retry things I don't like

I think I like it enough that I can cross it off. It’s part of my attitude towards life now. It’s a new hobby.

The strangest side effect of this goal is that I have found myself simultaneously liking and disliking something at the same time. Things that I previously only disliked, like going to fratty bars or visiting the zoo or dressing up for Halloween or watching porn in a theater, are now more complicated experiences that are less tied up in my personal preferences. I pay less attention to what I myself am projecting onto the experience (how it reflects on my personality in particular) and more attention to how everyone else is affected by the experience. Good and bad experiences can both be bonding experiences if you engage them with excitement and a sense of adventure. Waiting 4 hours for food at a bad restaurant can actually be a highlight of the week. It’s difficult to explain really. What’s going on here exactly?

Maybe another way to put it is that by retrying things I don’t like, I have learned that things are enjoyable in themselves, as things separate from me and my own preferences. Being sick for a couple days becomes tangible, vivid, and strangely aesthetic when you simply let yourself BE SICK instead of tormenting yourself all day with thoughts about how much you hate being sick.

Be the thing. Experience things as they are rather than how you want them to be. This doesn’t mean that you have to be happy with everything and never strive to improve, but as far as being in the right mindset to change or improve something, I think it’s a much stronger perspective when you are with the thing that you’re trying to change rather than hating it all along the way.

It’s like swimming in a whirlpool… there’s no need to fight against the whirlpool all the time because you will simply exhaust yourself and most likely drown. The way to swim in a whirlpool is to let it take you up and down, relax in the whirlpool and let it carry you around, and preserve your energy until you’re at the spot that you can apply your energy to swim out of it. The spot is usually when the whirlpool has given you the most momentum anyway, and you can use its energy to help you. Sounds very new agey, I know, but I learned this lesson while actually swimming in a whirlpool, so it’s more literal to me than metaphorical.

There are several clubs and bars in the Seattle area that I strongly dislike both for their scene and their scenesters. This also stems from years of feeling unable to socialize on a passable level. I happen to live in one of the headquarters of the more easily scape-goated as horrible club scenes in Seattle (see how I’m trying to be more open-minded?), centered around alpha males, blatant pick-up, and ladies that by default scowl at you then ask for a drink. Fun! A few that fit this category to varying degrees:

• Medusa
• Bada Lounge
• Belltown Billiards
• Cowgirls Inc
• The Ballroom

Unfortunately, Medusa closed its doors temporarily for a remodel too quickly after setting this goal to be able to mark it off. I went to Bada with a friend and helped entertain him by trying to interact with its patrons and being looked up and down briefly before getting a negative shake of the head indicating that I was to shuffle on. Luckily, my wells of self-confidence (when supplemented with a few drinks) were sufficient to keep me going. Belltown Billiards was much the same, except worse.

A strange flip switched in my head though. I don’t dislike these places… they simply dislike me. So, rather than defending myself against them by making it mutual, I think I’d rather revel in not belonging there, rely on other sources for self-confidence and approval, and enjoy what I can. It’s certainly like going to an alien world and trying the alien monkey brains simply because you can.

With this new mentality of indestructibility, I was able to go to Cowgirls Inc last night, ride the mechanical bull, and generally have a good time with friends on the alien planet.

For a while now I’ve hated costumes and despised events that involved dressing up in them. Not sure why exactly. Hmm… let’s see, honestly, perhaps it’s because I’m so bad at pulling it off with style, and because for someone who already has issues with feeling inadequate and anti-social at times, this exercise only emphasizes these failings in myself. Then there was the “blue” incident. Anyway, few things really sounds less pleasing socially to me than to be amongst strangers in costume, each person demonstrating the cleverness and style of their awkward appearance. So, a few years ago I decided to publicly revolt against the act of dressing up in costumes in order to bring some rest to my overactive costume “issue”.

However, once deciding to be anti-costume, I think I began to enjoy the personality quirk it provided. I was the person who disliked Halloween. Disliking something strongly, especially something that most people seem to like with mild interest, was a topic of conversation… and that in itself became the draw to being anti-costume than the actual costume issue itself.

So, I’ve boycotted Halloween several years in a row… this year included. But this week a dress-up “heroes and villains” party was thrown by a friend and I decided to go to it “with zest”. I could be Captain Underpants, or… and then I stalled. I went to the costume store thinking that this place would surely be designed to inspire the costume-idea-lacking. Once again, I felt uncomfortable about the pressure, angry at costumes, annoyed at people who throw costume parties, and almost decided to walk out of there and watch Veronica Mars and drink tea that night instead. But this goal means a lot to me, so I did everything I could to rally myself—to remind myself that amongst the potential Ethical Issues with which to hold dear to one’s heart, the Costume Issue was plain silly.

So I wandered all over the store for about an hour… looking at the same aisles over and over again. The sales people, after asking to help a couple times, finally conceded to the fact that I was helpless… and might be up to something suspicious. For a bit I considered wearing an American flag and letting the guests decide if I was hero or villain. Too political. A pirate? I didn’t want to see everything in 2-D. A baby! Babies are the true villains of the world, turning happy fun people into vomit-covered home-bodies (no offense). Inspired, I did another few circuits of the store, looking for a simple accessory that would immediately label me “baby”. But party-logistics came into play. There’s something perverted about babies, and sucking on a pacifier would get in the way of drinking. Wearing a big bonnett would be extremely annoying. I gave up on baby.

Truth is, I got worn down. I didn’t want to dress up. So I took an easy way out. Being a devil is only natural, and allowed me to break out my fancy suit, and the “sly fox” button acquired the evening before. It all came together, and I didn’t have to be nice to anyone to boot.

Sure, a bit of a cop-out, and it’s not quite on theme (though I did get to incorporate a bit of baby Jesus bashing) but it’s just a warm-up for the real deal next time when I have the full gamut of costume ideas to choose from.

And the party itself was fun. But someone stole my horns.

This morning Karen, Daniel, and I dined at the lovely Cafe Champagne in the market, then headed off to the Woodland Park Zoo, victim number one in my mission to discover and root out obsessive dislikes. The zoo happens to be one of my most stubborn dislikes because it forms in part out of my love of animals as a child, and I’m afraid that if I don’t really really dislike the zoo then I will become the polar (bear?) opposite and end up loving them (perhaps) too much. Since they’re clearly evil, won’t loving an evil thing only make my soul boil in eternal hell soup? Clearly.

So, while going to the zoo I was of two minds. One, determined to see the fox. The other, determined to get sidetracked and never make it to the zoo. On the way I suggested watching more episodes of Veronica Mars at my house, shopping for modern furniture, and checking out the local Church of Scientology. Alas, mind one won.

The first animals we saw were hippos. They were amazing, and not merely because they are the precursors to whales. They are great in their own right. One emerged from the water and opened its gaping maw as water from a fountain sprayed into it. Its giant frog-like eyes blinked blankly. I kept yelling “Fatty!” Another rolled in the water. Then, like a miracle, they all started laughing! In deep, vibrating, guffaws they each shook, in turn, and laughed at the absurdity of their own existence. A giraffe, behind them, nodded knowingly.

The rest of the experience was equally amazing. Each animal being its own version of great and cute in its own way. Highlights were the elk, the vulture, the arctic fox (!), the wild dogs (trotting back and forth in laps), the wallaby (!), the tigers (fighting), the sloth bear (being clumsy), the brown bear (sleeping with leg straight up), and of course the red panda.

The word that came to represent my emotional state as we exited the zoo was schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortune of others)... but it’s not quite that. Because it is not a malicious pleasure that I have. It is a pleasure that I have which could only occur in this misfortunate state that the animals have been placed in. It is a paradoxical pleasure like candles, like traveling. You destroy the thing that you love, by loving it too much and changing it with your love (for the worse). I guess it all goes back to the great futility… we’re doomed, and have to be resolute to accept this and go down in style. Woodland Park Zoo, and all zoos around the world, I suppose, are absurd heros in this respect.

Have I stopped disliking zoos? Let me say, decidedly, mostly.

I’m making a list of things I don’t like over here:

http://erik.tadalist.com/lists/public/154431

Liking or not liking something is such a fickle thing. I’ve noticed that I will dislike something one minute and then like it the next, simply because someone said something about it with enthusiasm. Seeing something through someone else’s eyes is often enough to change your opinion of it. It’s possible that I’m the fickle one, and that I’m too suggestible, but even more reason to retry things I don’t like every once in a while.

When younger, I disliked a couple foods: avocado, soy beans, cilantro, mushrooms, green tea, seaweed… now these all live somewhere near the top of my favorite foods lists. Perhaps the long period of dislike helped launch the foods much higher, like pulling back one of those moving matchbox cars.

Tomorrow I’m going to test out something that I’ve disliked for a long time: zoos. I doubt I’ll change my mind about them, but they do have a fox there so at least I will be able to see that… even if there is a big frown on the fox’s face because he longs for the desert or the arctic or wherever he is from.

Next, maybe a musical. Cringe.