Forced Perspective

There’s a great scene in the Season Six finale of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” where, distraught, Buffy relates all of the season’s calamities to Giles, her Watcher. Giles had been largely absent from the season, and heard first hand in this episode about one character’s kleptomania, another character leaving a third at the altar, and Buffy’s fiscal and emotional woe. After a deep look of concern towards Buffy, Giles breaks out into utter and hysterical laughter. In doing so, the show tried to puncture the melodrama it had set up over the course of the season. By having an outside perspective on her problems, Buffy was too able to laugh about the relative size of her problems.

It didn’t hurt that her best friend by this time had gone evil and was trying to kill people, and eventually destroy the world. Sadly, few of us have such a life event to force such perspective upon us, but often we have people such as Giles to refocus our perspective when it’s clouded. It need not be the same person all the time, but that perspective is often needed. Case in point---in college, I did my share of theatre. While at it, I did your share, your mom’s share, and that guy down at the 7-11’s share as well. But, I didn’t live with anyone who did theatre. This allowed me valuable outsider perspective:

Me: Man, I just don’t know what to do---I’ve got 60 instruments, but only 24 dimmers. 12 are 2.4k, 12 are 1.2k, and I’m just not sure how to balance the light load with the systems I want to invoke. What should I do?
Them: Dude, you can help case this bowl…

See? Outsider perspective. Invaluable.

I’ve had a few Giles-es lately in my life, which have served me well. A lot of bloggers use their readership as their Giles, and really, I can see how that could work for some people, but just not for me. I’m already violating the first rule of this website, which is, “Do not talk about the website.” Wait, no it’s not. It’s “Ryan’s thoughts=interesting; Ryan himself=uninteresting”. Self-flogging via blogging is inherently uninteresting to me. (Internal rhyming, however, is both interesting AND sexy. Just remember that.) You as readers come here to see what I think, not how I feel. That’s my social contract with you, and I’m sticking to it.

One need not always seek out Giles for help; indeed, they often come unexpectedly. Buffy did not call Giles; Giles was with a coven, and then Tara was shot, and Willow’s eyes turned red, and…oh, you don’t care about that, do you? Back to the point. A Giles can be someone who just lends an ear and a perspective out of an intuitive need they perceive on your part.

Giles-es can do many things to get you out of your funk. Here are the three best things they can do for you.

• Get you out of the house. I cherish my time alone, but after a while, I go a little batty and start talking to my poster. “Oooh, you French version of the ‘Gladiator’ theatrical poster, you’re a bad little monkey!” You can see why this is a problem. Saturday, a coupled form of Giles got me out of the house when I would have been content to sit and home and pout over the extras of “The Fellowship of the Ring”. Again. Out was better.
• Give their perspective on events. Now, this is often tough to take, but generally necessary. (Those of you who know me know who well I take opinions about my, well, opinions.) It’s often difficult to take, but a verbal smackdown (even a gentle one) works wonders, especially if they trash the source of your angst, whether it be a friend, a class, or Haitian refugees living in your basement. Your Giles can often let you in on insights you couldn’t see for yourself. Remember that scene in “Ferris Bueller” when they’re looking at the mosaic, and the camera jumps closer and closer, blurring the greater picture? Same thing here. You’re Cameron, they are Ferris and that girl who wasn’t in anything after “Ferris” but I saw her on that VH1 “I Love the 80’s” special on Saturday and SWEET JESUS she aged like Mary Tyler Moore.
• Make you talk about the angst at length, and, in doing so, makes you realize the own inflated worth you’d assigned the event and make you preemptively laugh at yourself. This was my Sunday Giles, who hadn’t talked to me in the last month. There was, needless to say, much catching up to do. By the end of the conversation, we were both laughing and discussing me writing a “Why Ryan’s Playstation is the Best Girlfriend Ever” article for the blog. Still might write that, but today’s topic won out with the editorial board; ie, my collection of sock puppets. (Eds. We love the dirty monkey joke!) If you’re forced to actually verbalize your angst, often you find that the words puncture the bubble of pomposity you’d given your own life tragedies. If you’re cruel, you both make fun of someone worse off than you, which won’t earn you points in the afterlife but might help you sleep a little better at night.

In summation, I wish you all the Giles-es in the world. I also wish to never have to type “Giles-es” again, cuz it looks frickin’ odd.

Posted by Ryan McGee at April 14, 2003 09:59 AM