Learning Log

I will apologise for many things that I have done but I will not apologise for the things that should never be apologised for. It is a little theory of mine that has much exercised my mind lately, that most of the problems of this silly and delightful world derive from our apologising for those things that we ought not to apologise for, and failing to apologise for those things for which apology is necessary.

For example none of the following is shameful or deserves apology, in spite of our suicidal attempts to convince ourselves otherwise:

* To possess a rectum, a urethra and a bladder and all that pertain thereto.
* To cry.
* To find anything or anyone of any gender, age or species sexually attractive.
* To find anything or anyone of any gender, age or species sexually unattractive.
* To insert things in one’s mouth, anus or vagina for the purpose of pleasure.
* To masturbate as often as one wishes. Or not.
* To swear.
* To be filled with sexual desires that involve objects, articles or parts of the body irrelevant to procreation.
* To fart.
* To be sexually unattractive.
* To love.
* To ingest legal or illegal drugs.
* To smell of onesself and one’s juices.
* To pick one’s nose.

I spend a lot of time tying knots in my handkerchief reminding myself that those are things not to be ashamed of, so long as they are not performed in sight or sound of those who would be pained - which also holds true of Morris dancing, talking about Terry Pratchett and wearing velour and many other harmless human activities. Politeness is all.

But, I fear I spend far too little time apologising for or feeling ashamed about things which really do merit sincere apology and outright contrition.

* Failing to imagine what it is like to be someone else.
* Pissing my life away.
* Dishonesty with self and others.
* Neglecting to pick up the phone or write letters.
* Not connecting made or processed objects with their provenance.
* Judging without facts.
* Using influence over others for my own ends.
* Causing pain.

I will apologise for faithlessness, neglect, deceit, cruelty, unkindness, vanity or meanness, but I will not apologise for the urgings of my genitals nor, most certainly, will I ever apologise for the urgings of my heart.

— Stephen Fry

I mean, isn’t it odd—how you can buy a lap dance, phone sex, or blowjob in a snap, but can’t pay a person a dollar to just sit next to you on a park bench and simply hold your hand?

— Jeffrey McDaniel, Dear man whose marriage I wrecked.

Yes, I’m a feminist. It is an extension of my lifelong war against pantyhose. To me it means that as women we are individuals before we are gendered people and that we’re not defined by our gender except in the ways we chose to appropriate that definition. We’re in a weird generation, right? Our Moms were forced to grapple with that definition more immediately, and I think it’s changed as we’ve grown up. The core issue “how do I fight bias against me because of my gender” is still there but has gotten more complicated and wrapped into all kinds of identity issues about how you present yourself as a woman and I pretty much think it’s your choice and fuck pantyhose.

— Sarah Haskins.

I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: “Do you like me?

— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

People couldn’t become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitely wicked.

— Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.

Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.

— Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex.

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.

— Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.

Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it’s something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.

— Nicole Krauss, The History of Love.

Because it’s actually men, you’ll find, who are the far more romantic. Men are the people you will hear say, “I’ve found somebody. She’s amazing. If I don’t get to be with this person, I’m fucked. I can’t carry on, no, I mean it, she’s totally transformed my life. I have a job, I have a flat, it means nothing. I can’t stand it, I have to be with her. Because if I don’t, I going to end up in some bedsit, I’ll be alcoholic, I’ll have itchy trousers. I can’t—I can’t walk the streets any more.” That is how women feel about shoes.

— Dylan Moran.

It’s one of those irregularly declining words, isn’t it? I am bisexual, you are bi curious, she is straight and only doing it for her boyfriend.

— Anon.

First of all, Papa Smurf didn’t create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel’s evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village, but the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario, it just couldn’t happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don’t even have reproductive organs under those little white pants. That’s what’s so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. What’s the point of living if you don’t have a dick?

— Donnie Darko

We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons… but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.

— Gloria Steinem (via amillionparachutes) (via nongenderous)