(no subject)

[arethinn]

I am just not having a good weekend. The material in the Underworld workshop has been good, but aside from the annoyance of getting up in the morning, I sat there the whole afternoon feeling very out of place because with only a couple exceptions, I am easily 15-25 years the junior of everyone else in the room, and feeling like I shouldn't even be there because I was not having deep, interesting experiences and in fact was often failing to have the basic part, that of feeling I was actually within the Underworld. It's making me seriously question whether I want to spend another $180 to most likely repeat the experience in July. I thought going to actual workshops would be helpful, but when it's clear I'm far behind everyone else, it hardly makes it worth it, because I feel so bad. In fact I'm rather questioning my right to be in any such place, including gathers. I remember in one of the workshops at Pantheacon that Orion Foxwood was talking about having Sight, and how this is something one is either born with or is not, and it's either awake all one's life, or shows up in puberty. As I'm now 25 it seems highly unlikely I'm suddenly going to "bloom" someday, so lacking even the basic aptitude that would be necessary to work in magical tradition, it makes me wonder what the fuck I think I am doing? Similar with gathers.. obviously that is also something one is, or is not, and it seems like jazz ("if you have to ask, you'll never know")... something where "if you have to question whether you are, then you're not".

Comments

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

a) Seeing you every year at Thresholds since 1999.

Those were the "four times tops" I was referring to. I don't think that's a big enough sample. Really, stick them together. Pretend we were all there for four days straight. Do you really think that's enough time to get a sense of someone?

Admittedly, you're usually buzzing from proximity to Cel

Continuing to consider that your samples are WtT only, I haven't been doing so since 2001, so while I guess that's 3 out of 4 WtTs you've seen me at, I still don't think of it as "usually".

c) I've participated in ritual with you at Thresholds. Once, it was even a ritual you helped co-run with Cel.

I can't make any speculations about rituals in other years, but the 2002 one (the one you mention) was, in a word, wrong. If nothing else, let us say that was "the bad year".

d) I'm a fairly frequent visitor to your website and journal. You place a good bit of magic in both places

Keep in mind that a lot of my website dates several years back. As for my journal, you're in on a couple filters, so this is not something that's generally present.

e) The same is true of many of the posts I've seen you make to lists over the years.

I really have no idea what you are talking about here, honestly, because my own memory of most of my posts is short, negatively-centred things, much like my journal posts are. You know, the kind of things that often start with "actually...".

- For the last several years, at least, and I think this would be borne out by archive searches, since I've done them for other things and run across my own posts in the process.

If you don't think I know you well enough for you to feel comfortable with me making such a statement, I'm willing to withdraw it

It's not "comfort"; I simply think you can't possibly have a large enough sample to base any kind of reasonable conclusion on. It's like looking at an angel food cake and going "this tastes good so it must be easy to make". It's just nonsense.

(well, easy maybe if you already have cooking skills. I know when I tried to make one for the first time when I was a child, I had no idea what "stiff peaks" meant on the egg whites, and wound up with a baked omelet thing in the pan rather than a cake...)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Considering that I've seen Rialian for a total of maybe six to eight days more than that over the past five years (driving to WV with him and Adara when she first moved there in '99, meeting him with Dusk at California Pizza Kitchen once, and a minigather at his house that I can remember off the top of my head as times I've seen him other than WtT), and I feel that he and I have a good sense of each other, I'd have to say yes it is enough time to get a sense of someone. Hell, it's quite a bit more time than I've spent in the physical company of Arhuaine, for that matter, and I know she and I have a good sense of each other.

I'm not going to argue with you over this, though. I've stated my perception... you clearly choose not to accept it as accurate, and that's your choice. Trying to convince you to accept it would be a waste of time far better spent trying to convince Dusk he really is beautiful.... ;-)