![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nov. 18th, 2006
(no subject)
Nov. 18th, 2006 04:21 pmI've got a stubborn need to do things my own way, even/especially when others might have gone from where I'm starting to where I want to go before. I've never made a good -ist or -ian (even my name ends in -ien), probably for that reason. I'm not sure there is a root cause to my perpetual "fuck you" response to authority, but this is certainly tied in there. It's been pointed out to me (most recently by servingdonuts) that I may be reinventing the wheel, but it'll be my wheel, made my way, when I'm done.
The problem is, this often makes it very difficult for me to talk to others covering similar ground. I don't think it's a fundamental fear of contagion as much as insecurity about my own position in relation to that of others, particularly if they have institutional (no matter how small) power behind them. Well, that in addition to my peculiar relationship with language; I'm often not at all content to presume the same words carry meaning the same way to different people, and I'm particularly concerned about this when it's my meaning (it's fun to say semiotics warped my brain, but I was like this long before I encountered that subdiscipline). I tend to encounter the most trouble, I think, in the areas of sexuality, gender and invisible stuff, though it's been problematic for me academically, politically, and in countless other ways (thankfully, aesthetics aren't one of them; people expect differences of opinion there).
Maybe I'm lucky and am encountering more people lately who are willing to engage the amorphous unending asymmetrical dialectic of constant redifinition and repositioning; maybe my approach has changed, possibly even signifying a greater confidence in my own positionality such that it can sustain contact with institutionally backed positions. I don't know, honestly, but gradually over time, this has seemed to be getting better, or at least more productive.
Don't worry, though; I'll always pack a mean "fuck you".
The problem is, this often makes it very difficult for me to talk to others covering similar ground. I don't think it's a fundamental fear of contagion as much as insecurity about my own position in relation to that of others, particularly if they have institutional (no matter how small) power behind them. Well, that in addition to my peculiar relationship with language; I'm often not at all content to presume the same words carry meaning the same way to different people, and I'm particularly concerned about this when it's my meaning (it's fun to say semiotics warped my brain, but I was like this long before I encountered that subdiscipline). I tend to encounter the most trouble, I think, in the areas of sexuality, gender and invisible stuff, though it's been problematic for me academically, politically, and in countless other ways (thankfully, aesthetics aren't one of them; people expect differences of opinion there).
Maybe I'm lucky and am encountering more people lately who are willing to engage the amorphous unending asymmetrical dialectic of constant redifinition and repositioning; maybe my approach has changed, possibly even signifying a greater confidence in my own positionality such that it can sustain contact with institutionally backed positions. I don't know, honestly, but gradually over time, this has seemed to be getting better, or at least more productive.
Don't worry, though; I'll always pack a mean "fuck you".