Screw it, let's get meta. This blog is called "I Adore..." and I adore adoring. I adore getting to adore.
I have nothing but affection for affection. I feel friendly towards friendship. I feel enthusiastic about getting to feel enthusiastic. It's a treat to consider something a treat. I like liking, I love loving.
I love to... um... love... you, baby? Sorry, I got distracted. I found Donna Summer on Soul Train. (I didn't know that she spent eight years in Germany before hitting commercial success in the U.S.!)
But anyway.
I'm a fan of BEING a fan.
While it would be dangerously unscientific of me to claim that focusing on what cheers you up is EQUIVALENT to taking an antidepressant, I can comfortably claim that having a happy place to go to--cue that penguin cave from Fight Club--can help boost the efficacy of real antidepressants.
For that matter, even for those WITHOUT a neuroscientific doom cloud to outrun, having some blessings to count or favorite things to list can certainly keep your Julie Andrews feeling "Julie Andrews" enough to keep the Victor in your Victoria.
While everybody tends to inherit some stress coping techniques from their cultural background--some wanted and some unwanted--one of the best things that I picked up from my folks has been audience participation.
My mother is a fan's fan. She wrote Star Trek fan fiction in the 1960s. (I like to imagine that she was the original Mary Sue, being named Sue Mary, but I haven't had the guts to ask her for fear of having the dream ashed.) She is now a devoted participant in Heart's fan club, and a damn liberating sort of mother to have. (Did I misspell my mother's name to protect her privacy? Did you?)
My father, on the other hand, is less of a proper fan-fan, and more of a performer/audience amalgam. He lives every second of every day in the persona of a rebel adventurer, winning sailboat races around the globe and telling larger-than-life stories about hitchhiking in the late 1960s. But what this means to ME, is that being a daughter is a form of audience participation by default. I grew up being a great, participatory performer/audience THING, feeling loved and feeling loving.
As a result of this gift of an upbringing, I naturally and firmly believe that being a good audience is actually a fine and important responsibility, and a delicate performance art of it's own.
If you see live music, dance for fuck's sake!
If you see live theater, stay awake and react as actively as proper etiquette allows.
If someone's telling you a story, be present for it, and fucking react like a good audience.
Liked a joke? Laugh!
Be an active, active, ACTIVE listener!
Art is social. The audience is an absolutely essential component to completing the circuit.
So.
I am a natural-born audience participant. I can be a whole mosh pit. I can be a whole cult following. I can be a whole fan culture. I can be positively RIVETED.
And all because I genuinely LIKE saying thanks, particularly to whatever sincerely cheers me up, and helps divert attention away from emotional exhaustion.
I have the privilege of getting to help people with terminal illnesses for a living. I've even earned the special right, in my personal life, to get to help distract friends who are looking down the barrel of medical terror and death.
So you'd BEST believe that any booster shot of "I LOVE THIS STORY" or "FUCK, I LOVE THIS SONG" or "I really feel like that performance really 'got' me," helps make self-pity and despair seem petty.
...
Fuck, well NOW I just sound like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. Wasn't really GOING for that.
Fuck it, though.
I actually, if memory serves, really loved that movie when it came out.
And I'm okay with that... Because?
I REALLY LIKE GETTING TO LIKE THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!
There.
To quote Maude from Harold and Maude, "Good! Now go out and love some more!"
(Classy. Always classy to end on a good quote.)
I have nothing but affection for affection. I feel friendly towards friendship. I feel enthusiastic about getting to feel enthusiastic. It's a treat to consider something a treat. I like liking, I love loving.
I love to... um... love... you, baby? Sorry, I got distracted. I found Donna Summer on Soul Train. (I didn't know that she spent eight years in Germany before hitting commercial success in the U.S.!)
But anyway.
I'm a fan of BEING a fan.
While it would be dangerously unscientific of me to claim that focusing on what cheers you up is EQUIVALENT to taking an antidepressant, I can comfortably claim that having a happy place to go to--cue that penguin cave from Fight Club--can help boost the efficacy of real antidepressants.
For that matter, even for those WITHOUT a neuroscientific doom cloud to outrun, having some blessings to count or favorite things to list can certainly keep your Julie Andrews feeling "Julie Andrews" enough to keep the Victor in your Victoria.
While everybody tends to inherit some stress coping techniques from their cultural background--some wanted and some unwanted--one of the best things that I picked up from my folks has been audience participation.
My mother is a fan's fan. She wrote Star Trek fan fiction in the 1960s. (I like to imagine that she was the original Mary Sue, being named Sue Mary, but I haven't had the guts to ask her for fear of having the dream ashed.) She is now a devoted participant in Heart's fan club, and a damn liberating sort of mother to have. (Did I misspell my mother's name to protect her privacy? Did you?)
My father, on the other hand, is less of a proper fan-fan, and more of a performer/audience amalgam. He lives every second of every day in the persona of a rebel adventurer, winning sailboat races around the globe and telling larger-than-life stories about hitchhiking in the late 1960s. But what this means to ME, is that being a daughter is a form of audience participation by default. I grew up being a great, participatory performer/audience THING, feeling loved and feeling loving.
As a result of this gift of an upbringing, I naturally and firmly believe that being a good audience is actually a fine and important responsibility, and a delicate performance art of it's own.
If you see live music, dance for fuck's sake!
If you see live theater, stay awake and react as actively as proper etiquette allows.
If someone's telling you a story, be present for it, and fucking react like a good audience.
Liked a joke? Laugh!
Be an active, active, ACTIVE listener!
Art is social. The audience is an absolutely essential component to completing the circuit.
So.
I am a natural-born audience participant. I can be a whole mosh pit. I can be a whole cult following. I can be a whole fan culture. I can be positively RIVETED.
And all because I genuinely LIKE saying thanks, particularly to whatever sincerely cheers me up, and helps divert attention away from emotional exhaustion.
I have the privilege of getting to help people with terminal illnesses for a living. I've even earned the special right, in my personal life, to get to help distract friends who are looking down the barrel of medical terror and death.
So you'd BEST believe that any booster shot of "I LOVE THIS STORY" or "FUCK, I LOVE THIS SONG" or "I really feel like that performance really 'got' me," helps make self-pity and despair seem petty.
...
Fuck, well NOW I just sound like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. Wasn't really GOING for that.
Fuck it, though.
I actually, if memory serves, really loved that movie when it came out.
And I'm okay with that... Because?
I REALLY LIKE GETTING TO LIKE THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!
There.
To quote Maude from Harold and Maude, "Good! Now go out and love some more!"
(Classy. Always classy to end on a good quote.)
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