Narrow-Minded

I have been stranded in this mental desert for longer than I can remember. All around me - dry thoughts and dunes of arid practicality. I crawl on, desperate for sweet inspiration. I see an oasis! It is an optimistic but critical view of teenage cultures. But as I reach for it, the mirage crumbles in front of me. I suddenly remember that I passed that topic a long time ago. Twice. I crawl on. I pray to an unknown god; I pray for inspiration, a measly drop of an idea. As I sink to my knees, my prayers are answered. There, poking out of the bland sand is a note. I unfurl it, noting it has been sent by the mysterious Freya, whoever this deity may be. It reads: 

"hmmmm i 'm not surewhat aboutSHERLOCK BEING POSTPONEDsorry noermnarrow minded people"

The desert collapses beneath me.

Hello, I'm here to talk about narrow-mindedness.Back in the day, I used to watch a cartoon adaptation of Batman for children's TV, cleverly retitled "The Batman". It was an extremely enjoyable programme, and notably dark - I was terrified by even the theme tune (which ended rather abruptly before a sinister voice leered "the BATMAANNNN" in a low and threatening voice). One episode which I do remember quite clearly was when Batman, through a rather lazy leap of science-fiction, was able to venture into the Joker's mind, and undoubtedly kick things.

I spend a worrying amount of time envisaging such mindscapes in my head, and I will use one as a metaphor for narrow-mindedness here. It is said that ignorance is bliss. In a way, I agree with that - there are some people who will quite happily occupy a single room in their mindscapes - happy, safe, and full of interesting and fascinating things to begin with. Once examined, they lose their interest, but still become nice. It is on the whole a very content existence.
We are all in this state at some point in our lives - some stay there till they die. But some of us will one day, by chance, discover a trapdoor beneath the bed. Grasping it, we drop down...into another room. This room is also full of fascinating trinkets and new toys to play with. Once we are done amusing ourselves, we notice that this room has 5 doors, each connecting to a new and unique room. Each of those rooms has 5 more doors.
You see the dilemma here. This is the Explorer's Hydra - by exploring, you merely confirm that there is more to explore. We are quite certain that the building we're in is finite, but we're not sure. At any rate, we can't visit every room. By opening that first door, we allow ourselves to experience more, but allow ourselves to understand that there are rooms out there that we will never see. A bittersweet scenario.
It represents learning. By opening ourselves to more culture and more science and more intrigue, we are also cursed with the knowledge that there's too much of it for us, and that we will never know as much as we want to. Ignorance is bliss, but a shallow bliss. Learning is a deeper gamble. It depends on  your outlook as to whether the positives outweigh the negatives.

I will never understand quarks. I will never truly appreciate the nuances of Marxism. I will never manage to venture beneath the tip of the iceberg as far as Eastern culture is concerned. I will never learn Latin.

I will, as will all of you, be constantly narrow-minded.
It's one of the saddest truths in the universe.

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten."

 George Orwell, 1984.

Enlightenment

One of the things I prided myself on was the fact that I was more tolerable of people's practises because I understood more about them. I felt good because I was able to step out of the 'Evil Atheist' role that many non-believers with limited knowledge of religion so easily fit into. You know what I mean - the kind of people who spout gems like "God doesn't exist because the Big Bang" and "God is technically a rapist though ineeee?", and even "All religious people are basically evil innit?". I did have that phase myself, but just like the Memebase phase and the dark period of musical taste we shall call the Pre-Florence Era, I left it and became a wiser (if more embarrassed) person. I discovered that if you disagree with something, you don't have to voice an argument, and since I've been firmer friends with all from Christians to self-acclaimed mediums.
The reason I have descended into this pool of self-indulgence, this smug stew, is because in comparison it took me far longer to grasp some of the basics of feminism. I'd always though of myself as a feminist, simply because I'm not an arsehole, and yet I was still holding on to some incredibly ignorant beliefs.
I was, for example, one of those people who thought that make-up was a media construct to undermine women, and that anyone wearing loads of it was just doing it because they felt pressured to fit in and attract men, and that all skimpy clothing was sexualised and the product of a cruel, male-dominated society. I actually felt pity for women because I thought they were being demeaned, and thought that a lack of make-up etc. would lead to a better society. Can you imagine. Why was anyone friends with me until this year.
The steps in my revelation can be pinned down to the three Ms - Mum, Moran, and Moffat.
1. Mum - My mum told me something when I was in my early teens which had a profound effect on my feminist viewpoint, and that was "Girls don't dress for boys, that's a common misconception. They dress for their friends, and they dress for themselves." My mum is incredibly clever, so I was inclined to trust her.
2. Moran - Whilst on Tumblr a few months ago, I saw a quote from Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman. It talked about how wearing make-up wasn't a weakness, and that artifice is healthy and natural and empowering. I wrote a post a bit ago about being oneself and I mentioned make-up. This is the root of that.
3. Moffat - During the recent run of Doctor Who episodes, there were several accusations of sexism levelled towards Steven Moffat, Head Writer. Whilst I didn't agree with most of these, it pointed out a very obvious thing to me - many male writers think that having a woman who can hit people is a strong enough character. When it really isn't anything like that.
I don't like getting into feminist viewpoints too much, because there are escalating arguments that only match those of political ideologies. However, I think it's important to have a good grasp of what is still an example of brilliant people fighting against horrific injustice. Any males reading this: Look up some feminist writing.

Oh, and the hidden message in The Raven was "A visitor in December wrought sorrow for evermore."

Verse Fluctuation Declaration

I'm not sure if you're familiar with A Series Of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, but one of the themes running through the series is the letters VFD. They represent a mysterious organisation, and by the end of the books it becomes apparent that they originally stood for "Volunteer Fire Department", but throughout every novel there is at least one instance of the aforementioned organisation creating a code or a machine or even a town with the same initials. A code that follows this rule is Verse Fluctuation Declaration.
Essentially, it is a way of hiding simple messages in poetry, by altering some of the words. Here is the example given in the books when it is first used:

If a volunteer used the name of the poem "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning in a coded communication, the title might instead be "My Last Wife," by the poet "Obert Browning" instead of Robert Browning. Filling in the mistakes would spell out "Duchess R."

Essentially, the corrections are the message. Somebody I talk to quite a bit on Tumblr once tried his hand at writing his own VFD, which made me want to try it too. I chose Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came countless tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some spectre,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was during the bleak July,
And each separate dying ember threw its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of misery - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
Actually the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for crumpets.

If you want to try and work out the melodramatic message within, find a copy of The Raven online, and compare the two...write down every correction you can see. I should warn you, some of the alterations are quite subtle - the first correction, and the first word of the message, is 'a'. I'll include the answer in my next post.

If you want to check out more codes that the genius mind of Snicket has conjured up - and there's no reason why you shouldn't - go to this website: http://snicket.wikia.com/wiki/V.F.D._Codes

The only one you can really use yourself, unless you are a librarian or a taxi driver, is the Sebald code, but Verbal Fridge Dialogue is always fun. As for the coded greetings and responses, you should learn them just in case.