Monday Morning Rant- Life is not a game

TaunTaun again, here under notice that if I keep doing this, I’m going to have to get my own blog. Pfft. Anyway, the title of today’s official, yet not-exactly-pagan Monday Morning Rant doesn’t mean that I think everything should be all serious business, all the time. Kind of the opposite, actually. Today, we cover a monster pet peeve of mine- people who lack the ability to let things go. I’m not talking about holding a grudge, or staying upset about something longer than may be reasonable. No, today’s grumblings are about people who like to treat life like a game scored in points. Apparently, the way you get points is by being an obstinate jerk to everyone around you.

Well, that’s somewhat inflammatory, isn’t it? Let me explain via example. Exhibit A- You’re driving down the highway when you see somebody tailgating you. Do you react by getting over a lane and letting this person pass you, because hey, if they want to get a speeding ticket, you won’t stop them? Or do you slow down to ten miles below the speed limit to teach that jerk a lesson, and that’ll show him? If you chose option two, I have bad news- you’re an asshole. No, the guy behind you shouldn’t have been tailgating you, and that’s his fault. Likewise, by slowing down, you’re creating MORE of an accident risk, slowing down everyone else behind you, and you’ve upgraded the guy behind you from Bad Driver to Angry Bad Driver. Sorry, you don’t collect any XP or gold, but you might get the Tire Iron Through The Window achievement if you pissed off the wrong person.

Exhibit B finds us looking back at my college days, to my roommate for about two weeks in my senior year. I'd had a spectacular streak of luck with roommates in prior years, all of whom were clean, quiet, and overall nice guys. In fact, I was pretty much the lousy one in those situations. But I got a bit of comeuppance on that year. This roommate kept ludicrous hours and threw tantrums when I would ask him to turn his music down a little at 4:30 AM. He ate nothing but delivery pizza and left all of it in the mini-fridge, leaving no room for anything else. He showered maybe once or twice in the three weeks I lived with him. But his crowning glory was his assertion that the fridge made too much noise at night, so he just unplugged it instead. You get the idea- total disaster. So I took the necessary steps to move the hell out, which were greatly sped up by my understanding RA. I told an acquaintance all this a few weeks after the fact, and the only observation was "Well, you were the one who moved out, so you kinda lost, you know? He gets to stay." This just blew my mind, really. I get what I want(a room not inhabited by a cousin of Jabba the Hutt),and somehow I've "lost"? Er...alright, then, I guess I'll go walk to the locker room hanging my head in shame. And then jump on my bed and have a one-man dance party. In my new single room. Yeah, I laugh like this every time I lose.

Exhibit C is something we all do to some extent, probably without even realizing it a lot of the time. We all like to talk about things we’re interested in with our friends, whether it’s movies, TV, music, video games, sports, or whatever you’re into. How many times have you been talking about something with someone, and gotten into an argument over who told who about it, or who was listening to it first, or some other point of contention that doesn’t make a freaking bit of difference? Okay, fine, you told me about this band. In fact, you know what, you invented them. You were their founding member. Can I go back to listening now? Awesome, thanks. Like I said, we’re all guilty of this at some point or another, but some people will just not rest until they get credit for telling you about that band you like, or that show you watched. Once again, no XP or gold for winning that battle. In fact, if you check your inventory, you might have lost a friend or two.

My question is, why? What do we get out of this kind of petty, arbitrary nonsense? When I catch myself doing this(because yeah, I do it too) ten minutes after the fact, I’ll stop and think “Why did I even care about that?” I don't pat myself on the back for a point well-argued, I mostly just wonder why I'm being such a stuck-up jerk. It’s not important. It doesn’t make my day better. Sometimes it makes it worse, in fact. One of the reasons why my marriage to Pennanti is in solid working order is the fact that we both hate this kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, there are some things we’ll stay up arguing about until much later than we should have, but we like to think they’re serious issues that need resolving. These things do not include fighting over who did or didn’t do the dishes, or the laundry, or the kitty litter.

The words “I’m sorry”, “I was wrong” or “You were right” don’t taste all that great coming out, but they’re important ones if you plan on having functional social relationships that run on something other than shared spite, one-upmanship, and schadenfreude. Because sometimes, you ARE wrong. Sometimes, they're right. And sometimes you damn well should be apologizing. Seriously guys, let’s take a step back and consider what’s really worth making a stink about here. You might be pleasantly surprised at how much easier day-to-day living gets when you learn to stop, breathe, and just let stuff go. Life’s too short to keep a tally sheet.

end transmission

Monday Morning Rant: The Wise Mistik

(Yes, it's Thursday. But I wrote it on a Monday two weeks ago!)

This one is getting filed under “Pagan Pet Peeves”, though I could probably throw it under “New Age Personalities” just as easily. There’s a certain kind of person out there, who I’ve run into several times, who enters a ‘mode’ when they’re doing something New Agey. Their voice gets softer, higher pitched, and very, very dreamy. They stare deep into my eyes upon meeting, in an apparent attempt to “truly connect” to my inner person, and then promptly spend the rest of the conversation staring off blankly into space.

Honestly, if I thought these people were actually high, I’d cut them some slack. But they’re not. They’re acting out this bizarre interpretation of a wise mystic, filled with perfect trust and perfect love and oh-so-slightly more connected to karmic wafting than me. This is generally the purview of tarot readers, reiki practitioners, and teachers – anyone who’s trying too hard to gently remind everyone that they know more than their customers or students.
The Dalai Lama does not act like this, folks, and everyone who does drives me up the goddam wall.

They try so hard to “connect”, that they completely miss making an actual connection. Normally, I stand up and walk away. (I understand it’s part of some people’s shtick at Ren Faire, and I can appreciate a good marketing ploy, but still, eurgh) If I can’t though – if I’m in a class, or a workshop, or talking to someone nearby when Wise Mistik (sp intentional) pipes up – it brings out a very particular side. I’m not really trolling, at least not to the standards of the internet, but dry quips, pithy asides, and blasé statements meant for a giggle just start flowing freely. I can see it starting to slowly grate, but mostly I’m just aiming for a snerk. Maybe even a real smile.

When I want to connect to someone, I smile. If I’m really trying, then I try to make them laugh. Laughter is pretty much at the root of human connection, and if it’s uncomfortable, then something is wrong. Laughter does not undermine connection or understanding, it fosters it. Staring deeply into strangers’ eyes, while uttering breathy statements and nodding sagely, is the opposite of connection. It’s pantomime, a monologue designed with pauses for other actors to put in their own monologue bits, but no one is interacting.

Actually, I’ve seen Christian priests, and especially Sunday school teachers, who do the same thing. So I guess it’s not a New-Age specific personality, but I could do with it being a little less prevalent!

Ok, rant complete. Slack returning in 3…2…1…

Blessed Be!
Pennanti

Monday Morning Rant: Pagan Cred Is Ridiculous

Let's talk about pagan cred. Because it's ridiculous, and there's way too much of it out there.

First, let's define pagan cred. This is a quality, measured by the insecure and dictatorial, that defines how 'pagan' you are. It's generally measured by other people, but there are things that can be done to beef it up, or if caught short, decrease it. Of course, anyone that actually cares is not going to call it this. They're going to complain about how "serious" someone is as a pagan, or talk about how "experienced" they are in whatever realm.

And there's also nothing more obnoxious than accidentally walking into a pagan cred pissing match with someone.

Now, the first time that happened to me, I A) never saw it coming, and B) it happened over email, which was a good thing for my response time.

I was running Pagan Student Union at my SUNY school, and it was nearing the end of the year, when I got an email from a transfer student for the next semester, inquiring about the club. Neat! She seemed interested in being very involved....a little too involved, actually, considering she offered to take the club over for me, sight unseen, because of her previous experience at her old school. Just in case the pressure and time was a little too intense for me, you understand.

I responded pretty much right off the bat, letting her know we were active, we met once a week, we focused on this that and the other. Also, that we had lots of opportunities for involvement....which did not involve me quitting out of the blue.

What I got back: "You know, hun, I've been talking to lots of elders in your area about this club, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done. You might not be up to the necessary leadership, but don't worry, I'm a Leo and we're very good at this kind of thing!"

Um. What.

Thank all gods for email. I took about two days, but asked her very nicely who she'd been talking to, what did she mean by "elder", and reiterated the idea, a little more plainly, that I was not stepping down based on two emails from a complete stranger.

Apparently, "elder" meant "anyone who's been a practicing pagan for 10 years or more." I did a quick count on my fingers and realized that, at 18, I was only 3 years short of being an elder. Cool! No one ever told me that before! (Where's a punctuation mark that means 'sarcasm' when you need one?) Hell, I was gonna make elder before I made legal drinking age!

What a load of utter crap. I can't even remember what I responded after that, but I think it was along the lines of "Well, we'll meet you next year, have a good summer", and then spent the whole summer slamming my face into a wall whenever I thought about it. (As a side note, karma is a BITCH - she moved down early, accidentally made friends with MY friends (non-pagans, small world), and then the housing authority randomly assigned her to live in my suite. I wish I was kidding.)

But this was, definitively, the first time I'd run into someone who was obsessed with cred. What you read, how often you read it, how long you'd been around, how much jewelry you owned - the list of things you could say or do to affect your rep as told by her was positively astonishing. But working with her, casually, for a year definitely helped prepare me to run into others.

Now, I have a few ways of dealing with it, dependent on situation.

1) You are talking to a new group that you are thinking about joining. Pissing match begins - well, we do this, and that, and if you don't, you don't count, also, we might not want you anyway since you're not serious enough. This is different than a polite "We seem to practice in different directions, maybe you should try Other Group for a better fit." The difference is - Are they sneering? If yes, it's about pagan cred. In this case, there's one easy, workable option. Leave. And never come back.

I like to hope that social Darwinism will help kill these little groups across time and space whenever I take my own advice on this.

2) You have just discovered a co-worker or other faint acquaintance is pagan! They start peppering you with questions, with a specific bend.

Frequently, you can give these people enough rope to hang themselves, which is nice. Last year, a nice older Wiccan walked right into it with queries on what I believed, how I practiced, etc, until she gave me a sympathetic little smile and said, "Well, dear, I've been practicing for 4 years now. How long have you been pagan?" "12 years." She never brought time or experience up again.

Patently, I'm not an elder. I'm 24. Someone needed to tell this woman that, though, and I was irritated enough that it wasn't going to be me. Regardless, my standard practice with the faint acquaintance who wants to flex pagan cred, is to let them talk until they accidentally get rude and shame themselves into shutting up, or at least being more polite. It works better than you'd think.

3) You are talking to someone, not group affiliated, and not someone you work with or is otherwise unavoidable.  You get some leeway here.
• Do they honestly know more than you? Might be ok to let them blather on a bit before you walk away. Worst case scenario, you get some good book recs before getting so annoyed you roll your eyes and extricate.
• Are they up front, right out rude? Tell 'em to shove it. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often.

Of course, most of the pagan creditors fall into two camps; insecure eclectics and Reconstructionists of various flavors. It's not all reconstructionists that annoy the hell out of me...just the ones that tell me I'm doing it wrong. Hey, I'm not claiming to be practicing something from hundreds and thousands of years ago. I am quite up front that I am making up half this shit as I go along. The only part I'm doing wrong is giving the impression I care what other people have to say on the matter...if they're rude about it, anyway.

I've always wondered - do Obnoxious Reconstructionists ever realize how close they sound to Christian Fundies? Research is one thing, worthy of respect. Telling everyone around that they know what they're doing because they've studied the Eddas/Bhagavitas/Bible more intently than you is sort of a multi-religion pain in the ass.

With this post, I'm pretty sure anyone with "standards" who ever reads this will flee my blog forever. I'm ok with that.

Blessed Be,

Pennanti

Monday Morning Rant: Too Many Beautiful Snowflakes

Ok, does anyone else ever run into this and get super irritated, or is this just a personal community pet peeve? As I understand it, in more 'mainstream' cultures, people often strive to meet some idea of 'normal'. I only have limited experience though.


Now, as soon as you hit the pagan, goth, indie music, hippie, nerd, and geek areas of America, you get the exact opposite. People striving to be seen as different, unique, or weird as possible. Notice the modifier "seen as". Some of them are more successful at it than others, admittedly. But these statements and phrases drive me out of my goddamn mind.


"Oh, my taste in music is really weird, you won't like it" (Please. Stop. I'm begging you.)
"I'm a mysterious person. No one knows anything about me, I'm just hard to figure out." (Well, I already know you're pretentious, shall we stop there?)
"Oh, I'm a total weirdo. Everyone says so!" (They're just being nice, dear.)

//insert offended comment/glare when someone else is pointed out as weird// "I'm stranger than that!", etc. (Well, you certainly want to be.)


Has anyone else noticed that these hard-core "I'm so strange" protesters aren't really as strange as all that? Now, I've met some weird people, both affable and ...potentially dangerous...and the one thing they had in common was a total inability to realize they didn't fit all that well into groups. 
Weird is not going dancing in the rain (not in these here parts, anyway). Weird is actually trying to stab your boyfriend when he puts on a knife-proof vest and dares you to test it. 
Weird is not music from other cultures. Weird is believing there is a demon gateway in your brain and you must be friends forever with certain pretty girls to keep it from eating the world. 
Weird is not wearing cat-ears. Weird is emailing people you just met with "YOU ARE MY TRUE FAMILY AND WE WILL ALWAYS BE TOGETHER" . 

Attention-seeking behavior is never weird, just obnoxious. Behavior that constantly garners attention, but you don't know why, probably means you're weird.


I don't think I ever offended anyone unintentionally more than when I suggested using his ipod on a car trip, and brushed off "Oh, you'll never like it, it's full of too much weird stuff" with "You haven't met Darla, now her music is weird. I'm sure we'll love yours!" This sort of comment apparently means "You are a boring, ordinary person. "


In Darla's case, I've never met anyone else, including my grandparents, who loves 20's, 30's and 40's top hits quite as much as her.  But then, she also makes her own hoop skirts. There's a lot about her to love. :)


Back to the pet peeve. I won't pretend I wasn't a bit guilty of this at one point, but as soon as I realized how obnoxious it is, I tried very hard to knock it off. I think I know where some of it comes from, though.


Everybody wants to belong to a group. It's a human thing. In the case of the above named sub-cultures, one of the defining characteristics of those groups is not fitting in to the mainstream. Literally, being off-kilter means you belong . To the kind of insecure, self-conscious person who worries about it, anyway.


Groups made up entirely of misfits totally don't have any problems with being insecure or self-conscious, right? Right?


Ok, maybe I should cut people some slack. And it sort of makes sense that if being weird means you belong, and you really want to belong, than the weirder you are, the more you deserve to be there, right? I mean, in a subconscious kinda reasoning way.


More than half of my irritation comes from my total inability to gently point out to people that this habit is A) obnoxious and B) absolutely transparent. I generally end up not saying anything at all, and slowly grinding my teeth to points.


I'm not really that strange or startling, just another white chick from the suburbs, with a crappy office job and a fairly entertaining social life. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.


So: how to tell someone something bothers you? Does anyone know how to gently tell someone, "Would you please chill out? We like you much better when you're not trying to prove something." If I could just master that, this pet peeve would probably go away. But honestly, it just seems mean - here's this person who's already insecure enough already, without having someone come down on them with "Knock it off, no one is THAT unique." And by the time I want to say something, that's pretty much the gentlest wording that comes to mind.


Also, does anyone know a good remedy for a bitten tongue? :P


Slack returning in 3...2...1...and go.

Blessed be!
Pennanti

Monday Morning Rant: I was walking across my bedroom, in June 2000, when I found myself. I didn't even have to go to Tibet!

Pagan Parents on the edge started this unintentionally with Fate and Freewill. It was sparked by the mention of the concept of someone's True Nature.

I think it can be widely accepted that while there's a growing contingent of little pagans growing up raised in their parents' faith*, most pagans 'found' paganism as they grew up, and moved to it away from what they had been raised in.

It stands to reason from there that most pagans were and/or are questioners, people who are seeking answers in and outside of themselves, on any number of topics, and go seeking answers.

That's the logical part. In my personal experience, almost every pagan I know went through a period of "trying to find myself", and some of them still are. It easily degrades into a discussion of your True self vs. the image you show the world, and what's real, and what isn't, and I've killed many a night until dawn on the various topicii**.

So I thought I'd take a minute to explain why both "trying to find yourself" as a phrase and the false assumed dichotomy between your True Self and your Public Self drives me absolutely insane.

When somebody says that an action wasn't really them, or they don't know who they are, or they haven't found themselves yet,  I just want to ask -

Who else could you be?

I went through the fairly standard teenage identity crisis, though my father told me I went through it a bit early. Somewhere between 12 and 14, for the most part. I agonized over masks, and representations. I struggled with depression, anxiety, emptiness on the inside. I felt lost, and alienated, and pretty much everyone reading this knows exactly what I mean, which is something I take comfort in. It's nice to be understood.

Isn't that what being a teenager is about? Struggling with your identity? The more I struggled with it, the more lost I felt. I was by turns nice to my parents, or surly. A flirt at school, or a tomboy. Media sells the idea that you're supposed to be consistent, and that definitely made everything seem even more important. Who was I? And through this, I found faith in the Goddess leading me to peace (because she loved me no matter who I was, so it didn't matter much, see?) And I prayed, meditated, had insomnia. Until an answer unexpectedly found me.

It was like the thought inserted itself, that it didn't actually come from me. It was so sudden, so alien. I wasn't even consciously meditating - it arose from the anxiety program running silently in the background, mulling over things to be anxious about even as I went about my routine. (You all know what I'm talking about, right?)

Who else could you be?

This came loaded with overtones and subtle innuendos, but the overarching meaning was - you can't be anyone else. You are only yourself. Always. The truth of your actions and your thoughts and your feelings is the sum total of your being. Things might not be as they appear, but how they appear is an intrinsic part of it. Regardless, "I don't know who I am" is an empty statement, better described as "I don't know who I want to be", and possibly including "I don't want to face who I am right now".

Hard on the heels of this thought came the notion that I was a whiny, sleep-deprived, self-absorbed person, by all accounts and purposes for the last year or so. Also that all the pretense in the world that I knew what I was doing wasn't even fooling myself, let alone anybody else. So that was a starting point - self-absorbed I could live with. Whiny, definitely not. Some changes needed to be made.

You are what you think, what you do, how you act. That's who you are. There's no secret, much better person somewhere inside everyone, that's not really like that. And the world would be a much better place if people would just face up to that. It would also have less hypocrites.

As an end point to the rant, I'm aware that this doesn't have anything to do with the actual podcast topic that started it. It's just the phrase True Nature that gets me. And for people who aren't necessarily ashamed so much as confused - I wish they'd stop getting confused about not having a whole picture. Sure, you're lost. If someone handed you a map, you'd have no idea where you were on it. But you can see a gas station, and there's a cross roads, so make a decision, and eventually, you'll know where you are. At which point, you can figure out where you want to be. But if you just stand there, wailing, "I'm Lost!" well...you're not getting anywhere, are you?

Ok, rant complete, slack returning in 3, 2, 1...and go.

Blessed Be!

Pennanti

(The hardest thing about this post is writing in second person as little as possible. But I know it annoys the hell out of me when other bloggers do that - "you do this, and you do that" - it always puts me on the defensive as a reader, and I end up irritated and entirely missing the point, which is that the blogger was generalizing a behavior I probably recognize. Reading back through, there's still too much 2nd person, and no one would even believe how much I cut out.)


*(or spirituality or whatever, we can do a whole thing on terminology at a later date. Please take "faith" as "whatever you do in that direction"
**(Not a word. Totally should be!)

Who you calling fluffy?

Has anyone else noticed the slow drift of the term fluffy? It seems to become just a bit more encompassing every year. It’s possible, I suppose, that this monstrous definition it’s turned into is applied most strictly by the involved and obsessed (and, loud) on teh interwebs, and the quieter lurkers are cheerfully ignoring it’s scope, but I don’t like it anyway.

Once upon a time, I used “fluff-bunny” for a very specific stereotype. It applied to that person, generally a girl, between the ages of 11 and 19 who’s JUST discovered Wicca. Mostly, Silver Ravenwolf. And it’s TEH NEATEST THING EVAR. There’s connotations of enthusiasm inversely proportional to effort and research, and starry-eyed expectations of magical fixes for everything. A general ineffectiveness at life. It could be wrapped up neatly with the phrase, “Cute, but harmless”.

The final...connotation...involved was the expectation that this fluff-bunny was eventually going to get bored and wander away. This mostly bore out in the last year of high school or first years at college, as they drifted into other more entertaining things and eventually settled comfortably back into whatever style of belief they were raised with.

So the definition was thus: Young, enthusiastic, lacking drive, seeking answers, and likely to go back to being a tolerant, harmless sort of Christian. Who might grab a Tarot reading at Ren Faire every now and again.

Does this reflect how you see it used now? It doesn’t for me. I see fluff-bunny expanded so far that it’s now a range, a “fluff-factor” (Thank you Fire Lyte!). It’s used to beef up your own personal pagan cred by denigrating someone else’s commitment. It’s used to say:

- I find your belief silly and dismissable
- You don’t know what you’re talking about
- You haven’t done enough reading or research
- You’re only playing. *I* am serious.

I find myself taken a little aback, actually. What use is this term anymore? It wasn’t ever precisely nice, but it’s been taken to a pejorative level that has people on the active defensive. I commonly see or hear discussions of belief and practice front-loaded with, “Well, I know it’s a little silly, but I...” or “I know it’s not accurate, but I like to...” in a quiet, self-deprecatory tone. Pagans are afraid of judgement by each other. What happened to the confident declarations of “I practice what I believe, and what works for me,” and “You don’t need centuries of history for validation.”?

Personally, I’m sticking with my own maxim. I’ve had it for so many years I can’t remember where I took it from: “There are a thousand paths to God, and every man’s is different”.

Blessed Be,
Pennanti