Everyone’s Laughing at Me: Human Perception and My Brush with the Grateful Dead
It began, like so many things do, with that one scene in Freaks and Geeks. In the beautiful season finale, protagonist Lindsey Weir discovers a Grateful Dead CD. Suddenly, her mind is opened, her world is changed, and her arms sway to “Box of Rain.”
For weeks after finishing that show, I was unable to do anything but therapeutically lurch around my room to the sweet strains of “Box of Rain.” In the wee hours of the morning, earphones jammed in my head, I tripped and jumped, spun and whirled. When I tired of “Box of Rain,” I began to head bob to New Order, Beach House, Mitski, the Spice Girls, Pavement, the Beastie Boys and Nas. On the worst of days, I jumped on my bed with fury; on the best of days, I waltzed past my bookshelves, pants off, face alight. When I closed my eyes, I was a ballerina made of liquid and elastic. In those beautiful moments, I would catch mental glimpses of myself in the third person, promenading around my bedroom in utter silence with white wires coming out of my head. After laughing at my own sheer ridiculousness, paranoia would set in: what if I were Truman Burbanks, providing entertainment to the sadistic masses? What if I were an inhabitant of Whoville, being lorded over by a Seuss-spawned elephant of colossal stature? What if I were being watched like some twisted episode of Black Mirror involving hidden home cameras and a large audience of laughing Sims?
by Holly Sherlock
Maybe I failed to mention a couple of steps in my connection between happy, alone time dancing and spiteful Simulations. If that came out of left field, I apologize. Maybe I’m not normal. What is normal? Some philosopher whose name I can’t recall once argued that we as human beings view our own lives from an external vantage point. Even in our loneliest of hours, we sometimes see ourselves from the perspectives of others and, as a result, feel anything from disgust to contentment with whatever imagined opinions are possessed by our prying observers. In an effort to gain that coveted, societal approval that comes from our surroundings rather than us, we act as though we are being watched. We seek validation from this internalized being in an effort to make meaning out of our experiences, to create personal witnesses who love our virtues and hate our flaws. In a paradoxical combination of egocentrism and over the top modesty, we somehow think we’re special enough to be laughed at or admired, but then refuse to value our own senses of self over what we’ve been told. This is, of course, a generalization, and I don’t mean to call you unevolved. Neither, I’m sure, does faceless philosophy man (whose name I so wish I could remember so as to convince you this brain gunk doesn’t entirely belong to me). The point is, that Seuss-spawned elephant is embedded, coded inside of me. I will never escape Horton Hears a Who and, perhaps, neither will you.
by Holly Sherlock
On Tik Tok (the marker of high culture), I have seen many informational videos arising about the internalized male gaze: a psychological phenomenon wherein a person views themselves with the fetishization imposed upon them by a cisgender, male-dominated world. In the words of Margaret Atwood, “you are a woman with a man inside of you.” As a matter of fact, I do often feel the inexplicable urge to be sex-ay where sex-ayness is not a requirement (or even remotely encouraged). I wholeheartedly acknowledge that second person living in the back of my head, watching me with either misogynistic resentment or lecherous approval depending on the day. The male gaze, however, resides in my mind as one pair of eyes amongst many. Aside from that handful of creepy, internalized men, I seem to have an entire audience back there.
The endorsement of my imagined spectators represents the grounding of my existence-- the welding of my feet to the earth. My experiences, traits and small acts of kindness must be important to them, because that is how I cope with my awareness of the real world’s indifference. If I can typify my personality (an INFP apparently, according to the ultra-reliable 16 personalities test) and explain my feelings with my zodiac sign (Taurus if anyone was wondering), then I give my audience the ability to perceive me succinctly, as if my many selves could fit into a neatly ribboned package with a label on top. My presence on this earth is not a shout in the void. I am an INFP. I am someone.
There must be some form of innate narcissism within human nature that catalyzes this need to be watched, ridiculed or recognized. If not, then all of this only applies to me and that’s super awkward.