Reading Simon Reynolds’ Bring The Noise collection of music journalism this weekend, I came across this passage:
Field-researching the piece in clubs like Liberty’s and Twice As Nice, I found myself wondering why on earth anyone would voluntarily expose themselves to the toxic atmosphere of tension, incivility and snooty attitude that permeates these events. I mean, my excuse was I was being paid to be there, and got in for free – why would you actually pay – queue for ages, and then pay hard-earned dosh – to experience such sustained unpleasantness?
Reading that on the same weekend that I wasn’t at Comic-Con, and finding myself both missing the experience in some unexplainable manner but, judging from all the reports I was seeing online, also thinking that there was absolutely nothing new or different about this year’s Con compared with last year’s, or the one before that or the one before that, and so on, bells were ringing in my head. I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I went to a comic book convention when I wasn’t working, and that it’s possible that I don’t, actually, like comic book conventions.
I feel very unsettled by this realization. Does it make me a bad geek? Does it mean that I am somehow letting the side down, by not inherently finding the idea of spending four days in the same convention center, surrounding by a crushing crowd of strangers and going to panels to hear familiar-sounding PR and anecdotes, exciting? I’m unsure; part of me wants to say that, no, it means I have a sense of perspective on life that should surely be applauded – While many friends did that very thing this weekend, I went to a picnic in a park with friends, and then spent the evening relaxing in the garden, reading: I’d like to think that I win, in terms of comparison – but there really is this niggling feeling that I’m missing out on something by even thinking that, and that I’ve definitely missed out on something by staying home this year, instead of paying hundreds of dollars to feel disconnected and uncomfortable in a hotel for a week.
The mind is a strange thing, truly. And, at times like this, frustratingly self-sabotaging.