seriousness and silliness

[asakiyume]

"Their rapt immersion evokes a familiar resentment in me"
I remember the ninja girl telling me about a scene in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, with everyone in the family in their own corner of the house, deeply engaged in their private pursuits. I remember at the time I felt implicated--she didn't mention it in an accusing way, just in passing--but still: it seemed to me even then something that we, as a family, were prone to.

So now I'm actually reading Fun Home (for book group), and I arrived at that part, and it's even more indicting:

It was a vicious circle, though. The more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew.

Don't get me wrong: as a private person with lots of things I like doing alone, I'm not advocating lots of enforced togetherness and activities that are first choice for no one. Especially now: my kids are all out in the world or are very shortly going to be venturing out into the world--it's right for them to be doing their own thing. But Bechdel describes her natal family as like an artists' colony, and that's not what I want for when we do all come together. I guess where I'm at now is that we should be looking out at each other with interest and receptivity (and love)--that that's what a family does for its members.

1992, as seen from 1969
On a lighter note, the healing angel got a collection of Philip K. Dick's short stories for Christmas. I've never read any Philip K. Dick! So, we've been reading some of these stories after dinner. Last night we read The Electric Ant (1969). It's about a guy who discovers he's a robot and decides to tamper with his inner workings to try to alter his perceptions of reality . . . or perhaps reality itself, guys! Like psychedelic drug trips, only with computers.

His reality is mediated via a roll of punch-card magnetic tape. There are flying cars called squibs and video phones (that you dial, and that are stationary) called fones, and if you want to access a computer (a big giant UNIVAC-style thing), you have to dial it up--no personal computers. It all takes place in the far future of 1992.

Comments

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

It can be so hard to balance space and privacy with connection and family!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes it is, and I've been reassessing. It's complicated: at this stage, as I say in the post, I need to be (and generally I do feel this way) encouraging the kids to have confidence in themselves as adventurers who are setting off on their own journeys (but are always welcome back for R&R). But at the same time, I'm aware now, in ways I wasn't before, of how my own peculiarities encouraged a kind of selfish isolationism ... it's a bit rich for me to notice it **now**, but there you go.

I was thinking more broadly of the annoying term "dysfunctional family." I know there are some horror shows out there, cases of abusive parents, or cases with massive deceptions or neglect ... but it seems to me that in the bell part of the bell curve, you've got lots of families with ups and downs and tensions and misunderstandings and regrets and so on, struggling to do the right thing by one another, but not always agreeing on what that is or how to manifest it. And okay, sometimes, maybe even lots of times, that can feel like barely functioning, but that's life too... so...

(so in this comment you get the post I didn't make--didn't make it because I didn't know where to go with it...)

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

It's an important conversation, but a difficult one too because it requires us to doubt what we've already done, and doubts can lead to regrets, and sometimes regrets motivate us to make changes that might or might not be better for us and our families...

There are things I regret doing and not doing with Dev. There are times I didn't push him to do something that I now think I should have pushed for because, in trying to "correct" what I considered a mistake my parents made with me, I think I went too far on the pendulum-swing by not offering *enough* direction. So now, like you, I'm wondering if I created something I need to fix or merely created something different! :)