Natural Disasters
I'm not sure how this ended up in my Facebook notes instead of in this blog because it was started when I wrote it. But here it is, from March 31st, 2011. (I'm posting it here because it deals with what I've been thinking a lot about lately.)
Wednesday night yesterday, I decided I was going to get to work in my French class (four weeks from the end of it) and bought index cards to do just that. It took almost two episodes of Psych of about 10 index cards, cut into fourths, but I finally had all the vocabulary words--for this week. I put them in my back pocket this morning, thinking I'd get a little studying in during the day. (I did not. I guess the proactiveness it took to make the index cards was worn out by it...) Tonight as I went to take a shower, the index cards fell out of my pocket, and into the toilet. I stood there for a full minute, contemplating reaching in there and getting them. I'd worked hard on them... Finally I reached out and pushed down the knob on the side of the toilet, watching as two hours of my life was flushed away.
On another quasi-symbolic note, one index card did survive the Great Dousing of 2011: vouloir. (For some reason, I've now formed a great attachment to this card and intend to keep it for a while.) Snaps for anyone who can tell me what it means.
But since I don't want to wait for any responses that most likely aren't coming, I'll tell you now. Vouloir means to want. I say this is quasi-symbolic because it sounds like it should be, right? Out of all of my french vocab and two hours, only the verb for "to want" is left. It could symbolize this state of my life where I don't really know what I want, but I still want it and still am angry/disappointed that I can't get it. But I know it's not symbolic. Because nothing is symbolic. Not a smile, not a hug, not a lingering look. The only symbolism that actually exists exists only in literature, because someone put it there. Or, maybe no one even intended for it to be there, but we see it anyway. Because we want to see it. Symbolism is like hope. It's not really very helpful or realistic. We, as humans, just want it to exist because life would seem empty and pointless without it. Well, more empty and pointless.
Symbolism only is where people say it is. My new favorite little index card didn't survive because someone (read: God) is trying to send me a message. It survived because it just so happened to be the one on the outside of the pack of cards that floated away. It isn't fate. It's chance. I'm tempted to believe that's how everything happens. Dad didn't get that promotion because he was meant to have it. He earned it, and just so happened to be at the right place at the right time in order to earn it. That couple on the subway isn't necessarily meant to be together. They just happened to find each other at the right time.
I know, a little depressing. Not that it's depressing because you're supposed to believe it. Depressing in that it's not very upbeat or happy. I feel just a little depressed. I have no more Psych to catch up with my French vocab. It makes me sad that all that time and work can just float away with the water from my toilet. And that now I have to start over.
Symbolism is tricky. Mostly because it's so subjective. Even if the majority of people who see the same sign interpret it in the same way, there will always be multiple ways of seeing things. Have you ever heard a story about a hat that was two different colors? Apparently some experimenters had two groups of people sit on opposite sides of some type of enclosure, a room of some kind. A man was sitting in the room between the two groups of people. The experimenters asked the participants what color the man's hat was. One side of the room said the hat was white. The other side said the man's hat was black. They became frustrated, each group insisting that they were right. The man's hat was half white and half black.
Symbolism is a lot like that. The way that something appears to you is mostly dependent on where you're sitting and who you are. A pedophile would read Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee in an entirely different way than a teacher would. (A pedophile, I think, would read most everything in an entirely different way than a teacher would...)
So, with symbolism being so dependent on the state of the being perceiving it, how can anyone know what something actually means? With the hat, the answer is a little more concrete than, say, the interpretation of a William Wordsworth poem. Professors give you the most correct interpretation, or so we assume. But there is still no way to be sure what something means.
In life, we call symbolism signs or signals. Someone reacts to something you say, and you take from that reaction certain signals of how that person perceives you. But since so much of what we say or do is subjective and influenced by so many factors (such as the way we were raised, or the behavioral or psychological influences of events in our past), how can we ever be sure of what someone else is thinking? We call this a judgment call. My sister says she's really good at this, at taking away from a person's actions or speech characteristics indicative of that person's personality and using this knowledge to adjust the way she thinks of that person and acts toward that person. And usually, she does turn out to be right.
But others, like me, aren't that great at telling what a person is truly like. Or maybe it's that I've never had the chance to test it, like my sister has. If the signs are there (and, unlike in the case of a person's personality [I do think there are ways to read into actions and use that as a way to determine the likelihood that this person is someone you want in your life], I'm not sure they are, because it seems so farfetched that God is using an author's last name [even a few authors's last names] to tell me something), how can we read them accurately, knowing that everything is different from the other person's viewpoint?
Wednesday night yesterday, I decided I was going to get to work in my French class (four weeks from the end of it) and bought index cards to do just that. It took almost two episodes of Psych of about 10 index cards, cut into fourths, but I finally had all the vocabulary words--for this week. I put them in my back pocket this morning, thinking I'd get a little studying in during the day. (I did not. I guess the proactiveness it took to make the index cards was worn out by it...) Tonight as I went to take a shower, the index cards fell out of my pocket, and into the toilet. I stood there for a full minute, contemplating reaching in there and getting them. I'd worked hard on them... Finally I reached out and pushed down the knob on the side of the toilet, watching as two hours of my life was flushed away.
On another quasi-symbolic note, one index card did survive the Great Dousing of 2011: vouloir. (For some reason, I've now formed a great attachment to this card and intend to keep it for a while.) Snaps for anyone who can tell me what it means.
But since I don't want to wait for any responses that most likely aren't coming, I'll tell you now. Vouloir means to want. I say this is quasi-symbolic because it sounds like it should be, right? Out of all of my french vocab and two hours, only the verb for "to want" is left. It could symbolize this state of my life where I don't really know what I want, but I still want it and still am angry/disappointed that I can't get it. But I know it's not symbolic. Because nothing is symbolic. Not a smile, not a hug, not a lingering look. The only symbolism that actually exists exists only in literature, because someone put it there. Or, maybe no one even intended for it to be there, but we see it anyway. Because we want to see it. Symbolism is like hope. It's not really very helpful or realistic. We, as humans, just want it to exist because life would seem empty and pointless without it. Well, more empty and pointless.
Symbolism only is where people say it is. My new favorite little index card didn't survive because someone (read: God) is trying to send me a message. It survived because it just so happened to be the one on the outside of the pack of cards that floated away. It isn't fate. It's chance. I'm tempted to believe that's how everything happens. Dad didn't get that promotion because he was meant to have it. He earned it, and just so happened to be at the right place at the right time in order to earn it. That couple on the subway isn't necessarily meant to be together. They just happened to find each other at the right time.
I know, a little depressing. Not that it's depressing because you're supposed to believe it. Depressing in that it's not very upbeat or happy. I feel just a little depressed. I have no more Psych to catch up with my French vocab. It makes me sad that all that time and work can just float away with the water from my toilet. And that now I have to start over.
Symbolism is tricky. Mostly because it's so subjective. Even if the majority of people who see the same sign interpret it in the same way, there will always be multiple ways of seeing things. Have you ever heard a story about a hat that was two different colors? Apparently some experimenters had two groups of people sit on opposite sides of some type of enclosure, a room of some kind. A man was sitting in the room between the two groups of people. The experimenters asked the participants what color the man's hat was. One side of the room said the hat was white. The other side said the man's hat was black. They became frustrated, each group insisting that they were right. The man's hat was half white and half black.
Symbolism is a lot like that. The way that something appears to you is mostly dependent on where you're sitting and who you are. A pedophile would read Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee in an entirely different way than a teacher would. (A pedophile, I think, would read most everything in an entirely different way than a teacher would...)
So, with symbolism being so dependent on the state of the being perceiving it, how can anyone know what something actually means? With the hat, the answer is a little more concrete than, say, the interpretation of a William Wordsworth poem. Professors give you the most correct interpretation, or so we assume. But there is still no way to be sure what something means.
In life, we call symbolism signs or signals. Someone reacts to something you say, and you take from that reaction certain signals of how that person perceives you. But since so much of what we say or do is subjective and influenced by so many factors (such as the way we were raised, or the behavioral or psychological influences of events in our past), how can we ever be sure of what someone else is thinking? We call this a judgment call. My sister says she's really good at this, at taking away from a person's actions or speech characteristics indicative of that person's personality and using this knowledge to adjust the way she thinks of that person and acts toward that person. And usually, she does turn out to be right.
But others, like me, aren't that great at telling what a person is truly like. Or maybe it's that I've never had the chance to test it, like my sister has. If the signs are there (and, unlike in the case of a person's personality [I do think there are ways to read into actions and use that as a way to determine the likelihood that this person is someone you want in your life], I'm not sure they are, because it seems so farfetched that God is using an author's last name [even a few authors's last names] to tell me something), how can we read them accurately, knowing that everything is different from the other person's viewpoint?
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