Obsessions have been a topic of discussion in a couple of my classes this week. When it comes to obsessing, there are conflicting opinions on how healthy and productive the practice is in our real lives (as opposed to the lives lived in the safety of our own minds).
In my Popular Music and Gender class we talked about how obsessions factor into music fandom. It's highly feminized and generally associated with deviancy. Think Beatlemania with the screaming, crying, fainting, mobbing teenyboppers. Men, of course, don't do this. They think "Oh man, that dude is so f'ing cool, I want to be just like him and sleep with tons of sexy women and play mad guitar..." But girls, girls want to marry John and have Elvis shake his hips in their direction and shoot them one of those famous snarly smiles. Go beyond the screaming to the next level of fandom/obsession and peer into the bedroom of someone with posters all over the walls, figurines and albums littering all surfaces, a camera with a telescopic lens and a pair of night-vision goggles... That someone is a stalker. Stalking = bad kind of obsessing. As someone who has been followed home from an exam, I can tell you stalking does not make your stalkee want to hang out with you or, least of all, have sex with you. Shocking, I know.
Moving on, we've been having guest speakers in my Writing Portfolio class. Today, Western's current writer-in-residence Penn Kemp encouraged us to have obsessions. The fixation on something specific can lead to inspiration. She finds inspiration for much of her work (which includes a lot of perhaps strange, yet whimsical, poetry/sound concoctions) in those things that nag her and constantly swirl around in her mind. When you obsess over something you're likely to think about all kinds of aspects of that thing and delve deeper into it than you would a passing interest. More importantly, if you're obsessed it means you're passionate and what are writing and creativity without passion?
As I said, I'm very obsessive. I believe I suffer from what can only be described as Sudden On-set Obsession Syndrome. Perhaps this is a result of a short (albeit intense) attention span or technological induced ADD. But if this week of dreary academia has taught me anything, it's that I shouldn't be ashamed of my obsessions. This is in part due to my highly respected professor Norma Coates revealing her Sex & The City obsession. If obsessions can fuel my writing then I shall whole-heartedly embrace them, and I encourage you to do the same. Obsessions make for great party themes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment