Irony vs. Sincerity

Just read this essay from Christy Wampole, "How to Live Without Irony," and loved it. Below are three of the paragraphs that most struck me.

On the social consequences of the pervasive "ethos of irony":

While we have gained some skill sets (multitasking, technological savvy), other skills have suffered: the art of conversation, the art of looking at people, the art of being seen, the art of being present. Our conduct is no longer governed by subtlety, finesse, grace and attention, all qualities more esteemed in earlier decades. Inwardness* and narcissism now hold sway.

[*I have my doubts about the sway of inwardness, because it implies a reflection or contemplation that are lacking from the ironic culture Wampole critiques. In my opinion, it's shallowness, not inwardness, that is in power at present.]

On an alternative and a solution to the alienated and ironic life:

Observe a 4-year-old child going through her daily life. You will not find the slightest bit of irony in her behavior. She has not, so to speak, taken on the veil of irony. She likes what she likes and declares it without dissimulation. She is not particularly conscious of the scrutiny of others. She does not hide behind indirect language. The most pure nonironic models in life, however, are to be found in nature: animals and plants are exempt from irony, which exists only where the human dwells.

What would it take to overcome the cultural pull of irony? Moving away from the ironic involves saying what you mean, meaning what you say and considering seriousness and forthrightness as expressive possibilities, despite the inherent risks. It means undertaking the cultivation of sincerity, humility and self-effacement, and demoting the frivolous and the kitschy on our collective scale of values. It might also consist of an honest self-inventory.

 Thank you, Christy Wampole and New York Times, for this.

Who am I?

I need to write about my race/ethnicity/culture, but I have no idea where to start. I can't make up my mind how I feel about the various cultures I partake in, or whether I can claim to belong to any of them. Genetically, I am half white, half Korean. Socially, this makes me neither white nor Asian. As a child, I lived in Japan, where I stuck out as an obvious foreigner. There, children demanded that I teach them English, but simultaneously asked how I could be an American since my hair isn't blond. Then we moved back to California, where I did all I could to conceal my differences. I avoided mentioning that I'd lived in Japan. My sister, who may not have been as discreet, had classmates make fun of her "Chinese eyes."

My memories are a patchwork of confusion and exclusion. In Japan I was a gaijin; in America I was an Asian. In Japan I counted myself a staunch American, but in California I realized I didn't fit in here either. Only when I moved to New York for college did it become apparent that ten years in California had made their mark, and I felt entitled to call myself a Californian. Finding out more about the way things are in the rest of the country, I only became more set in my Californian identity, declining to identify myself with the country as a whole. Yet now, married to a Turk who doesn't really believe in democracy, I find myself defending American ideals and institutions with a patriot's indignation.

What am I to say about myself? Who am I? American, Californian; Japanese by adoption, Korean by heritage, German somewhere in the tangle of genealogies; a smidge French after my term abroad in my teens; turning Turkish in infinitesimal adjustments to my husband. How much of what? How many dimensions of identity are we talking about? Genetic, ethnic, cultural, familial, geographical, ... On each dimension, what would be the percentages? Racially, I am half Caucasian and half Asian: 50% each. Ethnically? Is that the same as racially or genetically? What about my culture--is that about food and dress and language, or about the deep, subconscious structures, the filters that determine how I communicate and what I expect? what I value and what I condemn, what I feel entitled to and how I respond if I don't get it? Impossible to determine which cultures influence me to what degree--Korean, Japanese, my father's Hawaiian upbringing, the political correctness of northern California, my innate personality, the expectations of my mother?

I turn away.

Such calculations are impossible and, in the end, useless, even foolish. They are just another way to draw lines around reality, to compartmentalize, to pin down and dissect, to control. But personhood doesn't have a body to dissect, except my body, which breathes and sweats and will not be pinned down. And when I try to dissect my personality, it is not like my seventh grade lima bean dissection (too simple), nor like my eleventh grade cat dissection (fascinating, but dead).

It is more like trying to pull up a sturdy plant whose roots grip the stones and soil, too strong for me to break with my hands and too intricate for me to untangle with my eyes.

I can look at myself through a dozen or a hundred filters, to pull forward this or that set of characteristics, to mute one color and find hints of another in unexpected places. Every filter may reveal something new.

Still, my soul is an atom, and I have no desire for fission. So I wait. Perhaps in heaven I will understand what quarks and leptons roam the spacious hall of my self.

Cover Letters and Bragging

I will delay a more past-reflective post once again, because I spent all my writing time today on an email, a cover letter and a resume. (I'm applying for a job as an editorial assistant!) Writing the cover letter was by far the most bizarre writing experience. I had to write a letter to a stranger, telling her how awesome I am! The language of the resume and cover letter is alien to my daily life. A lifetime of social experience, especially living in Japan, has conditioned me to downplay my accomplishments and wait for others to praise me.

If I were Achilles or Odysseus or Hector, reciting my glorious deeds and prowess at everything I set my hand to would come easily--I'd have had a lot of practice, as a man in a culture and religion where salvation comes through self-glorification (as long as it doesn't overstep into hubris, which gets you damnation).

But as an Asian-American woman, clinging to a religion that praises humility and socialized into a historically Protestant culture where public displays of pride were anathema, writing a cover letter is downright unnatural. It helps to think of it as describing how my skills match the specified qualifications, but still, the experience is, in a word:

AWKWARD.

Reflections on Place

Having moved recently to this new city, place has been on my mind lately. Actually, place is on my mind by default, because I am a person who does not have an obvious geographic home (which is also to say I don't have an obvious cultural home). I was born in California, but we moved to Japan when I was four. During our six years there, my identity was: American, gai-jin, foreigner. Then we moved back to California, and I found I was not a normal American. I certainly didn't fit in with the kids in my classes, some of whom were living in the same house they'd been born in, and who would still be in that house until they moved away for college. When I was fifteen, I spent five months in Nîmes, France, where I became, again, American, only to return to my high school where I knew I was not the same kind of American as the others. It wasn't until I moved across the country to Long Island for college that I came to call myself a Californian and to realize that, yes, California feels like home (Northern California, anyway). And now here I am, living in technically-New-Jersey,-practically-Manhattan, married to a Turkish man, and I a Californian who is simultaneously sort of Japanese and, deep in my blood, half Korean, while somewhere down in my genes I am German. Where is my place? What is my country?

This apartment, with all its quirks (the slanting walls, the mold in the bathroom, the exposed water-heater, the leaking furnace): this is home now, this is my place. Home is where my books are, home is where I cook, home is the place I have to clean, home is where I am the one who changes the sheets on the bed. Home is where O. is. Yes, this is my place.

But my place extends only as far as the front door. Maybe out onto the landing, on a good day. This city is not home, not mine. I still worry if I stand out on the streets. I am still busy watching the other people, wondering how I should dress, walk, move. Then the Spirit moves in me and I remember that it doesn't matter what those people think of me.

Still, I would like to know what impression I am emanating. I think home is the place where you don't have to wonder about that. You know already.

Will this place ever be home to me? I should give it time. It's only been three months. But we're only planning to stay here two years. Yes, we've planned to uproot ourselves again, soon, soon. Is it worthwhile? Is it right, to act as if this place is just a brief stop?

Every place is a brief stop. Home is not on this earth. Home is where my Father is, and I'll be there someday, regardless of how much I move around this continent, this planet, during my three score (or four or five score, God willing) sojourn here.

[Thoughts in this post catalyzed by this fine essay.]

In which an unknown blogger/author expresses my thoughts for me, and I add a barely related parenthetical post-script

From this blog post on Sci-Fi and the Technocratic Impulse:

When we pursue advancements through technology we surrender something in the process. It’s obvious that a device such as the iPhone is more than just a communication tool. It is a culture-shaping tool that can easily master its user if not used carefully and reflectively. It has the power to disconnect and isolate as much as its power to connect.

EXACTLY. I have been thinking this thought for ages, but in an inarticulate way--like a cloud of feeling-droplets condensed around motes of ideas. Every time I attempted to express it (especially in the face of O.'s spiffy smart phone), I ended up sounding like a Luddite. Perhaps I am a Luddite--but I don't think so. I think I just end up overstating my case when it seems like the other party, or perhaps the whole world around me, is rushing headlong into a tech-enabled dystopia. Thank God for other people's writings that say what I want to say but can't!

Another comment as counterpoint: I usually speak in technology's defense when I hear people saying things like "Facebook prevents people from having in-person interactions" and "You can't have a meaningful conversation over IM." I don't think those statements are true--not because I think Facebook and other tech-enabled communicational media don't have inherent limitations (on the contrary, they absolutely are limited) or that they are inherently good. Rather, it's because I think all the agency still resides with us, the users and abusers of technology. Technology doesn't create in us character-traits ex nihilo: it only exposes and fertilizes what was already there.*

(In that sense, technology is like suffering. It is a test of sorts. Suffering exposes weaknesses in my character, and seems to be bringing them into existence. In reality, those problematic beliefs were there in me all along, and it's not the fault of my circumstance (suffering, technology) that I am full of fears and doubts and lies (or shallow communication, self-absorption, etc), but the fault of the sin in me. I should give thanks for the light that comes through the cracks made by the blows of suffering, instead of screwing up all my energy into experiencing the pain.)


*Not to imply that technology is crap. :P

Reading Poetry

The mystery is alien to you, you
dislike the veils and fog
that conceal what would
in sun or firelight
blaze like trumpets
and like tears.

Cold in the mist, you turn away
bewildered, you call
for a storm to sweep the world
clean and clear. Breath
comes easier to you
when the air is alive. I

rest in this understanding--
that silence speaks
not of stillborn meaning
but of stories so laden
with feeling
words cannot carry them.

Clicking

What makes two people click? To click with someone is to intuitively, effortlessly understand them. You click with someone because you have in common

(1) values,
(2) interests,
(3) sense of humor,
(4) style of communication, or
(5) emotional reactions (personality).

Of course, commonalities in some of these areas are noticeable more immediately than others. A similar sense of humor is quickly apparent, and shared interests are usually discovered early on. Whether values align is a much subtler question, especially since we aren't always aware of our own deepest values, but also because most of us aren't likely to talk about our fundamental values with a person we have just met. Revealing the inner workings of ourselves makes us vulnerable and can be overwhelming or imposing for the other person, so we don't do it right away. We work on the surface.

Likewise, personality and communication style aren't always immediately clear, because in order to function in society, we must all adapt our personalities and communicational styles. The persona that initially comes across, while not necessarily "fake", is often not the person's most natural self. Rather, it is the vision of the self constructed in order to guard the real self and work effectively with the surrounding individuals. (Extroverts don't have to put forth as much effort to connect with others as introverts do, so their personalities don't intrinsically pose problems for functioning in social settings. The "successful" introvert, though, probably isn't seen as an introvert, but rather as friendly and confident--characteristics which, though genuine, do not come naturally.) The outer self is as much a function of the surrounding environment as of the inner reality.

Preferred communication style may also be hidden. For instance, take a person who comes from a background that fostered indirect communication (such as Japan), and thus prefers to communicate indirectly, but who interacts primarily with people who communicate more directly (such as Americans). This person would have to adapt their day-to-day conversation style to function effectively, so they would appear to also have a direct communication style. But underneath, their natural communication style is quite different. Yet another complication is that a person who communicates very directly is unlikely to pick up on their conversation partner's indirect requests, and may not even notice that there is a misalignment.

So initial clicking tends to take place on the surface level: interests and sense of humor, and (to some extent) communicational style.

But what happens when two people are really well-matched on the surface levels but not on underlying values? They feel like they click, but ultimately they discover that they don't understand each other's core ideas. This can be problematic, because the surface level clicking has already created a strong bond by the time the issue of disparate values comes up...

In any case, on a day-to-day level, it's easier (though not necessarily more satisfying) to interact with people who share your interests, humor and communicational style but not your core values than the reverse--people who care about the same fundamental things but don't understand your attempts to communicate with them.

Confrontation & Culture

The story of my relationship with confrontation: I pretty much never confront. I have a some stereotype-based excuses for this:

1) I'm a girl. Girls like to negotiate instead of fighting. (Obviously, this depends on the particular girl.) Girls value the capacity to notice what someone else wants. The value placed on complying with that desire varies among people/subcultures, naturally, but I think the ability itself is valued almost universally among females.

2) I'm Asian (sort of--mainly by where I grew up). Japanese people particularly avoid open conflict. Maintaining harmony is far more important than getting your way on something. Instead of making demands on other people, you make sure not to inconvenience or discomfort those other people. Since they, in turn, are doing their best not to get in your way, the system works out all right, generally--in Japan. When you transplant an individual who is following this pattern out of the context of a communal effort to keep everything running smoothly and into a culture where the individual is expected to stand up for his/her own rights and desires--where stating desires clearly is considered less of an imposition than expecting the other to pick up on them--then the system breaks down. If that displaced individual cannot adjust, he/she ends up getting walked all over.

3) I'm my father's daughter. My father and I would rather suffer through a little inconvenience than exert the energy to try to effect a change in someone else's behavior. In particular, avoiding confrontation is avoiding the risk of invoking someone else's wrath.

Prime example from my day-to-day life:
My roommate, whose initials are also JP, was eating Lucky Charms while I was out, and I returned to the room to find a number of them smashed into the carpet. Grr! I hate it when there is junk in the carpet and I can feel it on my bare feet. It's even worse when it's visible as well as tangible.
This reaction, apparently, showed on my face, because the friend I was with when I made this discovery said, "Ohh, your roommate's going to get in trouble! You're gonna make her clean it all up."
"No, I'm going to sweep it up and forget about it," I said.
"What! You're going to let her get away with that? Noooo, what you're gonna do is, get a can of bug spray and put a thick line of it down the middle of the room. Then go get a few ant-friends and deposit them on her side of the line..." (Can you say "passive aggressive?")
Obviously, I did not take that silly suggestion. My friend wasn't serious about that one. But he was genuinely shocked that I wasn't going to yell at my roommate for the Lucky Charms. To me, it just wasn't worth the conflict, when I could quickly deal with the problem myself. To him, it was vital to assert his desires and defend his rights.

I'm pretty sure this the sort of situation to which the title of the book Different Games, Different Rules applies.

Epilogue: I mentioned the Lucky Charms in the carpet to my roommate, and she, being a girl just as much as I am, apologized and backtracked and said it wouldn't happen again, without my even saying it had annoyed me. Sometimes subtlety works fine.