bedheadchicken

"Know Thyself, and to thine own self be true"


I've been on a "Hamlet" kick lately and I was watching Mel Gibson's version of "Hamlet" this weekend. (Yes, the Mel Gibson version. I'm sorry, but it's still good!). That line was Polonius to his son Laertes, in "Hamlet". It's one of the most quoted lines. Fancy high schoolers might use it for a yearbook quote. Speakers love to trot it out at graduations. It's good, if rather basic, advice, right? But when I watched it again this weekend that line jumped out at me. "Know Thyself?" WTF? Who really knows themselves? After all these years I'm STILL a mystery to me. We're all shaped by all sorts of forces that we're barely even aware of. We're driven by animal desires to eat, drink and procreate. We're all warped in some way by our parents and upbringing. We have chemical imbalances, situational pressures and health issues that affect our outlook and personality greatly. Society dictates how we dress and act-even "noncomformists" have their own codes and uniforms within their subcultures. We conform in all sorts of ways to find acceptance-humans are social creatures, after all. But when you account for all that, I guess my question is where do the influences on my "self" start and where do I start? And considering all of this is, who can I blame when I'm an idiot?

I'm constantly amazed by my own terrible judgment. Constantly. I can make the wrong decisions in all aspects of my life-from what line to get on at the grocery store to whom to fall in love with.

I once drove all night in the rain to see a girl in college. It was like a scene in an movie, calling her from a payphone across the street in the pouring rain and asking to see her and she was like, "Um...why are you here again?" She could care less.

I was once at work at 4AM on a Sunday and found a $200.00 remote control R2-D2 online and decided I needed it immediately. It came in the mail like a week later and I was like, "What the hell am I gonna do with this?"

I own the SOUNDTRACK to the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

When I was in 8th grade I taped both political conventions and watched the speeches on my own time and of my own free will. In 8th grade.

I own Olivia Newton John's greatest hits-on CD AND vinyl!

I got choked up watching "Legally Blond." No kidding.

Whose decisions are these? Was this me?

I'm entertained by bad decisions, actually. Even my own. Well, not at the time, but in retrospect. Cause I mean, in the grand scheme of things what happens in my life is no real consequence to anyone but to me and those who love me. Really. I mean, I see questionnaires on MySpace now asking people if they can name all four Beatles. The BEATLES, fer CHRISSAKES! To me that's like asking if you know what earth, wind, fire and water are! If people don't know who the Beatles were-when two of them are still alive no less- than what hope do I have that I'LL make some sort of discernable difference?

I don't mean that in a self-pitying way. It's liberating. I'm not saying that people can't make a difference in the world, of course they can. But when you consider the vastness of history then the mistakes people make can seem less tragic and sorta funny.

I like the idea that in the primordial soup back there somewhere chemicals came together to form amino acids, which became more complex DNA structures and eventually became creatures who made it to land, evolved eventually into humanoids, evolved into modern humans, spent thousands of years developing their intellects, trying to find their place in the universe and what it means to be here-and we STILL make terrible, terrible decisions and ruin our own lives in every conceivable way.

Some people have problems with the primordial soup theory because the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that all systems will become LESS orderly over time. I think that we've provided conclusive proof that the law is in fact true. It's just taken us a while, but I think we've certainly proved that. That makes me kinda happy.