Mind Mud

I studied film in college. Something I noticed time and time again was that men and women tend to relate to movies differently. While women use characters as conduits for outsourcing feelings and temporarily relieving them of the need to feel their own (full subject-object convergence), men tend to think of films as sources of external aspiration (maintaining subject-object differentiation).

I can’t pinpoint exactly the moment I realized I was watching myself all the time. Suddenly I was hyper-aware of the way I filtered everything I thought, felt, and said through how you’d hear it. When my mental model of you was less complete, I felt extremely constrained in what I could say and as a result, said very little at all. “You’re quiet, aren’t you,” you said. Mm not really, I just wasn’t sure which parts of myself were safe to show.

There’s this great quote by Zadie Smith: “He was bookish, she was not; he was theoretical, she political. She called a rose a rose. He called it an accumulation of cultural and biological constructions circulating around the mutually attracting binary poles of nature/artifice.” These two people perfectly encapsulate the primary voices in constant conflict within my head.

It’s my birthday! Someone asked me to write a letter to myself about the things I learned this year and in doing so, I realized just how many things I’d been wrong about. I like that feeling :) This is that list — sharing in case it sheds some light on my thinking or offers solace to others navigating similar waters. You can make yourself interested in anything.

One of my favorite questions to ask people when I’m trying to understand how their mind works is “how do you frame freedom for yourself?” It’s a loaded question that gets taken in a million different directions and that’s why I like it. I’ve gotten everything from blank stares to “backpacking” to “when I make 10M dollars.” For me, freedom always used to mean complete and utter independence.

I’m an extremely critical person. I’m not proud of that, but I’m also not trying particularly hard to change it. I think it’s one of my core strengths and definitely my greatest weakness — I’m able to dissect precisely what makes a thing work and what’s holding it back. I want things to feel pure, unabashed, and clear in their convictions. Which is great — except for the fact that it’s nearly impossible not to wear this hyper-critical lens while looking at myself too.

The way I see it, modern American society is a lot like a massive multilevel video game designed by our parents, managers, and government — all without any pre-planning, principles, or plot coordination between parties. It’s no wonder the game’s plot feels weak and unsatisfactory. Where’s the hero arc? The ultimate salvation? The clear metrics in the corner that tell us if we’re winning the game or not? Instead, all we get is second-hand backstory and form-filled talk tracks.