Here’s the thing: I am a reader. No really, seriously, a reader. Not quite a book a day. During vacation it sometimes works out to a little more than a book a day and during the busy baking times – like Christmas – it works out to much less than a book a day.
I don’t only read books, mind you. Not a lot of magazines mainly British Columbia Magazine and the occasional Harrowsmith Country Life. I also read various blogs and online columns. Some of the blogs belong to friends and such, some to strangers that write in a way that interests me.
One of the odd things about being a compulsive reader (I’m not sure if that is an actual condition, but if it is it certainly applies to me) is that sometimes you read something in a way it wasn’t intended to be read. Say what?
Ok, here’s an example: I read a weekly sex advice column (yeah, I get the irony. Shut up). When I first found the column I went through the archives and read every single column in it. Two years worth of letters. And I did it all over the course of one weekend.
Not surprisingly, I don’t remember many specific questions but I certainly remember the overall impression: we (and I mean ALL of us) are obsessed with “normal”, which is kinda sad given that normal is not a constant, nor is it something that any two people can agree on a definition of. T
he vast majority – and possibly all – of the letters could be boiled down to our fear of not beeing seen as normal. I like this Is that weird? I don’t like that Am I normal? I don’t look like this Is that ok? I do look that. Is that odd? It was quite the eye-opener. I knew, in general, that society likes to conform. Even those who think they are not conforming are nevertheless conforming. The teens that I know that are the most proud of NOT fitting in are almost exact copies of everyone else in the group they have chosen to identify with. I just didn’t know to what extent acceptance – particularly in such a sensitive area as sexuality – mattered. Really mattered. I learned a whole lot of other stuff too but the big lesson was to question myself when I worried about what was normal.
Recently I read many years worth of archived blog entries written by someone I don’t even know. It was interesting in a sad sort of way to watch the marriage of the writer slowly fall apart. I’m assuming the blogger didn’t include every detail but such a life-change couldn’t help but be hinted at over the course of years. Despite the occasional hints, I finished the whole thing wondering how and why it all happened. Early entries spoke of such love and compatability and then there were suddenly hints of anger and resentment. I thought that perhaps as a non-player I’d be able to see some sort of ultimate truth about the whole situation. Turns out that there is no ultimate truth, at least not in a story half-told. Perhaps if the other half blogged the reason behind the sea change would become clear. And perhaps not. Maybe this all comes back to me and my own marriage break down. However many years later it is, I still find myself looking for the “why” of it all. And the truth - ultimate or not - is that I don't really need to know why.
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2 comments:
That was one of your best, most thought provoking blogs. In two parts - the need to feel "normal" and the marriage break-down.
If people could discuss with their partners not strangers, normal wouldn't matter, would it? But of course we can't. Thanks to John Calvin and John Knox who gave the entire notion of sex a bad name. So we discuss it with strangers.
Looking for insight into the marriage break-down was doomed to failure because we never write everything. Even if the other half blogged, I doubt you would be any the wiser as to why. You may have seen it coming sooner. and maybe the people themselves don't always know why or don't/won't admit it.
This was a really good post.
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