Common Sense	Common Sense Archive

When I was a child-- and isn't the word "child" in the English language not very specific?-- let's say when I was five or six years old, my Mother did a very useful thing with me. Actually, dear Mother did many useful things, but on this occasion, she had me read out loud, with her by my side, a book the title of which was The Big Me and the Little Me. Mom had me reading by four or five, which turned out to be a useful skill when young (and even now), though I suspect the satisfaction level was greater in my first decade of life than in my current.

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he book was intended to be instructional, like a good percentage of child literature-- perhaps adult lit, too. The Big Me was described as the generous-spirited child, the one who would help out Mom and friends, and The Little Me was the whining, selfish, demanding child, always having fits and throwing things about. Children are a mix of both traits, and the book, if my memory serves after 55 years, was to accentuate the positive.

But is memory accurate? My dear Mother, now 86 years old, and I were having a perfectly lucid conversation about the 1920s the other day. I only know about the 1920s from books about that decade and, of course, from her recollections. She had a pretty good time in those years. Her memory of more recent events, from a month or two before, will sometimes be vague, and she will struggle over names. But the early memories are the most deeply implanted. I think this is regarded as the common condition-- older memories are fresh, newer imprints fade like wisps of smoke. But, surely, there must be the unusual few who have the opposite-- can remember names and phone numbers of all their new acquaintances but not recall their high-school locker combination. What was yours? I can only recall mine in weird anxiety-laced dreams.

One of my dearest friends, a man who has made unique contributions to our movement, has lately had lapses in his short-term memory. These things will happen, even though it is very sad to observe. But it triggers the thought about what even folks with full powers learn and remember in a country that Gore Vidal has called the United States of Amnesia. We are lied to so often and so aggressively by people in the government, by the advertisers, the drug manufacturers, I suppose this all has some cumulative impacts on our brain functioning-- how many stupid TV jingles from the 50s and 60s are still stuck in my cortex?-- and may lead to memory impairment.

I will leave the answers to these probes to those who specialize in neural functioning. I want to continue with this account of my success or lack thereof in the battle between the Big Me and the Little Me. The Big Me developed quite nicely over the years. I acquired the gift of empathy, which may have come in the mass-market edition-- too much time and energy and money spent on the wrong ponies. But empathy is something grand, a gift I wish were a little more commonly dispensed among the good volk. If poor memory still serves, I recall that the fabulous Myra Breckinridge, while instructing at her Uncle Buck's talent academy, had, as one of her courses, the assignment to teach "Empathy." It was a sublime joke. Thank you, Gore. The Big Me also learned how to listen well, another useful skill, particularly in a culture filled with fine people who will blab at you at the drop of a feather. The Big Me also learned to say "No," which you might think would belong to the Little Me, but it doesn't. If you can't say No, you get steamrolled. It ain't pretty. I see it all the time.

The Little Me has gotten bigger over the years. It's funny how you change over time. It's even funnier how others change-- or worse, don't change, though predictability has its attractive qualities. The Little Me has grown intolerant in a narrow and very specific way. The Little Me has taught me how to shut out all those things that I loathe, find culturally intrusive, just disgusting-- it's a long list. Football culture. Most of the religious. Popular culture. Well, I won't waste your time with the usual suspects. But I've noticed the Little Me has become more assertive in the past ten to 15 years. I walk out of rooms in which there is a queen, or more than one queen, with whom I have decided I just don't want to share space. The end of empathy. But when some people show up, I simply have to leave the room. I suppose everybody hates someone for reasons deeply patterned. I don't hang around straight men as much as others do, but I will move from one subway car to another if there is a group of straight men carrying on in that way just too-too.

But what goes around comes around. I myself have been subject to what I presume was a similar impulse by another. A middle-aged woman sat next to me on a bus not long ago. She looked me over, gave a growly hurrrmph, and moved to another perch on the local. Did I look like a bad guy? Did I smell of cigarette smoke (I well may have)? Did I? Was I? I will never know. I felt triumphant, however, knowing her Little Me had won. And having more space on the bus is always nice.

Memory? Write everything down. As to the others? My Big Me gets smaller every year and my Little Me gets bigger; it's all I can recommend.

Author Profile:  Mitzel
	Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective, and has been a Guide columnist since 1986. He manages Calamus Books near Boston's South Station.
	Email:	mitzel@calamusbooks.com
	Website:	calamusbooks.com