Re: ~christyotwisty's Five Questions for June 2023
It's mid June, and now I'm getting to these questions. Which is better than usual, since usually I don't get to them.
1. Describe the most expensive object you'd like to buy.
I guess it depends a bit on what you consider an object? And whether I should limit it to things I have a realistic possibility of ever buying. Is a house an object? If so, I'd like a Victorian in a walkable neighborhood, please. If a house isn't, but a car is, I'd like a Hyundai Ioniq or Kia EV6. I'm under no misapprehension that electric cars are a real solution to climate change; we need to aim at eliminating cars almost entirely, in favor of universal quality public transit. While I'm waiting on that dream, I hate my current car. It gets much worse in-town gas mileage than I expected it to, and has been unexpectedly expensive to maintain. I don't have any foreseeable chance of buying either of those things, since electric cars are still priced as luxury items here in the US.
So, the MNT Pocket Reform is like $900. I don't need one, but I think it's a great design. I don't need one, but if a windfall dropped in my lap, I could imagine buying one.
2. What is something the generation preceding you loves that you don't understand?
The generation before me is the Boomers, so there's a *lot* they love that I don't understand. Cars being an obvious one. I have cars so much, and I hate having to have one. But even more than that, I don't get "classic rock". I just don't see anything interesting or enjoyable about it, or earlier rock, either. Punk and Metal, sure I get it. But otherwise, give me synths instead of guitars.
3. What is something the generation succeeding you loves that you don't understand?
The generation after me is Millennials, and I'm not real sure that there's anything they love that I don't understand. I'm a mid-Xer, but pretty much everything about at least the older Millennial experience is pretty relatable to me.
So I'll talk about Zoomers. I don't get Zoomer humour, and in particular, I don't get YTP (YouTube Poop). To me it's just annoying and confusing. I don't dislike absurdity; I can generally enjoy Gen Z memes. But definitely not the video style. I also don't like video game streaming, and especially all those streamers who are effectively reality TV stars, except worse. Do Millennials like streaming, too? I don't know, I'm old.
4. What holiday in your calendar needs to be replaced, and with what other observation or commemoration?
Oh, an easy one! My state has "Confederate Memorial Day" as a state holiday. It exists because that was the compromise needed to get the white supremacists in our state legislature to let Martin Luther King Jr. Day be a state holiday. If we could defenestrate and/or trebuchet the 60% of our state legislature needed to replace it, the obvious choice would be Juneteenth, which is a federal holiday, but not a state holiday. Which means I have to work tomorrow.
5. What do you think it means to be redeemed? Have you felt redeemed at one time? Can one be redeemed an iota without the drama of a constructed fiction narrative?
A harder one. To me it would mean being recognized as having done the work needed to deserve forgiveness. I have never felt redeemed, and never hope to. One of my main breakthroughs in my mental health in the past few years is recognizing and accepting myself as a bad person, as the villain in other people's stories. It's amazingly freeing to be able to be able to let go of the need to see yourself as good; all the cognitive dissonance just melts away.
I do think other people have been redeemed, outside of fiction. Of my personal acquaintance, the late Tom Turnipseed. He went from an early career as a white supremacist politician and political strategist, to become a beloved antiracist and antiwar activist.