[8] but that is a rant about the foolishness of touting some so-called social norm and shunning anyone who might possibly deviate from it as eeeevil or hopelessly deranged, and therefore quite off-topic, as is my anger about the public's attempt to "cure" Autism, the way they wanted to erradicate left-handedness and any form of sexual expression that wouldn't fit in the 1950s vanilla lifestyle of rich, white, and oppressive.
and yes, i say that as a middle-class white girl barely hurtling over 20 years of life, with virtually no experience outside of my parents' income bracket, not including my intellectual and emotional ennui or that week i spent homeless.

the history books forgot about us [didn't mention us, not even once]

i have mentioned that i hate romantic comedies.

i hate that they put the characters through the wringer and then refuse to explore the psychological implications of anything that just happened
i hate that they assume a flowery monologue and a backdrop of earnest pop song and dizzying cinematography will cure all ills
i hate they they create a person to act as romantic foil, then crumple her/him up and toss her/him aside and don't even have the decency to pretend that they aren't brutally sacrificing her/him to the alter of Twu Lwuv.
i hate they they teach society that it's morally acceptable - even perfectly reasonable - to wrap yourself around someone who loves you just so you aren't stuck in a room with yourself, realizing what a complete shitbag you are, will you wait for the one you really want to have an epiphany wherein it becomes clear that s/he is really choosing between a life of looking at oneself in the mirror, of listening for life and hearing only oneself, and letting another person's babbling baggage distract her/himself from her/his own self-loathing.

and yes, that really is what i see when confronted with hollywood's answer to the need for human connection; a society reared to manipulate other people into giving them value.

i think that's partly why i believe in God.

which, yes, is a strange segue, but the thoughts follow each other fluidly; my goal is Jesus, and the path i walk to Him is Buddhism (the philosophical kind, not the religious belly-rubbing one). regardless of whether or not there is a god, or anything after this life at all, in Jesus, i have a sort of guarantee that someone gives a shit. that i do matter, even if it's only to Him, even if i don't do anything to make history remember me at all, there's the idea that someone out there sees me and feels for me and aches when i cry.

so even if there is nothing out there, i can take comfort in imagining this individual watching my life and throwing Vengeful Popcorn Of Smite at the screen when things don't go my way, even if if takes a while for the instrument of my defense to snowball into the properly devastating effect that i would desire.

and if all i really have after i die is a wood box lined with linen, at least i will be well-versed in pretending that i am significant to someone.

all that you have of home

if you could take a potion to erase your most desperate fixation on whatever most obsessive addiction, would you?

i don't mean vicodin or alcohol, no heroin junkie stories tonight; i refer to chemical dependence. the University Of Virginia Health System Website declares that chemical dependence is a term "used to describe the compulsive use of chemicals (drugs or alcohol) and the inability to stop using them despite all the problems caused by their use. used to describe the compulsive use of chemicals (drugs or alcohol) and the inability to stop using them despite all the problems caused by their use." in that context, the question i pose may be moot, because the whole point of the term is that one literally cannot find it within oneself to unlock the shackles that bind them to the substance that haunts one.

what i propose, however, is a psychological question: if those shackles fell off, if one could with a word remove that mental block that made it impossible to even dream of a life outside one's dependency, would one suddenly find oneself equpped with all the weapons needed to stage a revolt, and sieze back control of one's life? would all things immediately seem brighter, more vibrant, more focused, and no obstacle too fantastic to sidestep? or would one shrink back into the fold of that addiction, seeking its familiarity, its double-bladed protection and whimsical promises?

what is it that would be stripped away, assuming only one thing is the major force exerting its pull upon a person; how would the other factors of one's livelihood and temperment pick up the slack of the newly vanished? is there but a sole component buried in the entanglement of yearning and desperation, the merger between reckless extravagence and self-made prophecies of worthlessness?

could a formula be concocted to errode that which ties one most suffocatingly to one's acursed weakness? for how long would it work, and in what manner; would a person have to direct the flow of the cleansing liquid, like a guru guiding a soul through the unblocking of wretched chakras?

would it matter? would the thing that plagues deepest be conscious, a compulsion, not a circumstance; a choice? it is said that chemical dependence is the worst form of addiction, because the psychological need is near indistinguishable from the physical. what if one could flood clean all traces of the latter, obliterate the rembrance of peace coming from relieved muscles, but the taste of necessity still lingered, glutinous and firm as plaque?

what if, in the end, one would glance between the steep, shadowed ridge to rigoured recovery and the smooth silver slide back to old standbys, and flee to find solace in the ever-familar ghost of cold nails scarring skin and synapses?

the answer may just be that one Occam could never gleen, for its sheer obviousness; one's addiction is to submit, to sink one's soul into the chemical embrace with all due abandon. all is hopeless when that erstwhile paramour's love was never the strived-for goal, but simple scenery on the path to oblivion.

word association meme

from AMA.
what images come to mind when one mentions vicious?
...strong?
...weak?
...beautiful?
...pain?
...sex?
...wrong?
...right?
...politics?
...religion?


here are mine:





vicious










strong










weak







beautiful (i couldn't pick just one)











pain










sex















wrong














right










politics









religion