Joanna McMeikan - Thoughts


Hello! Thank you for visiting www.joannamcmeikan.com, I hope you're enjoying surfing around my site... 05/18/05 - Who am I? I’ve been thinking a lot about memory and identity. I wrote a letter about it to a couple of friends, and thought I would post some of our thoughts here in case any of you have something to contribute to the ongoing discussion… If you do, please e mail me at the address below. Someone told me the cells of the human body regenerate 100% within a time span of seven years, which is to say that the physical person writing these thoughts bears zero cellular relation to the 1998 me, recently moved to California from England, who was working on “Frasier” and living in a studio apartment with short hair, a barely functional car and a Murphy bed. Same skeleton and muscular structure and so forth I guess, but all different cells. Add to that how weird memory is -- how it seems to select almost random moments to store and recall, and - at least in my case - other moments, some of great import, to lose irretrievably... and a life being lived becomes in almost every aspect like a constantly shifting, morphing, moving celluloid strip of flickering images and flickering cells, some shining more brightly and being more persistent in their need to be actualised, to be made real, than others; but none being final - and none being absolute. Identity, then, at its very best, in its ideal state, would be a zen-like awareness of what I suppose you might call the soul, the god in the machine kind of a thing, with no need to cling to any one image or state or cell at all; and at its worst (as I believe it is generally to be found, at least in western society) is a total construct made up of whichever random flickering images we choose to make absolute… and then the longer we allow them actuality and the longer we and those around us endorse and reinforce them, the stronger their own false notion of their concreteness, their existence, becomes. I find this bizarrely comforting. If nothing is final and nothing is definite, then nothing is unchangeable and there is always a choice of some sort in who we are going to be. If nothing is concrete then no mistake is totally irredeemable. This is not to say there are no consequences – just that there are choices remaining, no matter how bad the transgression. I suppose the worse the transgression, the more squeezed and limited the spectrum of choice becomes - nonetheless, even the death row inmate on his last walk has the choice to die quietly and with dignity, or passionately with tears and screams; to attempt an escape or to offer an apology. As a 32 year old brought up in western society where identity is king, I don't believe I have much chance of ever attaining the zen state i would like, since the lazy, societally-biased part of me resists dedicating the enormous amounts of time and study and practice it would take to get there, and even resists fully understanding that it is far more important than anything else I could ever do. Still, I think it is useful as a real world application in letting me/us know in a very real way that any aspect of our general pattern of behaviour really is changeable, since it's all flickering electrical impulse and squidgy cells anyway. I suppose changing anything in your “identity” is just a matter of choosing the other mental path every time you come to a well trodden crossroad… Of course it's difficult, especially in a scenario like addiction, where every cell you are currently made of is fighting you every step of the way... but it's possible. ...So in the end it comes down to the same simple hard work solution as always... but the whole issue is interesting to me. My friends had a few sideways angles – Maurice suggested that identity might be “like a buzzing hum of a rumour that's whispered around from person to person and their version of us is as true, or truer than anything we think of as ourselves”; and tempered my idea by suggesting that “Maybe it makes no sense to say I am X or Y. But it makes sense to say I once was W and seem to be heading to Y, so that means I am roughly between the two right now”. He also suggested the connectivity idea, which to me is more of a soul/spirit concern than an identity one, but I agree with it entirely – that “maybe our identity lies in who we pass our energy into and the marks these occasions leave in those people, and before this time we are a potential someone, or a functional someone, but not yet quite anyone.” Lastly, he came up with the winner… “Maybe we all have invisible barcodes on our souls n god has special scanning equipment so he knows who's who.” I’m hoping he’s right. But just in case he isn’t, I’m going to try to keep my sense of myself in flux as much as I possibly can. If nothing else, it should make the songs more interesting. Read more about Maurice at www.mauricesuckling.com Random List: Best TV show: The Shield I am listening to: Tori Amos, "The Beekeeper" - yes, still this same cd. The more I listen to it, the better it gets. Saw her live last month and, despite the odd drooling fit, she was truly amazing. A genius of mythologic proportions. Favorite things today: Replanting ivy that I thought was dead and having it spring back to glorious life in spite of my black thumb. My cat's injured foot getting better. Least favorite thing today: Mormons using cheesy TV adverts to try to rake in converts. ****************************************** MORE POINTLESS RAMBLINGS TO COME SOON! **************************************** READ EARLIER RAMBLINGS BY CLICKING BELOW: 4/29/2004 - Birthday Ramblings 6/20/2004 - Princesses in the Post Office 8/02/2004 - The Mythology of the Past 9/23/2004 - Brownie and Mister Whiskers 12/13/2004 - Ostriches and Soapboxes 2/27/2005 - Oscars and Finger Puppets **************************************** PLEASE E MAIL ME IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS! joanna@joannamcmeikan.com Write to Joanna with your thoughts, questions, opinions, suggestions.**

Hello! Thank you for visiting www.joannamcmeikan.com, I hope you're enjoying surfing around my site...

05/18/05 - Who am I?

I’ve been thinking a lot about memory and identity.

I wrote a letter about it to a couple of friends, and thought I would post some of our thoughts here in case any of you have something to contribute to the ongoing discussion… If you do, please e mail me at the address below.

Someone told me the cells of the human body regenerate 100% within a time span of seven years, which is to say that the physical person writing these thoughts bears zero cellular relation to the 1998 me, recently moved to California from England, who was working on “Frasier” and living in a studio apartment with short hair, a barely functional car and a Murphy bed. Same skeleton and muscular structure and so forth I guess, but all different cells. Add to that how weird memory is -- how it seems to select almost random moments to store and recall, and - at least in my case - other moments, some of great import, to lose irretrievably... and a life being lived becomes in almost every aspect like a constantly shifting, morphing, moving celluloid strip of flickering images and flickering cells, some shining more brightly and being more persistent in their need to be actualised, to be made real, than others; but none being final - and none being absolute.

Identity, then, at its very best, in its ideal state, would be a zen-like awareness of what I suppose you might call the soul, the god in the machine kind of a thing, with no need to cling to any one image or state or cell at all; and at its worst (as I believe it is generally to be found, at least in western society) is a total construct made up of whichever random flickering images we choose to make absolute… and then the longer we allow them actuality and the longer we and those around us endorse and reinforce them, the stronger their own false notion of their concreteness, their existence, becomes.

I find this bizarrely comforting. If nothing is final and nothing is definite, then nothing is unchangeable and there is always a choice of some sort in who we are going to be. If nothing is concrete then no mistake is totally irredeemable. This is not to say there are no consequences – just that there are choices remaining, no matter how bad the transgression. I suppose the worse the transgression, the more squeezed and limited the spectrum of choice becomes - nonetheless, even the death row inmate on his last walk has the choice to die quietly and with dignity, or passionately with tears and screams; to attempt an escape or to offer an apology.

As a 32 year old brought up in western society where identity is king, I don't believe I have much chance of ever attaining the zen state i would like, since the lazy, societally-biased part of me resists dedicating the enormous amounts of time and study and practice it would take to get there, and even resists fully understanding that it is far more important than anything else I could ever do. Still, I think it is useful as a real world application in letting me/us know in a very real way that any aspect of our general pattern of behaviour really is changeable, since it's all flickering electrical impulse and squidgy cells anyway. I suppose changing anything in your “identity” is just a matter of choosing the other mental path every time you come to a well trodden crossroad… Of course it's difficult, especially in a scenario like addiction, where every cell you are currently made of is fighting you every step of the way... but it's possible.

...So in the end it comes down to the same simple hard work solution as always... but the whole issue is interesting to me. My friends had a few sideways angles – Maurice suggested that identity might be “like a buzzing hum of a rumour that's whispered around from person to person and their version of us is as true, or truer than anything we think of as ourselves”; and tempered my idea by suggesting that “Maybe it makes no sense to say I am X or Y. But it makes sense to say I once was W and seem to be heading to Y, so that means I am roughly between the two right now”. He also suggested the connectivity idea, which to me is more of a soul/spirit concern than an identity one, but I agree with it entirely – that “maybe our identity lies in who we pass our energy into and the marks these occasions leave in those people, and before this time we are a potential someone, or a functional someone, but not yet quite anyone.”

Lastly, he came up with the winner… “Maybe we all have invisible barcodes on our souls n god has special scanning equipment so he knows who's who.” I’m hoping he’s right. But just in case he isn’t, I’m going to try to keep my sense of myself in flux as much as I possibly can. If nothing else, it should make the songs more interesting.

Read more about Maurice at www.mauricesuckling.com

Random List:

Best TV show: The Shield

I am listening to: Tori Amos, "The Beekeeper" - yes, still this same cd. The more I listen to it, the better it gets. Saw her live last month and, despite the odd drooling fit, she was truly amazing. A genius of mythologic proportions.

Favorite things today: Replanting ivy that I thought was dead and having it spring back to glorious life in spite of my black thumb. My cat's injured foot getting better.

Least favorite thing today: Mormons using cheesy TV adverts to try to rake in converts.

********************************************

MORE POINTLESS RAMBLINGS TO COME SOON!

********************************************

READ EARLIER RAMBLINGS BY CLICKING BELOW:

4/29/2004 - Birthday Ramblings

6/20/2004 - Princesses in the Post Office

8/02/2004 - The Mythology of the Past

9/23/2004 - Brownie and Mister Whiskers

12/13/2004 - Ostriches and Soapboxes

2/27/2005 - Oscars and Finger Puppets

********************************************

PLEASE E MAIL ME IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS!

joanna@joannamcmeikan.com
Write to Joanna with your thoughts, questions, opinions, suggestions.