Shower Epiphanies
Aug. 27th, 2004 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_tectonicI had a really nice surge of ideas in the shower this morning. I'm not sure that it was brilliant enough to count as a full-on epiphany, but it was good.
I know that this phenomenon (the shower epiphany) has been observed and commented on by other people before, but it always amazes me when it happens. Is it just that you notice an abrupt flood of ideas a lot better when you're in the shower and have nothing better to do? Or is there some combination of circumstances -- an environment with low amounts of information to process, plus just enough physical activity to occupy the brain's background CPU cycles, maybe in conjuction with rising blood sugar from breakfast, or the added sensory input of the water, or thought patterns still fresh and flexible from sleep -- that makes it particularly conducive to having interesting sequences of cognition?
When I first came out to myself (that is, when I first started identifying as queer*), it was during a shower epiphany.
I remember it was at TEP the summer after my senior year at MIT. It was an unbearably hot summer and I think I may have been taking my second or third cold shower of the evening (which argues against sleep-fresh-brain theory, come to think of it) when I had this series of realizations. Sudden, unambiguous, simple:
There are men that I am sexually attracted to. This is not a choice, it's not a decision, it's not a life-style. It's simply a fact. Like "my eyes are brown", or "north is that way": "some guys turn me on." And it's not a big deal. It doesn't *mean* something. It's just a thing that's true.
It was so clear, so obvious, that I had to go and write it down on a piece of notebook paper, which I believe I titled "Blindingly Obvious Realizations". I think I still have the piece of paper floating around somewhere, because I have the packrat gene and I channel it into hoarding information.
And in fact, it was pretty much blindingly obvious to everybody but me, because, as I discovered in the ensuing days and weeks, when I went around telling people "I think I'm not straight; I think I'm attracted to other guys," the near-universal reaction to my coming-out was basically "well, duh". I don't think anybody actually said it that bluntly, but it's hard not to feel a little bit... silly, or foolish, when you discover that not only does no-one care about this big thing that you've been angsting over and fretting about for ages, everybody else already knows because they haven't been in denial about it.
Okay, I'm gonna stop there, because I feel a twinge residual embarassment coming on. At least I can laugh about it now.
Okay, I was going to tell you all about the interesting set of ideas I had in the shower, but the preceding was too damn long, so now I have to do another entry.
Bah.
Though I suppose if the goal of blogging is to write more, I'm probably succeeding.
I know that this phenomenon (the shower epiphany) has been observed and commented on by other people before, but it always amazes me when it happens. Is it just that you notice an abrupt flood of ideas a lot better when you're in the shower and have nothing better to do? Or is there some combination of circumstances -- an environment with low amounts of information to process, plus just enough physical activity to occupy the brain's background CPU cycles, maybe in conjuction with rising blood sugar from breakfast, or the added sensory input of the water, or thought patterns still fresh and flexible from sleep -- that makes it particularly conducive to having interesting sequences of cognition?
When I first came out to myself (that is, when I first started identifying as queer*), it was during a shower epiphany.
I remember it was at TEP the summer after my senior year at MIT. It was an unbearably hot summer and I think I may have been taking my second or third cold shower of the evening (which argues against sleep-fresh-brain theory, come to think of it) when I had this series of realizations. Sudden, unambiguous, simple:
There are men that I am sexually attracted to. This is not a choice, it's not a decision, it's not a life-style. It's simply a fact. Like "my eyes are brown", or "north is that way": "some guys turn me on." And it's not a big deal. It doesn't *mean* something. It's just a thing that's true.
It was so clear, so obvious, that I had to go and write it down on a piece of notebook paper, which I believe I titled "Blindingly Obvious Realizations". I think I still have the piece of paper floating around somewhere, because I have the packrat gene and I channel it into hoarding information.
And in fact, it was pretty much blindingly obvious to everybody but me, because, as I discovered in the ensuing days and weeks, when I went around telling people "I think I'm not straight; I think I'm attracted to other guys," the near-universal reaction to my coming-out was basically "well, duh". I don't think anybody actually said it that bluntly, but it's hard not to feel a little bit... silly, or foolish, when you discover that not only does no-one care about this big thing that you've been angsting over and fretting about for ages, everybody else already knows because they haven't been in denial about it.
Okay, I'm gonna stop there, because I feel a twinge residual embarassment coming on. At least I can laugh about it now.
*Footnote:
Labelling people is very tricky, because labels carry a lot of implicit information. "Homosexual" is a behavioral label (and is almost uselessly imprecise), while "gay" is a cultural one. I'm slightly uncomfortable applying the word "gay" to myself, because I feel like it implies association with a sub-culture that I really feel no attachment toward. My sub-culture is "geek", and I'm quite proud of my geek heritage.
The word "queer", on the other hand, is a mostly political label that means "I have non-default settings". I like that word a lot better, because it carries the implication that this is a complex subject that can't be easily summed-up in a single word.
Plus it starts with the letter Q, which is funny.
And it means "strange", which is also good.
So I may or may not be gay, but I'm definitely queer. (Though not A queer, since I'm also in the camp that says you should only apply labels to people adjectivally; to do otherwise implies that the categorization is the most important aspect of their identity, and that's rude.)
Okay, I was going to tell you all about the interesting set of ideas I had in the shower, but the preceding was too damn long, so now I have to do another entry.
Bah.
Though I suppose if the goal of blogging is to write more, I'm probably succeeding.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 03:37 pm (UTC)Mostly I like the idea that somewhere, somehow I am flexible. Lord knows it's not a physical trait for me.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 05:32 pm (UTC)I'm not sure what the point of blogging is. It's obviously different for everybody. For me, it's not so much about the writing as it is about the thinking. Taking the effort to write out ideas that occur to me for an external audience (even if that audience is only like 5 people) means I tighten things up a little bit (even if I'm still unbearably prolix (probably because of my aversion to editing (or my fondness for parenthetical comments))) and, more importantly, figure out a flow for presenting the ideas. I want more feedback, though. I need to figure out how to encourage that. Not that this has anything to do with your post. I'm just speculating on my own now. La la la la. Yes, it's late Friday afternoon at work, and I'm killing time before going to see the circus. Whee!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 05:43 pm (UTC)Making writing easier is also one of my goals, and I know that the secret to that is practice, and, well, blogging is good practice. And the other big thing is that it's sort of like writing letters to people to stay in touch. Only easier.
Parenthetical comments are better the more deeply nested they are. =)
The LiveJournal account is definitely an encourager for comments. It vastly lowers the barrier to entry.
I had something else to say, but I think I have used up my allotted coherence for this comment.
Blrfxl qlb fiffa hley.
Yup. All gone.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 08:41 pm (UTC)I do a lot of plotting in the shower... I go in with "geez, there's just no sensible way to get from point A (where we are) to point B (where we need to be)" and halfway through the shower it suddenly occurs to me that of course what actually happened was A, Z, sqrt(pi), epsilon, B.
My primary frustration with it is that I can't write things down in the shower. I have no memory to speak of.
And I suspect there's nothing I could say about your coming-out epiphany that would not inflame that twinge of residual embarassment, so I'll refrain from coment.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:38 pm (UTC)Mine tend to be in dreams
Date: 2004-08-28 05:18 pm (UTC)I tend to more often wake up with the solutions to problems I've been worried about. If they were especially good ones, they do often stay long enough for me to remember them.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-29 01:56 am (UTC)Send me email, eh?