“I’M A DICK BEFORE I AM.”
I’m currently in my last semester to attain my Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature. After two years of attending classes, I’ve realized there is a tipping point for when one has been at college TOO long.
It came when reading a textbook, of all things. As I was reading opening chapter, I suddenly thought, “You know, this is a REALLY GOOD textbook.”
[planet earth exploding]
A textbook? I was inspired by a textbook. That’s like being inspired by the text of Apple’s Terms and Conditions agreements. “Hey, these are really well written, you know that?”
But maybe I’m not being fair. If you read the textbook, you might also agree that it’s pretty damned good. Here’s what happened next:
The textbook in question is from a linguistics class called Language and Gender: Second Edition by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet. Essentially, the class is a sociolinguistics course—which is academic babble for how language shapes society. This class, in particular, explores how language has impacted ideas about gender from a historical and cultural perspective.
The first chapter started with a bang with this argument: Gender is a social invention.
It was incredibly convincing. In thirty pages, the authors of the textbook broke down what it is like to be raised to taught, observe, and otherwise value deeply entrenched gender standards that reach back as far as civilization is concerned. I’ll save the research section for those interested in pursuing the subject, but one piece of evidence has stuck with me:
Infants as old as two-days-old change the pitch of their cries based around if a caregiver is male or female. It’s a slight change in pitch, something measurable only with a fine instrument, but the change is readily observed.
By the end of the opening chapter, I felt like I was yanked out of The Matrix and awoke in a tub of pink goo. I subsequently wondered why it had to be pink and not blue goo, the sort that boys would prefer in a dystopian human-battery plant, but that’s beside the point.
I spent the following three days casing over how environment has influenced my identity, ideas, likes/dislikes, relationships, career decisions, music tastes – in short, everything.
By the end of the week, I wasn’t sure of who I was anymore. Was I just a pair of eyes and loosely working system of neurons that has absorbed advertising and consumerist ideals on a scale on an unconscious level? Am I just a mimic for all that has been told or taught to me?
I had turned into a Gender-focused Renée Descartes, pondering if my existence was a figment of some demon’s oddly white male and patriarchal imagination.
Descartes, for those foggy on the famous philosopher, would soon conclude of his existence: “I think, therefore I am.”
But I couldn’t keep the record from skipping when it came to environmental influences. I kept asking myself, “If I ask a girl out and have no idea how she’s been subjugated for a lifetime of unequal treatment, does that make me a dick before even saying hello?”
My conclusion was similarly Cartesian, but slightly different:
“I’m a dick before I am.”
By the weekend, I was exhausted. Trying to piece together your life by considering EVERYTHING EVER is a little like dumping the entirety of your household belongings in a big pile in the living room and asking, “Ok, but what does it all mean?!” It’s a stupid thing to do all at once.
Admitting defeat, the only thing I could do was pick up the textbook and continue reading.
That’s when I found a rather surprisingly passage from the authors. Instead of accepting the dystopian future we’re all headed for, they wrote something unexpectedly uplifting about the nature of social systems—for those in apparent control and everyone else. This is what they wrote:
“While social structure and available resources provide constraints, it is people who decide just how constrained they will allow themselves to be (and others who try to enforce or help loosen those constraints)…We do not forget that on a day-to-day level, style is not usually a serious business – rather, it is the spice of life.”
Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (2013). Language and gender (Second Edition). Cambridge University Press. 48.
The pile that was my life that I had dumped on the floor was suddenly cleaned up.
It was like hearing the famous conclusion of Renée Descartes, “I think, therefore I am”, but with a lemony twist on top, “Plus,” the great philosopher might have added, “it’s more fun that way.”
It’s a much more liveable way of existing, don’t you think? I’ll rephrase:
“I style, therefore I am.”
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AGDQ 2024 FINALE, HURRAY!!
This past week was the bi-annual speedrunning charity marathon event Awesome Games Done Quick. For those in the know, it’s a charity marathon streaming 24/7 on Twitch.tv for seven days that features a slate of video games being beaten as quickly as possible. The event draws tens-of-thousands of viewers and raises obscene amounts of money from a community of dedicated gamers and fans of games for a great cause: The Prevent Cancer Foundation.
I’ve watched the marathon every year and it continues to impress with speedruns that showcase the toughest tricks without a hitch. And while that is masterful to watch, there is something deeply inspiring when watching something go wrong and how one responds to it.
There was no better example than the finale of AGDQ 2024 when the final run hit a “snag” that had to be figured out in front of a live audience. The runner, Zic3, needed to level up a character in Final Fantasy V: Pixel Remaster, but the only fight was something his roster of fighters were greatly under-leveled for. The result was watching twenty minutes of frantic trial and error as the runner and his Couch Commenters (FOXYJIRA and W0ADYB) conferred back and forth for how to beat this section of the game.
It was the most inspiring example of grace under pressure I have seen in a long time. While the host, PROLIX, kept the audience riveted by reading donations, Zic3 eventually found a way to progress back to the route and complete the run. There were no tears, no gripes of rage or blame, not even a helpless moment of hesitation. The three runners on stage huddled together to solve the problem and eventually found a way through.
There’s something vulnerable and revealing when things go wrong. For me, it showed just how incredible these runners were to focus with all the pressure and continue to work the problem, each contributing solutions.
I’ll link the moment in the video below. It’s worth a watch.
And congrats to another AGDQ for raising 2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
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Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,
