D i a r y A r c h i v e : N o v - D e c 0 7
'Defaced' - Thursday 20th December 2007
I don't get Facebook. Yes, I know I've signed up to it, but that's because of my insistence on holding on to the deluded belief that it's little more than a global email address directory. If long lost friends want to try to find me on its pages, I have no problem with that at all. But of course, Facebook is so much more than a list of contact details.
By my very nature, I'm someone who's interested in the power and function of words and also in the distinction between the various contexts in which they're used. I think there's a world of difference between spoken utterances and sentiments expressed in writing. Maybe this is why Facebook and I make such uncomfortable bed-fellows: many of the people who use it seem to think that we need draw no dividing line between the things we say to each other in moments of relaxed spontaneity and the things we publish in a lasting, structured medium. I don't often get drawn into the site's many avenues of distraction, but whenever I do, feelings of nausea and disgust settle into the pit of my stomach and I can't wait to click on 'Logout'.
Who knows, maybe I'm just offended by bad grammar and poor punctuation, both of which are in plentiful supply on people's Walls. Maybe my imagination is somewhat underdeveloped and I can't get myself into the frame of mind that would allow me to appreciate the funny side of someone asking me to complete the line: "I would like to ___ you," with one of the following options: 1. kiss; 2. fuck; 3. suck; 4. grope etc etc. Or maybe I think the whole site is another way of fooling The People into believing that what is actually fragmentation is the building of a community, that devaluation is liberation and that standardisation is originality.
All this ties in with a recent Radio 4 report bemoaning the current state of gender equality issues. A few young-ish women were asked if Girl Power - as represented by the Spice Girls - is their personal definition of feminism.
"Feminism? What's that?" one of them asked. "Is that that woman who jumped in front of a horse?"
Chortling away, the women then proceeded to explain that it doesn't really matter what feminism is as long as "it makes you feel good" and "sexy" and "gives you a confidence boost."
There we are then, Ms Pankhurst: decades of struggle reduced to trendy self-help therapy and a fashion statement.
Unfortunately, the report didn't quite spell out the crucial difference between 'feminism' now and in the 70s. Back then it was a unifying force, designed to pull people together and drag them out of a position of inferiority. To a large extent, it shared a common language and it understood the importance of words and their ability to influence the world. Now it's an individualistic drive, more concerned with reducing discomfort and 'stress' than with tackling more far-reaching injustices. It doesn't insist on linguistic precision, because its followers aren't as articulate as they once were. It's about personal competitiveness and the right to join a pole-dancing class "if, like, that's what I really, really wanna do, 'cause it, like, gives me control of my own sexuality."
Feminism has given itself up to the short-sighted forces of individualism and Facebook feeds into those forces too. They could both be strong, important entities, but they seem content to muck about in inconsequentality. Wouldn't it be great if someone decided to whip up the fervour of a few decades ago by setting up a network called 'Fembook'... but you know that just ain't gonna happen, because fervour is just, like, way too stressful for people too busy poking each other through cyberspace.
P.S. This'll probably be the last diary entry of 2007, so as we approach Christmas - a time which, in many ways, marks the moment when one individual came to create true commune-ism - may I wish all of you who celebrate this feast the wisdom to be able to find the balance between serving the needs of yourself and of the rest of the world. To those of you who don't celebrate Christmas (ie most of the people on the planet) may I wish the very same thing.
'Tear' - Friday 14th December 2007
In a week which saw hours of Christmas shopping, several new entries in the catalogue of errors encountered during the interminable Redecoration Of The Lounge and even a minor car accident (don't worry: everyone's fine), the main thing I don't seem to be able to shake out of my head is a press conference I heard on the radio the other day.
A spokeswoman for Anne Darwin (the Canoe Man's wife) was interviewed by the media upon Mrs Darwin's arrival in the UK. She stated that Mrs Darwin was very upset by the situation and by the distress it has caused to her children. She said Mrs Darwin was emotional and tired. And then one journalist asked, "Has she been tearful?"
There was a moment's hesitation, after which the spokeswoman replied, "Yes, at times she's been very tearful."
Naturally, I have no idea what all the facts of this case are. I can't help being fascinated by what's already been reported on the news and I find what we've been told about the Darwins' treatment of their children incomprehensible and cruel. But I was absolutely appalled by the journalist's desire to find out if Anne Darwin had shed any tears. It was very astute of the spokeswoman to say that yes, weeping had occurred, because the tabloids would have had a field day with the story of a woman who claims to be upset but hasn't cried.
It's so depressing to think that the Mass Psyche continues to operate on such simplistic levels:
tears = must be really remorseful: let's start being nice to her;
no tears = evil, selfish cow: let's drag her through filth.
The same sort of thing came up several months ago when Kate McCann's way of handling her daughter's disappearance was deemed suspicious by the tick-list-wielding editors of this land.
I realise our society can't function without making some use of stereotypes, but surely we've reached the stage where we know that grief does very different things to different people. I recently read a blog entry in which the author described one of his reactions to the shopping mall shooting in Nebraska: he went to a bar and found himself cracking jokes about the incident. Some would say this was nothing short of a healthy response. The Mass Psyche would probably call out a lynch mob.
Maybe this is somehow linked to the way death and discomfort have become taboo subjects in our culture? The processes of death and grieving are rarely discussed in an open way. (Yes, I know bereavement is the subject of many a talk show, but I suspect they come with stereotype-adhering tick lists too.) Discomfort is something to be shunned and pushed aside rather than a state to be dealt with and worked through intelligently. So maybe our relative lack of exposure to the more difficult aspects of life has led to the creation of a new form of ignorance: 'grief illiteracy'? And isn't the first response to ignorance to resort to stereotypes?
The media thrives on drama, there's no getting away from that. The Mass Psyche also needs vessels into which it can pour its insecurities and anxieties. But I do find myself slipping into a moment's despair when this country's most prestigious, most highly-respected news organisation allows itself to broadcast such simplistic and divisive sentiments. If anything they should be helping society come together: not letting the subject of a tear to tear people apart.
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'Pace' - Thursday 6th December 2007
Time is always in short supply. So is that why people seem to use hardly any of it to do the important things in their lives? (Yes, you've read all this before, but it's been playing on my mind a great deal lately, so I'm afraid you're going to have to read it here again.)
We seem to have lost much of our appreciation of the value of waiting for things, of giving processes time to develop and mature. Government initiatives are deemed unsuccesful and abandoned a year after being implemented. Service in restaurants is considered to be good only if it's quick. People who've ended a relationship expect to be able to get over their sorrow a day or two after the break-up. Even the word 'slow' is seen as derogatory when describing a film or a book.
I'm as guilty as anyone else. At the end of each evening spent staring at an empty page, I'm ready to explode with the frustration brought on by my inability to write my entire novel in one sitting, right now, today, this very instant.
It's been said that the journey is as important as the destination. Maybe we could also say that the waiting is as important as the event. According to a homily I read the other day, one of the purposes of Advent is to make people focus on the state of waiting. This isn't simply a device to heighten the appreciation of the feast at the end, but a way of raising one's awareness of being in a state of readiness, a state of constant preparedness... which reminds me of the wonderful Into Great Silence I saw earlier this year, about the life of the monks of the Grande Chartreuse. They took bags of time to do everything they did, and even though by many people's standards they didn't do very much on any given day, I'd argue that they accomplished a great deal during every hour they spent on their routines and rituals.
Maybe time is another commodity that follows the 'use it or lose it' principle: we need to take more of it if we want to have more of it. Is that too trite to be true?
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'Bear' - Friday 30th November 2007
I've been thinking a lot about teddy bears called Muhammad, and I'm tempted to indulge in a declamation of my views on the topic, but not today. The other thing occupying my thoughts right now is Shaun Levin's latest blog entry. It's long, but well worth your time.
I found several parts of it haunting. There's the bit about writers writing because it makes them look busy. (Reminds me of a throwaway comment on a recent episode of Open Book where a writer said, "I just LOVE my work. I can stare at it for hours and hours.") There's the part about being a teenager and finding inspiration in goings-on in distant lands. And there's the line where Shaun mentions that he's been working on his current book for about seven years.
That REALLY got to me.
I've been wrestling with my novel for about twenty months now and the prospect of another five years (at least!) of trying to get to grips with characters and plots fills me with sheer, tear-inducing, heart-palpitating desperation...
... a sensation similar to what I experienced the other evening. The Divine L was away on a business trip (which doesn't happen very often) and I was home alone. I'd tidied my room a bit. I'd checked my emails. I'd spent some time helping someone with a project they're working on. And then I decided to do some ironing. And whilst I was in the middle of straightening a sleeve, I became aware of a feeling of total solitude. And I thought to myself that if ever anything should happen to the Divine L - God forbid - this is how 'things' would be: I'd do my ironing; I'd put the ironing board away; I'd hang up my shirts; I'd brush my teeth; I'd make myself a cup of tea to drink whilst flicking through a magazine; I'd turn off my computer; and I'd get into bed without having spoken to anyone or shared a thought or an observation or a mood.
Tears were induced and heart palpitated.
And I wonder if that's one of the reasons why I often find my novel so difficult to write: because its completion would be like the loss of a most intimate, most crucial companion.
'...Since I Was A Child' - Tuesday 20th November 2007
Returning to Poland always causes me to be introspective.
Even the fact that I used the word 'returning' above contains several hours' worth of navel-gazing value. Is it correct to use 'return' for a place in which the longest amount of time you've spent is around ten months, when you were aged seven?
This year's trip pushed all the usual buttons as well as some new ones. Auschwitz was an experience never to be forgotten and certainly too vast to be summed up in one blog entry. Suffice it to say - for the moment, at least - that I can't think of many places in the world which raise as many difficult questions and provoke as many raw emotions.
The rest of the trip reminded me that I tried - and failed - to write a Warsaw-based short story last year. But when I got back home, a few ideas fell into place and the story is now complete. Unfortunately, the process of writing it didn't help me become any less introspective.
One of its themes is the way people's personalities appear to change significantly - peraps even fundamentally - according to the context in which they find themselves. Case in point: when I go to Poland, I speak Polish, something the Divine L doesn't see me do very often. The foreign-ness of the words coming out of my mouth - the unfamiliarity of the cadences and rhythms - make her think her husband's been temporarily possessed by some other body, some other person.
I came close to understanding how she feels last weekend. I was clearing away some of my things and I came across a folder of letters I'd faxed to various people about ten years ago. And although they were all written in English, many didn't sound as though they'd been written by me at all. The concerns sounded unfamiliar, the views, the opinions. Even the choice of words and the construction of some of the sentences felt odd.
A human life is capable of containing so many settings, moods and changes. Did the people who were forced to pass through the Birkenau gates ever dream their lives would present them with such an eventuality? One life is actually a collection of several different lives awkwardly cobbled together, with the various pieces not always able to relate to each other. Understanding the nature of our personal seams is probably the first step towards understanding the connections we make with other people. And I guess that's what I try to do with my writing: translate all these joints and links and cracks into a language that hopefuly somebody will understand... and then continue to translate for someone else.
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