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Nov. 19th, 2007 01:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogWhen I was a child- or, in light of the fact that I keep telling people I never want to grow up, perhaps I should say 'when I was young'- I wanted something that made me unique. I wanted to be the smartest one, or the most skilled, or the one who knew the most about something. I guess everyone wants to have some characteristic that makes them stand out from the crowd. Of course, with the group of friend that my parents, and thus, I, ever one to not fit in with people my own age, hung out with, I was never the best at or most knowledgeable about anything. After all; these were fen. But everyone wants to be special; unusual; sinuglar. Even if the thing that makes them so is something negative.
When I found out I needed glasses, and as my prescription got stronger and stronger, I was excited. With glasses on, I'd look scholarly; even wizardly; and if my lenses were thick enough, I'd be able to have other people wear them and marvel at how bad my eyes were as they squinted to make out the world. When I was always the one picked last in gym class, I would perform at my worst on purpose; partly to spite my peers and organized sports in general, but, I now think, partly to draw amazement at my ineptitude at these things, even if I wasn't entirely conscious of it at the time. And when I figured out in college that I was faceblind, I came to think of it in largely the same way. Here was something unusual; something that most people had never heard of. Here was something that made me unique; special.
Back then, I still didn't really have friends of my own. At school I was scared of people, choosing to eat lunch out in the lobby of the campus theatre instead of in the green room with the other theatre students. I was nervous about being around people; trying to interact with them. I was so used to other people my own age being a source of pain and anger that I don't think I was aware they could be something other than that. Discovering this disability, then, was a double-bonus. Not only did it make me unique --something strange to be wondered at-- but it also explained --and justified-- my not wanting to deal with people. It wasn't my fault that I was so bad with people. That was good because I no longer felt somehow guilty or responsible for it. But it was bad as well, in that, with justification for not being good at dealing with people, maybe I thought that that meant I didn't have to try to get any better at it.
My first Midwest Furfest was the trigger for a great shift in the paradigm of my life. As I began to make a few friends of my own, I began to want to get to know more people. I wanted to have a social network among this group that I seemed to fit so well with, even though my conscious thoughts were nothing so grand and organized. I just knew that, for the first time, I had managed to make friends, all on my own, with people a lot like me; it was a wonderful thing.
I also, for the first time, realized just how much of a disability I really have. Never before had I actually wanted to get to know any significant number of new people. Never before had I understood just how bad at it I am. When I talk to more than one or two people in a short span of time, I get names, appearances, even conversations mixed between them. I can't remember who I've talked to about what, which I've exchanged greetings and pleasantries with that day or that weekend; even which of them I've met before.
I've learned that everyone, especially in fandom, is a little bit broken. Sometimes, they're a lot broken. That's ok; just as in pottery made by a Taoist master, it is the flaws and the imperfections that bring the piece to life. It is this damage and these divergences wherein are found the strange and haunting attraction of the vessel. Everyone is discolored or malformed in their own, beautiful way; diversity is the spice of life and I truly am in awe of the variety of people I've met and talked to. Though she may have been referring more to those with divergent bodies than the many amazing people I've met who have divergent minds, I think Diane Arbus summed this up very well when she said:
But today, after a weekend spent in a sea of well-known strangers, a significant percentage of whom I've probably met or heard of at least in passing, yet have no memory or knowledge of, I wish with all my heart that I could be just a little bit less unique.
When I found out I needed glasses, and as my prescription got stronger and stronger, I was excited. With glasses on, I'd look scholarly; even wizardly; and if my lenses were thick enough, I'd be able to have other people wear them and marvel at how bad my eyes were as they squinted to make out the world. When I was always the one picked last in gym class, I would perform at my worst on purpose; partly to spite my peers and organized sports in general, but, I now think, partly to draw amazement at my ineptitude at these things, even if I wasn't entirely conscious of it at the time. And when I figured out in college that I was faceblind, I came to think of it in largely the same way. Here was something unusual; something that most people had never heard of. Here was something that made me unique; special.
Back then, I still didn't really have friends of my own. At school I was scared of people, choosing to eat lunch out in the lobby of the campus theatre instead of in the green room with the other theatre students. I was nervous about being around people; trying to interact with them. I was so used to other people my own age being a source of pain and anger that I don't think I was aware they could be something other than that. Discovering this disability, then, was a double-bonus. Not only did it make me unique --something strange to be wondered at-- but it also explained --and justified-- my not wanting to deal with people. It wasn't my fault that I was so bad with people. That was good because I no longer felt somehow guilty or responsible for it. But it was bad as well, in that, with justification for not being good at dealing with people, maybe I thought that that meant I didn't have to try to get any better at it.
My first Midwest Furfest was the trigger for a great shift in the paradigm of my life. As I began to make a few friends of my own, I began to want to get to know more people. I wanted to have a social network among this group that I seemed to fit so well with, even though my conscious thoughts were nothing so grand and organized. I just knew that, for the first time, I had managed to make friends, all on my own, with people a lot like me; it was a wonderful thing.
I also, for the first time, realized just how much of a disability I really have. Never before had I actually wanted to get to know any significant number of new people. Never before had I understood just how bad at it I am. When I talk to more than one or two people in a short span of time, I get names, appearances, even conversations mixed between them. I can't remember who I've talked to about what, which I've exchanged greetings and pleasantries with that day or that weekend; even which of them I've met before.
I've learned that everyone, especially in fandom, is a little bit broken. Sometimes, they're a lot broken. That's ok; just as in pottery made by a Taoist master, it is the flaws and the imperfections that bring the piece to life. It is this damage and these divergences wherein are found the strange and haunting attraction of the vessel. Everyone is discolored or malformed in their own, beautiful way; diversity is the spice of life and I truly am in awe of the variety of people I've met and talked to. Though she may have been referring more to those with divergent bodies than the many amazing people I've met who have divergent minds, I think Diane Arbus summed this up very well when she said:
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.
But today, after a weekend spent in a sea of well-known strangers, a significant percentage of whom I've probably met or heard of at least in passing, yet have no memory or knowledge of, I wish with all my heart that I could be just a little bit less unique.
