Sweetened and Caffeinated
I slept about thirty minutes last night thanks to various distractions and the general slow pace at which I work. But I'm here, and I finished my work, so I figure it's all right.
But I'm sure you're wondering why I've called you all here once again. It's because I was musing, as I am wont to do when given ample free time, a fatigued body and mind, coffee and too much sugar in the coffee.
The first musing that I can recall involved music, and made me hearken back to a conversation that Eric and Jordan had once at IHOP in Katy a few years back. I was sitting, observing at the time, having nothing at all constructive to add. The relevant bit from that conversation came when Jordan said something along the lines of, "It's not really my place to judge tastes. I mean, lots of critics trash Britney Spears, but her music appeals to a lot of people and it's not without reason. There are properties of those sounds that make us happy and that have merit in that way." Apologies to Jordan if I butchered her too horribly. I stand open to retraction if necessary.
I thought of this discussion, and that quote in particular, because I first heard an old Sister Hazel song from the late 1990s or so, back when I listened to the things on the mainstream radio and sang along (very poorly) to tracks in the family room. I don't like the song anymore, but I used to like it--and sing along to it--back then. After that came a Foo Fighters song. I can't even remember which one now, because I'm listening to Mass Romantic again and it's throwing me off, but it was a song from one of their newer albums that I don't have. I recognized it as a Foo Fighters single and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it when I heard it before too, but I suddenly worried: how much of my enjoyment have I derived from the artistry of the song, and how much have I derived from the fact that Foo Fighters made it? Similarly, did that Sister Hazel song not appeal to me because my tastes have evolved, or because I've wished for my tastes to evolve?
In high school my musical tastes changed dramatically, in large part thanks to Eric, who introduced me to several artists who I hadn't heard before, and gave them his endorsement of coolness. As someone who previously only followed the radio genies, this guidance was precious and very readily accepted. But this guidance also meant that my tastes underwent too-rapid shifts that would simply not have happened but for some small, unknown gesture on Eric's part. I remember, for example, mentioning a song by Fuel that I really liked. Eric expressed mild distaste for the song, and I grinned and pretended it was fine with me since we were two separate individuals with separate tastes. It wasn't too long before I didn't like that song anymore.
In case it's not clear, I lay no fault on Eric for any of this, if there's even any fault to be found anywhere. I'm sure there are all people in our lives who exercise a disproportionate influence on our tastes simply by expressing their own, and as I said before I am grateful for Eric's influence, which has brought me to The New Pornographers, The Strokes, Radiohead, The Darkness, The Shins, Elliot Smith, and many others.
I am proud to say that my musical tastes have matured to the point where I am genuinely willing to disagree with Eric or anyone else about an album and maintain my opinion without undue influence. Eric still exercises tremendous authority over my tastes, but I am no longer dependent.
This relationship that Eric and I share has made me consider whether I have anything similar with anyone else--like my sisters, for example. I know that I have bluntly attempted to use whatever influence I've had to get my youngest sister Asena to enjoy a wider variety of music. I wish I had the time, patience and mental dexterity to be more subtle, but I don't think I did anything improper.
More unfortunate for me is the way that I have grown increasingly attached to absolutes. By this I mean that I have decided that my opinion on something (not necessarily just music) reflects the truth with a reasonable degree of accuracy, and as such I have taken on haughty and smug airs when trying to bring people around to my viewpoint, thinly concealing that I believe them wrong.
As a matter of philosophy, I do believe that there are absolute truths around which there exist shades of gray that reasonable people are open to interpret in many different ways. For example, I believe The Beatles were quite excellent, and I would hold that a reasonable range of opinions of the Beatles would range from healthy respect to high adulation. With my rather rude behavior mentioned above, I would be dismissive and disdainful of someone who did not at all care for The Beatles, more or less relying on bullying and demeaning tactics to get the other person to come around to my side instead of appealing to reason.
I hold true still to my philosophy; I believe that there things that are definitely right and things that are definitely wrong and things that are in between. But instead of being so quick to assume my own infallibility, I would do well to consider first that I have changed my opinions on innumerable things over the past several weeks, months, years. I would say today that I was wrong about some things in the past, so what's to say that I have attained perfection today? So clearly I need to be much, much less of a bitch. On that note, allow me to apologize for any ill conduct directed your way that is similar to what I've mentioned above. I know I've directed a great deal of it towards Danielle, much to her great ire, and I've probably given a fair amount to my dear roommates.
We all hold pieces of the truth somewhere, as J.S. Mill would say. We should respect each other for holding that truth.
Anyway, enough with such platitudes and the discomfort they bring for all of us. Let me end this rambling streak and muse very briefly about the other thing I can recall at this moment.
As I waited to be assigned a computer in the library where I am blogging at this moment I saw a black man. Immediately I presumed him to be an African of some sort, as opposed to an"African American" (in case the quotation marks weren't enough, I would like to make clear that I do not at all like that term except perhaps in reference to culture). I've made snap judgments just like this before, based on the shape of the eyes, the set of the eyes, the shape of the jaw, the manner of standing, the manner of looking at things, general behavioral cues. It's always exciting to see someone who you presume to be an a freshly arrived African, since we see so few of them here in Texas. I wanted to ask him his story and all sorts of things, but I felt like that would inconvenience him at best and result in an embarrassing mistake at worst.
I'm often very forward with people regarding physical--generally racial--characteristics. I think that sometimes this makes people uncomfortable, but the vast majority of the time it seems to be rather fun. For example, I met Jenny's friend Tarun one day. Tarun is brown. After we introduced ourselves, I said something along the lines of, "Hey Tarun, I've noticed you're brown. I was wondering, what kind of brown are you?" Yes, it was awkwardly worded, but for some reason it's a lot more comfortable for me to say that--acknowledging outright that I'm not asking his nationality because I like knowing everyone's nationality, but rather because he's brown and that makes him more interesting. John and Jenny thought it quite odd, and Tarun may have as well, but it was well worth it. Honestly I thought he might have been a Tamil like Meera from GW because of his skin tone and hair. It turned out I was wrong (all the more reason not to approach strangers who I think may be African and ask them to tell me their stories), but I have no regrets.
Perhaps a part of the reason I'm so strange with the way I address issues of race is because I want so badly for race to become something that everyone is free to mention, the same way everyone is free to mention that someone has blue eyes or black hair. I don't want there to be any stigma, so I word things in such a way as to make it seem like I believe there is none. I want to live Dr. King's dream, but I know that we can only do that if we acknowledge and accept our physical differences (and the correlated cultural differences).
But I also do a tremendous amount of playing to racial stereotypes. A lot of this I justify--I believe--through simple correlation. But I don't even want to enumerate them now because trying to do so makes me feel like I'm doing something deeply wrong. But I don't know how wrong it would be. Alas, I am quite certain that I have not achieved racial Zen as I so terribly wish, and I probably never will. I am content to live knowing that I am imperfect so long as there is hope for the next generation that black skin won't be any more taboo to point out than black hair. That would be cool.
Anyway, I have many things I must now attend to, and I have to imagine that this entry is so long as to be very, very intimidating. So thank you to those of you would survived all the way through, and for those who didn't, I fault you not.
Hasta la byebye.
But I'm sure you're wondering why I've called you all here once again. It's because I was musing, as I am wont to do when given ample free time, a fatigued body and mind, coffee and too much sugar in the coffee.
The first musing that I can recall involved music, and made me hearken back to a conversation that Eric and Jordan had once at IHOP in Katy a few years back. I was sitting, observing at the time, having nothing at all constructive to add. The relevant bit from that conversation came when Jordan said something along the lines of, "It's not really my place to judge tastes. I mean, lots of critics trash Britney Spears, but her music appeals to a lot of people and it's not without reason. There are properties of those sounds that make us happy and that have merit in that way." Apologies to Jordan if I butchered her too horribly. I stand open to retraction if necessary.
I thought of this discussion, and that quote in particular, because I first heard an old Sister Hazel song from the late 1990s or so, back when I listened to the things on the mainstream radio and sang along (very poorly) to tracks in the family room. I don't like the song anymore, but I used to like it--and sing along to it--back then. After that came a Foo Fighters song. I can't even remember which one now, because I'm listening to Mass Romantic again and it's throwing me off, but it was a song from one of their newer albums that I don't have. I recognized it as a Foo Fighters single and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it when I heard it before too, but I suddenly worried: how much of my enjoyment have I derived from the artistry of the song, and how much have I derived from the fact that Foo Fighters made it? Similarly, did that Sister Hazel song not appeal to me because my tastes have evolved, or because I've wished for my tastes to evolve?
In high school my musical tastes changed dramatically, in large part thanks to Eric, who introduced me to several artists who I hadn't heard before, and gave them his endorsement of coolness. As someone who previously only followed the radio genies, this guidance was precious and very readily accepted. But this guidance also meant that my tastes underwent too-rapid shifts that would simply not have happened but for some small, unknown gesture on Eric's part. I remember, for example, mentioning a song by Fuel that I really liked. Eric expressed mild distaste for the song, and I grinned and pretended it was fine with me since we were two separate individuals with separate tastes. It wasn't too long before I didn't like that song anymore.
In case it's not clear, I lay no fault on Eric for any of this, if there's even any fault to be found anywhere. I'm sure there are all people in our lives who exercise a disproportionate influence on our tastes simply by expressing their own, and as I said before I am grateful for Eric's influence, which has brought me to The New Pornographers, The Strokes, Radiohead, The Darkness, The Shins, Elliot Smith, and many others.
I am proud to say that my musical tastes have matured to the point where I am genuinely willing to disagree with Eric or anyone else about an album and maintain my opinion without undue influence. Eric still exercises tremendous authority over my tastes, but I am no longer dependent.
This relationship that Eric and I share has made me consider whether I have anything similar with anyone else--like my sisters, for example. I know that I have bluntly attempted to use whatever influence I've had to get my youngest sister Asena to enjoy a wider variety of music. I wish I had the time, patience and mental dexterity to be more subtle, but I don't think I did anything improper.
More unfortunate for me is the way that I have grown increasingly attached to absolutes. By this I mean that I have decided that my opinion on something (not necessarily just music) reflects the truth with a reasonable degree of accuracy, and as such I have taken on haughty and smug airs when trying to bring people around to my viewpoint, thinly concealing that I believe them wrong.
As a matter of philosophy, I do believe that there are absolute truths around which there exist shades of gray that reasonable people are open to interpret in many different ways. For example, I believe The Beatles were quite excellent, and I would hold that a reasonable range of opinions of the Beatles would range from healthy respect to high adulation. With my rather rude behavior mentioned above, I would be dismissive and disdainful of someone who did not at all care for The Beatles, more or less relying on bullying and demeaning tactics to get the other person to come around to my side instead of appealing to reason.
I hold true still to my philosophy; I believe that there things that are definitely right and things that are definitely wrong and things that are in between. But instead of being so quick to assume my own infallibility, I would do well to consider first that I have changed my opinions on innumerable things over the past several weeks, months, years. I would say today that I was wrong about some things in the past, so what's to say that I have attained perfection today? So clearly I need to be much, much less of a bitch. On that note, allow me to apologize for any ill conduct directed your way that is similar to what I've mentioned above. I know I've directed a great deal of it towards Danielle, much to her great ire, and I've probably given a fair amount to my dear roommates.
We all hold pieces of the truth somewhere, as J.S. Mill would say. We should respect each other for holding that truth.
Anyway, enough with such platitudes and the discomfort they bring for all of us. Let me end this rambling streak and muse very briefly about the other thing I can recall at this moment.
As I waited to be assigned a computer in the library where I am blogging at this moment I saw a black man. Immediately I presumed him to be an African of some sort, as opposed to an"African American" (in case the quotation marks weren't enough, I would like to make clear that I do not at all like that term except perhaps in reference to culture). I've made snap judgments just like this before, based on the shape of the eyes, the set of the eyes, the shape of the jaw, the manner of standing, the manner of looking at things, general behavioral cues. It's always exciting to see someone who you presume to be an a freshly arrived African, since we see so few of them here in Texas. I wanted to ask him his story and all sorts of things, but I felt like that would inconvenience him at best and result in an embarrassing mistake at worst.
I'm often very forward with people regarding physical--generally racial--characteristics. I think that sometimes this makes people uncomfortable, but the vast majority of the time it seems to be rather fun. For example, I met Jenny's friend Tarun one day. Tarun is brown. After we introduced ourselves, I said something along the lines of, "Hey Tarun, I've noticed you're brown. I was wondering, what kind of brown are you?" Yes, it was awkwardly worded, but for some reason it's a lot more comfortable for me to say that--acknowledging outright that I'm not asking his nationality because I like knowing everyone's nationality, but rather because he's brown and that makes him more interesting. John and Jenny thought it quite odd, and Tarun may have as well, but it was well worth it. Honestly I thought he might have been a Tamil like Meera from GW because of his skin tone and hair. It turned out I was wrong (all the more reason not to approach strangers who I think may be African and ask them to tell me their stories), but I have no regrets.
Perhaps a part of the reason I'm so strange with the way I address issues of race is because I want so badly for race to become something that everyone is free to mention, the same way everyone is free to mention that someone has blue eyes or black hair. I don't want there to be any stigma, so I word things in such a way as to make it seem like I believe there is none. I want to live Dr. King's dream, but I know that we can only do that if we acknowledge and accept our physical differences (and the correlated cultural differences).
But I also do a tremendous amount of playing to racial stereotypes. A lot of this I justify--I believe--through simple correlation. But I don't even want to enumerate them now because trying to do so makes me feel like I'm doing something deeply wrong. But I don't know how wrong it would be. Alas, I am quite certain that I have not achieved racial Zen as I so terribly wish, and I probably never will. I am content to live knowing that I am imperfect so long as there is hope for the next generation that black skin won't be any more taboo to point out than black hair. That would be cool.
Anyway, I have many things I must now attend to, and I have to imagine that this entry is so long as to be very, very intimidating. So thank you to those of you would survived all the way through, and for those who didn't, I fault you not.
Hasta la byebye.
1 Comments:
At 07 February, 2008 20:27,
Anonymous said…
Whoah.
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