One Esk Nineteen, me, and the other guy

[metaphortunate]

Thursday when I was home sick I decided to start watching Orphan Black, since I hear so many good things about it. And then I was totally unable to because Netflix doesn’t stream it. (Which is just infuriating, because I can stream something Mr. E isn’t interested in watching, but if I get a DVD Mr. E isn’t interested in watching, then I’m blocking him from getting any more DVDs until I watch it, which in the case of a whole 6 episode disc could be a year at this point, which is an unreasonable length of time to prevent Mr. E from getting another DVD.) Anyway, I wasted some time being frustrated about that, and then I decided to watch some more Orange is the New Black. I got up to episode 3 season 1. (I know everyone else is up to season 2. That’s how fast I watch TV shows.) It’s really good! Looking forward to getting the chance to watch ep 4.

Anyway, I paused between episodes to make some tea, and I was idly thinking, “Wait…I meant to watch Orphan Black, why did I change my mind?” And I answered myself, “Oh right, cause I’m not feeling great, I think I thought a comedy might be easier to WAIT THAT’S NOT TRUE AT ALL IT WASN’T STREAMING.”

I didn’t change my mind.

But I got to see my brain confabulate what I had intended and what actually happened and come up with a rationale about how I changed my mind.

(Where your eyes don't go a filthy scarecrow waves its broomstick arms/ And does a parody of each unconscious thing you do/ When you turn around to look it's gone behind you/ On its face it's wearing your confused expression/ Where your eyes don't go)

Speaking of the silent monster(s) who share your identity, I recently read Ancillary Justice, and it is just as good as everyone has been saying it is.

I know not everyone is pleased with Leckie’s approach to rendering a agendered language, but the use of feminine pronouns throughout gave the whole universe an enjoyably retro 70s lesbian/feminist-separatist sci fi feel for me, so I dug it.

I wish I’d known that it was the first part of a trilogy. Actually I wish it hadn’t been the first part of a trilogy, because fuck trilogies, can people please write some more just one goddamn book? But I am pleased there’s a chance we’ll learn more about how the ships absorb their ancillaries - the glimpse we saw of Justice of Toren getting a new body brought online was fascinating. I will be picking up the sequel, which of course makes me part of the problem.

(Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of)

I find the question of free will vs. fate in the sense of causality, physical law, etc., so boring at this point that I am reluctant to give it even as much space as I have in this sentence. But the not only multi-bodied but multi-minded beings of Ancillary Justice provide an excellent allegory with which to look at the much more interesting question of how free our will is when it is limited, not by fate, but by our own minds. Anaander Mianaai’s technically internal conflict illustrates it most dramatically, of course, but I ask you: how many times have you firmly decided that you would do something, and then, simply not done it? Let me tell you how many times I have logically and rationally decided that I am not hungry and I do not need to snack and those pastries aren’t good for me anyway and then quietly gone over and gotten myself a donut. Or let me wonder - because I can’t tell you - how many times some wordless part of me has taken an action or made a decision, and then what I with somewhat black humor call my consciousness fills in the backstory of an explanation, as I did on Thursday, about OITNB - only so slowly and clumsily, because of my illness, that for once I actually caught myself doing it. Someone in here is doing their will, but I am damn sure that it is often not what I think of as me.

In our world, of course, one body to one person; no matter how many conflicting impulses or personality parts or what have you within one body, I must treat it as one unitary being; and so I personally must come to the darkly amusing conclusion that everyone but me has free will. Because from my point of view, you are one voice saying one thing, and you say what you like. But with my panoramic view of the inside of my own skull, I am locked in here with a huge, silent, invisible, and only dimly deduced presence that can’t be reasoned with, can’t be questioned, and very often, can’t be moved from its choices by all the will that I can bring to bear.

(Though I note one more thing. I myself am not good at getting myself to do what I have decided to do. That is partly because I do not practice it. Conscious will, I do know, is a thing that gets easier with practice. I don’t practice it, deliberately, because I know a thing or two about myself. And one thing I know by now is that this consciousness of mine, the wordy part, you know, is the part of me most easily swayed. It’s the part of me that can be convinced to starve myself. To hate myself. It’s the part that goes on diets. It’s the part that divides all my days up into duties on the calendar. And the part that I can’t reach - I know, after all these years of living with it, that’s the part that won’t let me starve us, whether of food or of fun. I could get better at weakening it. I don’t dare.)

Comments

[kaberett]

yes, yes, yes.

[loligo]

Conscious will, I do know, is a thing that gets easier with practice.

Supposedly there's research that shows that, but the only research finding about willpower that ever gets demonstrated in my life is the one about willpower being a finite resource. (Very, very finite in my case.)

[metaphortunate]

For me it's like a muscle. Work it regularly AND REST IT regularly, it gets stronger. Overwork it, it fails; perhaps dramatically.

[norah]

In our world, of course, one body to one person; no matter how many conflicting impulses or personality parts or what have you within one body, I must treat it as one unitary being; and so I personally must come to the darkly amusing conclusion that everyone but me has free will. Because from my point of view, you are one voice saying one thing, and you say what you like. But with my panoramic view of the inside of my own skull, I am locked in here with a huge, silent, invisible, and only dimly deduced presence that can’t be reasoned with, can’t be questioned, and very often, can’t be moved from its choices by all the will that I can bring to bear.

Oh my God, yes. Yes this. Less as I get older but this was my twenties in a nutshell.

[norah]

And also this: And one thing I know by now is that this consciousness of mine, the wordy part, you know, is the part of me most easily swayed. It’s the part of me that can be convinced to starve myself. To hate myself. It’s the part that goes on diets. It’s the part that divides all my days up into duties on the calendar.

I, um, relate to this too. But I did practice, and I let it win, and called it growing up. And most days I'm better off for it, because I spent my twenties drunk and chain-smoking and screwing a long parade of people I was variously fond of, and feeling like shit because I was HELPLESS to it and I didn't know why I couldn't "just" do the things that my will wanted to do.

[serene]

It has been a lifelong job, getting to know and like that person in me who does the REAL deciding. From little things like putting hooks for the jackets at the front door because I know that person will not go hang her jacket in the closet no matter what, to refusing to do weight-loss diets because I know that really pisses her off and makes her feel rebellious (against whom?), I have learned to take her into account when I'm doing things.

A strange source for validation of this approach is the organizing book called Organizing from the Inside Out, which basically encourages us to organize for the way we actually do things, rather than the way we think we should do them. Made me feel all grown-up and shit to realize I've already gotten fairly good at recognizing my actual tendencies and treating them as valid rather than something I can overcome if I try hard enough.

[metaphortunate]

Yeah, designing your life for the way your brain actually works is surprisingly helpful!

[tam_nonlinear]

We only realize how much of the brain is busy lying to us when we catch it doing a bad job of it. My favorite is when I only catch a partial glimpse of some words and my brain tells me, with a joyous certainty, that it says something ridiculously improbable. But your brain is doing that all the time, just usually better than that. I heard one neurologist I like (I suspect VS Ramachandran, but my brain may be lying to me) talk about how your brain is a parliment and it had lots of subcommittees and you only get to see the bills that passed and, just like real politics, there's a lot of lying, scheming, and behind the scenes nonsense going on. It doesn't matter what the truth is, this is what gets us re-elected. And the voting system is rigged.

[metaphortunate]

Hah! Probably a good metaphor. Pretty scary, too.

[dr_memory]

If you have amazon prime, you can stream the first season of Orphan Black for free, FYI etc.

[metaphortunate]

I will, but first I have to get through the rest of OITNB, because I am totally into it now.