Monday morning random

* Slept better last night, probably a combination of:
- getting into bed earlier
- having changed the sheets
- reading something diverting for a while (I guess this is my life now; I have to read before I go to sleep and it has to be something to un-track my mind from whatever was bothering me)

* The book I chose was "The Hobbit." Yes, my umpteenth reading of it, but it helped. Lots of thoughts about the book...I could never make it through "Lord of the Rings" (the battle scenes bogged me down) but I think because in its way "The Hobbit" is a smaller - perhaps you might even say, more "domestic"- epic, I can read through it happily.

I first read it at eight or so. Yes, I did. Checked it out of the school library. Had seen the not-very-critically-acclaimed Ralph Bakshi* animated version and kind of fell in love with the character of Bilbo and wanted to read the book. I remember my dad seeing me reading it and him asking me if it wasn't a book I found kind of scary (my parents never censored what I chose to read, but they did sometimes ask questions). I remember being baffled by that at eight: no, it wasn't scary, and anyway, it was a story, I wasn't actually having to go through that stuff myself.

(*Correction, apparently the Bakshi film was the Lord of the Rings animated thing from the 70s; the Hobbit was actually Rankin-Bass. (Which I should have remembered, given the character designs - very reminiscent of some of their animagic specials and also that one with the mice and the clock that was more-traditionally animated. And I guess it wasn't quite so critcally-panned as the version of LOTR. I remember the film as being quite good but then I was a kid who loved adventure cartoons and loved the Rankin-Bass style - and apparently some of the animators on that film went to work for Studio Ghibli)

The funny thing is: on one of my re-reads of it, when I was in  my thirties or forties, I realized: holy heck, this really IS kind of scary. Especially the underground bits. (Then again: I don't remember feeling claustrophobia as a child; I think that's something that developed in adulthood).

But still: I do like the whole idea of Hobbit life, of the smallness and peacefulness of it. And I get that that's maybe not the POINT, and the POINT is that Bilbo gets pulled out of that comfortable life and changed forever (though maybe not changed as much as you might think) but it's the little touches towards the beginning of the book - the comment about how he liked maps, and had one of the area where he lived with his favorite walks marked on it in red and that feels like it would also be a very on-brand thing for me.

I also remember once hearing some commentator on Tolkien suggesting that really, aren't most humans very Hobbit-like: loving of comfort, more interested in the minute concerns of the day ("What shall I eat for lunch?" "Here is an unexpected guest; how do I propel him on his way without violating the rules of hospitality?") than in global-scale questions. BUT - and maybe this was more a reference to LOTR - that when their way of life (and the way of life of those around them) is threatened, they can rise up and do great things, even though they seem small. And maybe that's actually what Tolkien meant. (I also read somewhere a proposition that the Hobbits were like the British people, especially as the threat of WWII bore down on them. Mmmmmaybe, I don't know)

But yes. I admit, I prefer the "house porn" (if you will) part of the books, where you have the loving if brief descriptions of Hobbit-holes, and the little features (apparently Hobbits eat five or six times a day; they are "inclined to be stout," but apparently that doesn't matter, they like bright colors, especially green and yellow....). And yes, also the idea of Hobbits mostly thinking adventures were messy, nasty things that made one late for dinner - that is very much my thinking as well.

* I was also thinking, on my way out to get dust masks (Yes, it's time to start hunting through the soil samples for any inverts the extraction may have missed) about some of the horrible comments some people get online. Particularly thinking about the nasty YouTube comments, and particularly one subset of nasty comment.

And, I don't really want to go gender-politics here, but it does seem that there's a pattern to them; that certain male-type people make comments about certain female-type people. Where they criticize their appearance rather than critique* their singing (or how they present the tutorial, or their acting, whatever) - you know the ones. The ones that focus on the woman's chest. Or her size. Or maybe her hair, though I think in general that particular type of commenter cares less about hair than body.

(*and yes, there is a difference between "critique" - giving helpful feedback for improvement - and "criticize" - trying to make the other person feel bad by pointing out "flaws" that may either be matters of opinion or uncorrectable things)

And I wondered: why? Why do people make comments like that. I don't remember that I've ever commented on a YouTube video (well, maybe I once said of a piano arrangement someone had done: "This is a nice rendition of that song" or similar). But why do people feel like criticizing a woman's chestal area is even pertinent to the song she's singing or the tutorial she's doing or whatever?

Is it....a sense of entitlement? Like, he feels he deserves her attention about that (What's she gonna do? Has ANY woman thought "Gee, I should go out and get implants" in response to some rando's "your chest is too small" comment?) Or that he thinks it makes him more of a man? Or that somehow making someone who put herself out there, who made herself vulnerable in a particular way* by allowing herself to be videoed and it put online, by making her feel small and icky and doubt herself, is that somehow winning the guy points? Or is it just a "I want to drive everyone whose appearance is not 100% appealing to my particular set of standards off the internet" thing? (There is such a thing as "if you don't like it, don't watch it"). And also: if everyone drove everyone they didn't 100% approve of off the internet, there's probably be no YouTube or similar.

(*One big reason why the whole "online teaching and oh you should have your lectures filmed and put online because Access" thing never gained much traction with me - I am not having video of me teaching out there where any jerk can see it, because I don't need jerks telling me I need to smile more, or that my voice is grating, or that I'm fat (HELLO I KNOW THAT ALREADY) or whatever. I would grudgingly consider it in a "locked" setting where only my existing students could see the videos and have no commenting ability....but then again, a determined "griefer" could get access. And this is also why I'm uncomfortable with unfettered cell-phone-camera use in class; you never know what that footage of you might be being used for)

But I don't know. I don't understand people. Maybe it IS a sense of entitlement, that "she's online so she should have to listen to me because..." Because, I don't know why. Because he's a HE? Because he deigned to watch her free video and she owes him? Because maybe she might pay attention to him? (Maybe that's it. Though I find that I get attention from people more easily by (a) having a relationship of some sort with them first and (b) being generally positive/helpful)

* I was also thinking about the periodic commentary I read online about how "gifted students" were really kind of done a disservice in many ways (the most egregious one being: where they are recruited to "teach" the less-speedy-to-learn kids - which is frustrating for all involved, and also often winds up in the gifted kid being ostracized even more).

And I got to thinking about how really kind of useless it was to be that kid who was Good at School.

(Oh. I know how I got onto that topic: I was thinking about how the back-to-school supplies were out already on sale, and about how when I was a kid, back to school was an exciting time for me, because I liked school and I liked learning and I liked the regimentation of it all, and the little achievable goals....and then realizing all the commentary about How School is Bad, Actually because it trains kids to be little row-sitting sheep that are pretty much just equipped for the sort of office jobs that have either been offshored or efficiencied out of existence, and the claim that it's really the rebel kids who didn't learn who were the smart ones....and it's the whole Einstein Was a C Student argument all over again, like that kids used when I was 13 to neg on any skills or talents I had, and it makes me profoundly tired).

And yeah. I was Good at School in some very specific ways: I read well and liked to read. I was quiet and listened to the Adults, and obeyed them. I wasn't particularly creative but I was smart and good at picking up new material. But mainly I was compliant. I didn't like to make waves and I didn't like being in trouble.

(The ONE time I got threatened with detention....I was sitting next to a friend in class and we were talking. And after the threat ("If I have to speak to you about this one more time, you are getting detention!") I clammed up for the rest of the day (didn't even answer questions in class) and sat there at my seat, head down, so no one could see the tears)

And yeah. One thing I've learned is that being Good At School isn't good for that much in the work world. I'll never set the world on fire; I am not a disruptor. As I said, I'm not even all that creative.

But then again: I guess I have made a pretty good life for myself. I have a roof over my head and food on the table. Granted, I haven't really done anything that will outlive me in the way that some people have. But I don't know why that's such a modern obsession (or such a personal obsession) - probably 98% of humanity lived and died without making much of a mark on anything beyond maybe the next generation (if they had kids). And I daresay most people didn't care. (I've often thought part of the reason Christianity held such sway in Europe in the past was that day-to-day mortal life was sufficiently terrible for most people that the thing to be hoped for was the literal streets of gold and mansion-for-everyone that at least some branches of Christianity promised. And that has changed in some modern Christianity. And personally, I'm not even sure what I imagine the afterlife to be, whether as some literal immortality with the streets of gold, yada yada or if the whole "they are with God now" thing is more an 'eternal rest' sort of thing where there isn't really a continuation of consciousness in the form we recognize it as...and that "immortality" is more a figurative thing, that you "live on" in the hearts of others or in what you've done....and maybe that's the source of so many people's anxiety about making a mark, or being an influencer, or leaving something behind, that our idea of our personal immortality has shrunk. I don't know).

But yeah. Maybe that's just my own personal weird anxiety (well, one of them) I suppose, but I do wish sometimes I was better at just relaxing and going "I am not a terrible person; I pay my bills, I keep a roof over my head, I am doing a job that does not actively cause harm, so everything is fine and I should just relax and be happy" instead of agonizing about "am I doing enough?" But I think the "am I doing enough?" is a very modern thing, at least for people in certain careers, and the way those careers are structured now, it's like it's designed to feed that anxiety (post-tenure review, I'm looking at you). I men, yeah, it probably makes people more productive, but it's also kind of miserable.