I think I'm blind to symbolism.

I just want to ramble instead of going to sleep. I should sleep. I have to get up early to drive Brother to his class. But I want to ramble and get some thoughts out of my head.

I watched more TYT video clips today because I was bored. Just watched: http://youtu.be/dhp5zuL7Nes

All I saw was Bert and Ernie cuddling on the couch, watching TV. That's still mostly what I see. There may be intended symbolism in there. But what do I know about symbolism in visual or written format? Symbolism was one of the most difficult things I had to struggle with in my English classes (I had sooo many symbolism projects for both published literature and artwork/advertisements), and I think I'm pretty damn good at academic English when I try.

So liberals and conservatives alike attributed symbolic qualities to the Bert and Ernie cover image. Promoting the gay agenda, sexualizing characters that can influence children, and showing support for the gay community are some of the conclusions that people have drawn. Right or wrong, it's still just an image. The only reason you see a symbol there is that you yourself have put the symbol there.

Anyway, I tend to not see symbols when I look at or read something. Not unless it's clearly labeled as a symbol or until someone else points out the symbolism. Maybe some symbolism is just too complex for my brain haha; I don't know. But yeah, I don't always see it for myself. Like with Bert and Ernie, I see the symbolism now that it's been pointed out, but I still don't really see it. It's mainly just an image to me. Does it make me feel a little happier on the inside to see it? Yeah, I enjoyed Sesame Street when I was a child; so seeing some familiar characters interacting in a familiar way makes me happy. It makes me happy to see some physical expression of happiness and love, even in the medium of puppets.

I just have to ask: Why can't two males show affection for one another without it being gay or wrong? Yeah, yeah, I know, masculinity and heteronormativity. But really, why? Why attribute anything negative to something that is supposed to increase your level of happiness and closeness to another human being? Hugs have supposedly been scientifically proven to make people feel better, obviously as long as they are consensual and used positively. So why can't two guys do that for each other, whether they are gay or straight? Why does it have to symbolize anything? Why can't it just be two guys supporting each other or being happy in each other's presence?

Yeah, Bert and Ernie could be gay. Who am I to declare what they are? Only they would truly know. (But they're puppets... So I don't think we will ever get a straight answer from either of them.) Yeah, they are cuddling in front of the TV in the image. Why can't we have an image of that? What is the essential wrongness (or rightness) of that image, in and of itself, without the symbolism that we personally attribute to it? When I saw that picture, I just saw two characters cuddling. Two characters cuddling is two characters cuddling. I don't necessarily see right or wrong, good or evil. The most I would assume from that image is that they are watching TV together, or maybe one of them is asleep; I can't see their faces, so I dunno. As for the cuddling, what does that mean? It could mean anything. But why does it have to mean anything to us? I mean, friends cuddle, siblings cuddle, lovers cuddle, anyone can cuddle. Does it have to mean anything more than "I feel comfortable around you" or "I love you"? I just don't get it.

Just so you know, in my head, Bert and Ernie do really like and love each other. It's not like they have been depicted as hating each other.


Words are so powerful. Symbolism wouldn't exist without words. We use words to attach symbols to everything we experience. Words themselves are symbols. What is a word? It's an abstract thing. We can't actually see, smell, taste, hear, or touch it, unless we give it a physical existence by writing it or typing it. Even then, we can't actually touch the thing that we call a word. It's a thought in our head that we learned from our peers, graphite on paper, ink on a canvas, photons on a screen, scratches on a bench. When we touch the manifested letters on that paper or on that bench, it still only exists in our brains. What we touch is paper, wood, metal, atoms. (Well, if we want to get technical, nothing ever actually touches anything.) Atoms aren't words.

It's funny. There is a word--well, there are probably infinitely many--out there that doesn't exist yet. So that nonexistent word doesn't represent or symbolize anything. But when that word gets thought of and starts manifesting in people's minds via social interaction, it's gonna mean something to people. Right now, it doesn't, but one day it will. It has the potential to make money, to destroy lives, to divide people, to do so much good, and to do so much bad. It's a damn word that doesn't even exist yet, but it's got so much potential energy waiting to be released because it doesn't exist yet. Once it comes into existence, all that energy changes into kinetic energy, giving that word speed, force, power, and momentum. And it will have a constant supply of energy until people stop using it and stop believing in its power, existence, or meaning. It's kinda like The Game ("I lost the game"); it doesn't exist until you give it existence. It's crazy that all of this is possible for a currently nonexistent word. The human mind creates so much potential.

So this abstract idea that we call a word allows us to see and experience our world in a way that's different from the typical animal's experience. Without words, we just recognize familiar things, people, and experiences. We recognize that we want more of what gives us a positive experience or feeling and we want to avoid what is negative. With words, we do the same thing, but words simplifies the process and yet can make it so complicated. We can recognize, categorize, organize, discriminate, and manipulate. Without words, hugs between any two people is a positive thing. When you hug someone and don't think about it, you just naturally feel good. With words, the recognition and simplification is "hugs are good because they make me feel good." The complexity, however, results in "two guys hugging is gay/bad" or even "front hugging tempts people into having sex." (That's a real thing. I just learned about the existence of Christian side hugging today.) How do people come to this conclusion?

Without words, you wouldn't believe anything until you experienced it yourself many times to establish a pattern, unless you find exceptions. Then you're just cautious enough to look out for the exceptions, or I would hope so. With words, you just have to believe the person who's telling you something as if it were a fact. You don't need to experience it yourself because someone else supposedly already experienced it for you. How do you know something is true until you make yourself know it's true, rather than having someone else let you know it's true?

Besides, someone else's word might not mean the same as your own word. We just assume that they mean the same thing because we use the same word. But we can't truly know that they mean the same thing.


Blah. I've lost my train of thought. This post was supposed to be about how I suck at seeing symbolism, but I didn't really stick to that. But what else could I say about my inability to see symbolism? I can't see it. So when others see it, I have to look again until I see it. Even then, I just think to myself, "Interesting. I see it, but I don't actually see it. How does this person see this so easily? Why do they see it this way?"

Mm. People and their brains and their ways of thinking. So intriguing what comes out of them.


Oh, I've always found the idea that people can be symbols to be very fascinating. I get why they are symbols to certain people. I can see how. But I still just see them as a person who took on some role or did something that inspired others. Just a person who did something that other people noticed. If no one notices you, you can't be a symbol of anything to others.


Thoughts are too complex to be fully formed right now. It's after midnight. Dang it. Not again. I have to start going to bed early soon, like this week. If all goes well, I start work early next Monday :D