Analysis: External and Internal

Those who have spent an extended amount of time interacting with me have probably seen just how confused I am about who I actually am. Coming to terms with my childhood abuse has forced me to re-examine myself and my values. This combined with the life shattering work of Godel left me with a downright Socratic philosophical perspective: I know nothing. Truth is unknowable. Morality is relative. I am a product of my environment. I've been struggling with these ideas and how they relate to the self. Now I feel more uncertain than a teenager about who I am. I don't know if any values are worth fighting for. With so much confusion about me, society, and even the universe, how do I move forward? How do I define myself let alone my art?

Through art.

Despite all of my existential dilemmas, I don't hesitate to form opinions about works of art that I consume. When I see a painting I still create instant judgments about the work, and the same is true for movies, TV shows, and books. I've recently started looking into literary theory. I'm not an English major, so the ideal proposes an interesting method of self analysis. Since I'm capable of judging stories, I can see what aspects of a story are important to me, to understand what values I've held onto. While these values can be a result of my upbringing, recognizing them allows me to question and re-evaluate my own values.

Literary theory presents several lenses to view works of fiction.

I've always tried to view stories from a New Criticism or "Death of the Author" perspective. What's written is what's important. I don't care if George RR Martin was a hippy, I care what his works say about the world. That being said, when I know something about the author, or when I'm familiar with some of that work I find myself bringing that baggage in. Reading "The Dragonbone Chair" with the knowledge that it was an admitted inspiration for A Song of Ice and Fire skewed my perspective on GRRM's intentions and thus influenced how I've come to view the work as a whole. So even though I theoretically believe in New Criticism, I don't always go through the mental gymnastics required to view the work as such myself.

Beyond trying to not care about who is creating a body of work, I find myself frequently applying Marxist literary criticism onto works of fiction. I can be critical about the use of gender roles, but find myself gravitating more towards queer theory than gender theory. When it comes to ideas of ethnicity I don't look for racial coding, but recognize it when it's obvious or overt. If ethnic inclusion becomes stereotypical, it usually skews my perspective of the work negatively.

Looking past identitifiers, I don't have the vocabulary in literary theory to talk about my thoughts and reactions. Continuity is important to me, as well as the implications of all magical and technological systems introduced. I frequently look for an interconnected world, and will judge a world to be unbelievable if multiple aspects of the world don't interact with each other in any meaningful way. I tend to judge characters by their actions more than their intent, but am mindful of the possibility of redemption. I don't think less of characters for having active sex lives, but can be critical of how they handle romantic conflict. Romance isn't a required part of the human experience and I value the inclusion of meaningful friendships.

I could go on and on, but without some kind of literary theory here to short hand these discussions, this can end up being a list of personal preference. So where do I go from here?

While I still have a lot of soul searching to do, I don't think I would benefit from a further questioning of all my beliefs and values. Categorical thinkers reading this have already thrown me into one camp or another, and some may be tempted to lob insults at me simply because the word "Marxist" or "queer" creates negative associations in their mind. This is the risk that comes with belief and I feel like it's a large part of why my own identity has become so unstable. I need to know what I believe and why, not claiming to believe nothing in some shallow attempt to protect my ego.

Moving forward I will re-evaluate my self on two fronts: theoretically and introspectively. By asking myself the unanswerable questions: "What created the universe?" "What is the meaning of life? "What is evil?" etc. I may find myself able to come up with answers about what I agree with, and values worth fighting for. By reacting to fiction, I can then discover what things are important to me about the world. As I continue this process I will inevitably come across internal contradictions, and I may not be able to settle the discrepancy between what I want to believe and what beliefs I've inherited. In a sense, I will be trying to figure out my mind from two sides by using literature and philosophy.

This is a personal journey that you're welcome to read about, but it will probably upset some people. In order to grow I will have to entertain values and ideals that go against the status quo and what many believe to be ultimate truths. I'm not here to tell anyone that their beliefs are wrong, but I know that mine are shaky at best and I don't think that's a strong foundation for existence.