So recently I started reading this nonfiction book (that you may have heard of as it's been popular as of recent years - how I heard of it I don't remember) called Thinking, Fast and Slow. It's a pretty fascinating take on the psychology behind the mental processes we use to make decisions in everyday life, which the author, Daniel Kahneman, characterizes as two agents or systems. System 1, the fast thinker, is prone to make automatic judgments without you realizing it and falls along the lines of what most people would call intuition, whereas System 2, the slow thinker, is more deliberate and takes effect when you're actually conscious of what you're thinking about. Most people regularly rely on both systems on an everyday basis in decision-making, but often don't realize how often their System 1 factors into that process, particularly when it leads them to faulty or irrational conclusions that they might not have otherwise if they'd actually employed their System 2 more.
The book itself spends a good deal of time elaborating on other mental/logical fallacies that often emerge as a result of both systems and their interaction with each other. A lot of it may come across as surprising, though perhaps less so particularly if you're already familiar with statistics/probability, as a good number of fallacies are related to that subject and how often people will ignore statistical conclusions even when they've been convinced of their validity in favor of continuing to satisfy their own personal biases (but what else is new, really). I could go on about it more but I'll leave it at it's a pretty enlightening read so go read it and yada yada.
About a month ago it was suggested to me that I'd been giving off this impression as if I were fed up with incompetence in the world (not sure if that was the exact word but it was along those lines) To be honest, I hadn't really thought of it that way before, but my immediate reaction was of spontaneous immediate agreement- I mean seriously, why is there so much incompetence in the world?- while neglecting to mention the second half of what I was really feeling- "and why do I feel like I'm just contributing to it?"
The flaws and mental fallacies that Kahneman brought up in his book struck a similar chord along that train of thought, for I couldn't help but feel incredibly annoyed and moreover pissed off while reading about them. Defects coming from people who essentially were unwilling to admit their own mistakes, satisfied with continuing to live in a fantasy world that catered to their own preconceived beliefs and immediate experiences, while rewriting other contrary facts and findings in their own minds so that it could fit whatever bullshit yet coherent story or interpretation that they came up with in their heads. (Okay, I'll admit that's a rather pessimistic way of interpreting Kahneman's book thus far.) Even though these are flaws that pretty much EVERYONE is susceptible to at some point in their lives or even regularly... but that notion just frustrated me even further.
We live such messed up, imperfect lives, it's a wonder we're able to still live and marvel at the simplest things, the beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) things, and get by day-to-day as if our lives aren't... really so imperfect. I look at all of the evidence I've been coming across of the ways in which people and the world around them don't entirely function the way that they should... the way that they ought to... the way that they feel like they should or ought to... and it just brings about an overwhelming sense of confusion and disbelief. To look at a problem in the world today and have this sense that this didn't have to happen; if only people actually communicated and empathized with each other and tried to focus on something beyond themselves for once, looked at the bigger picture, examined their own thoughts and motivations and actions and took responsibility for their own mistakes and shortcomings. But one can only hope for so much sometimes from a selfish and (to use a term parents mentioned from the weekend) "stiff-necked" species, in which these faults are almost essentially programmed from birth. There's no avoiding it.
And to see some of these same glaring defects in my own self on a regular basis, and find myself starting to grow apathetic about it because I too have that innately selfish part of me that doesn't really want to give a shit about it anymore. I see how I'm also a part of the problem I complain about, but I'm paralyzed by my own self-centered desire to settle for the status quo, a hedonistic life focused on the day-to-day to maybe even the next few months that doesn't have to worry about the long term plan because it's tired of people asking "when are you going to get a _____" (insert topic of choice here) and "what do you really want to achieve with your life?" I mean, I'm still too mentally busy being hung up on "why is this world the way it is?" and "what if that question doesn't have a real answer?" when I'm conscious enough to be bothered by it.
...
Anyone reading this who's been in or around an Intervarsity-related community is probably familiar with a book called True Story, which often gets recommended as a summer read in those circles due to its accessible message regarding how to reach out to others in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile to [the largely Protestant evangelical brand of] Christianity itself, which makes it pretty relevant application-wise. The book espouses a 4 circle diagram intended as a more sophisticated update to the bridge diagram that I'm guessing most evangelical Christians have probably been exposed to at some point in their lives (in my case it was elementary school), and I've personally seen two different communities that both happened to set up trainings of some sort teaching people how to engage others using the 4 circle diagram- aka how to draw it from scratch.
The diagram itself is nice in that it provides a structured way of explaining the basic idea of the Christian worldview to anyone who isn't familiar with it or perhaps even has a misconception of what it is Christians actually believe and why they would believe it. But as with any diagram or model that people come up with, it doesn't quite suffice as a satisfactory answer to all of the questions an outsider might have, particularly anyone who's given serious thought to this. (from a logic standpoint, I imagine one might take issue with the claim, "Just like hunger points to food and thirst points to water, so our universal ache for a better world means that such a world either once existed or will one day exist.") And I'm not entirely sure whether it suffices for the believer sharing the message itself- it probably varies on how much or well that person already understands their own faith and its implications. But the impression I got from seeing the enthusiastic push to have this diagram taught and spread in both communities was that people are willing to settle for a story that makes sense to them, even if it doesn't fit with or capture some or all of the details. And that isn't just limited to Christian circles either; I'm pretty sure that's applicable to everyone at some point.
And that happens to be the same message that Thinking Fast, and Slow expresses: our tendency to create stories in our heads that satisfy both the evidence we see before us and our own direct, personal experiences, when oftentimes there just isn't really enough information to form a realistic or universally accurate impression of that sort. And then we judge the validity of the stories we create by how coherent they are in themselves rather than how well they address all of those details, finding it easier instead to ignore the small things that don't conform to the story we're satisfied with, if needed.
To be honest, I often feel the same way about the Christian story itself. It can be told well, and it is internally coherent enough to satisfy at least some of those people who are feeling empty about their lives, upset by life circumstances and the failings of their own nature. The gospel is meant to be a message that saves, to preach good news to the poor and proclaim liberty to the captives, and recover sight to the blind and set free those who are oppressed. It's really an uplifting story. But to really accept it, to accept the Bible in the form which it's been presented, one has to learn to cope with a lot of added baggage: internal contradictions, flaws and fallacies, persecution and injustice borne about both outside and within, and often because of the church, established denominations divided among themselves in the most basic of doctrines and subject to bureaucratic powers, all of which came about as the result of human error and wrongdoing and misguided and often ill-informed intentions. For God so loved the world that he evidently chose a selfish, stubborn, prone to error and ultimately imperfect human species to help carry out his will upon the earth, presumably fully knowing of the consequences that would entail.
People in the communities I've been a part of are prone to look at those outside as lost, as misguided, as being without hope, and while that line of thinking does seem to naturally follow from the story that has been presented, it has never really sat right with me. Who are we to judge other lifestyles, other beliefs and worldviews, other experiences, and other existences in that fashion if we haven't experienced the weight of those lives ourselves? And yet we act as though our intuition based solely on our own immediate experiences about these issues is enough, in some cases perhaps without even realizing it.
Dear God, this is what I mean when I tell you that I'm not satisfied... but I'm still hoping to be surprised.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
paradoxes.
Updated note: So I wrote this entry about a week ago and never got around to publishing it cause part of it didn't really sit right with me. Now it's a week later and I might say that I don't necessarily feel the same way I did when I wrote this, but as a snapshot of a moment that's become more typical lately whenever my mind is lucid enough, it still stands I guess.
Original note: I seem to have a habit for having not so uplifting thoughts while driving alone at night for an hour... and another habit for forgetting the contents of said thoughts the moment I get out of the car. But this is my attempt to recall said thoughts regardless. I really should have a recorder on me or something.
Words are all that I'm capable of thinking in, but words do not suffice.
Once you acknowledge that there will always be a barrier between yourself and other people to some extent, that there will always be some level on which you can never really connect, your view of the world (at least in my case) grows incredibly dim. You stop seeing opportunities in the conversations you might have but then decide not to, because why bother if it won't really go anywhere anyway? If, at the end of the day, you'll just go your separate ways, and then probably not talk again for another day or two or three or week or month or couple of months or half-year or year or so it goes on. So life goes on. And then maybe one or two or four or all of those times one of you might lament how you wish you had more time when you clearly don't and never will have any, so why bother bringing up a pointless subject to begin with.
And it's not even about just that fundamental inability to fully connect which is kind of inevitable anyway, because it's also about your own personal ineptitude. Your own inability to appear happy on command, because looking grim just happens to be your default face and smiling actually hurts more than it sounds even though it somehow uses less muscles than frowning. You can't mask what you're feeling because you like being honest with other people, but at the same time you're having trouble acknowledging or recognizing what exactly it is you're feeling in the first place, so when people call you out for not looking happy you respond that you really are happy and just suck at showing it. Which may also be true, but you really don't know.
All you know is that you aren't satisfied, and you can't figure out how to go about becoming satisfied because you don't believe you ever will be. Faith is believing in something despite that fact that you might not ever see it in your own lifetime, because Abraham had faith in a promise that he personally never lived to witness. And in your own case, it'd wind up being more selfish to simply give up and move on with your life than continue to hope for something you possibly [probably] will never see happen, even though to be frankly honest in this case you'd rather take the selfish route because you feel like you have a right to being content with the way things are. And any more talk about this subject is just continuing to beat on a dead horse that you silently killed years ago.
And clearly, thinking negatively in this fashion isn't right either, because other people will then call you out for not being your normal self because you clearly need help and need to cheer up. But why can't it simply be normal to regularly have negative thoughts of this sort? Isn't the majority of life as it is technically mundane for most people anyway, if you really think about it? Why can't you just acknowledge that and just be okay with the fact that you can't always be happy all the time? Why can't you just be content with the fact that you're not totally satisfied right now? And why the hell does that sound like a paradox when it makes sense in your head?
Is it weird that I find myself drawn towards negative thoughts and emotions? That I love being bleak and depressing sometimes and for the record like talking to other people even when they're also feeling that way? [As my coworker likes to tell me: "You revel in that shit."]
That said, it's not like I don't want to be more pleasant sometimes either. I often do wish I could be that person that brightens someone's day just by being present. I wish I could simply be fully open and sunny and likable and easily approachable and always present and all those other positive-sounding adjectives, inside and out.
But I can't be someone I'm not, and I'm not a genuine happy-go-lucky open and inviting person all the time. I am not someone who likes to draw attention or who is capable of making other people happy when I'm often incapable of doing so for myself. I am not popular or a center or attention or completely inspiring or ambitious or full of dreams for the future or much of a good role model for that matter. And for that matter, nor do I possess any real concrete interest of becoming that person, at least not for everyone or even the majority of the people I actually still see around. Even though I did actually wish for something along those lines at one point, until I realized what folly it was to hope for so much. Because if I really were fully all of those things, I wouldn't really be myself anymore.
If there's one thing I've been hearing a lot, it's that it's better to be an honest asshole than it is to be nice and disingenuous. And I've also been realizing lately that it's becoming increasingly more difficult for me to actually be genuinely... nice with most people. Instead, I notice how jealous I can be when I don't want to be, how apathetic I can be when I shouldn't be, and how self-serving I can be when it comes to me. The me of previous years would've been upset with the me of today, whereas now I don't really seem to care as much anymore except to... lament me, I guess, because I'm fine with lamenting things at least. It fits within my range of low-key emotional capability.
And apparently I'm also fine with choosing to be upset with things I don't really have to be upset over. Or it might be more apt to say that I often end up choosing to focus on the bad rather than the good, because for some messed up reason I sometimes like to feel as though I've been wronged and deserve to be vindicated or something, when in a lot of these cases, I really... don't. It's like saying I want to feel sad so that people will pity me when there really isn't anything to be pitied about (unless you consider it sad that my mind winds up resorting to this state, I guess).
Deep down, I secretly crave attention, and yet I simultaneously hate being the center of attention. I want to be pitied but I don't want to be noticed when I feel pitiful. I want to be close to people but at the same time I don't want to be bothered by them. I want to believe, but I don't want to really believe if it means that I'm lying to myself. I want this entry to be read but at the same time I don't know if I actually want anyone to read this.
I feel like I'm trapped in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance, as if I'm suffering some sickness of the mind, but it also feels terribly normal and expected, as if that's just the way things are and always have been and being not sick is actually abnormal. I lament the fact that I'm even in this situation to begin with, that I couldn't simply just shut my mind off for once, except that the thought of shutting my mind off sounds terrifying and undesirable because I feel like I'd be betraying my own values in the process, by running away from my own problems. A mind can only take so much, but my mind doesn't want to stop taking.
And when my mind isn't lucid enough and people ask me about these things, I just shut down further. I can't truly think about them except for times like now when I'm alone. The moment someone else confronts me about them in person, I feel incapable of answering them honestly because I feel totally apathetic about it when they ask. And then when they're not around, I don't feel apathetic anymore. But I want to be able to still talk about these things when people are around, rather than continue skirting them under the rug... but I don't want to bother people with them.
There are days where I want to be apathetic [about life, the universe, and everything], and then there are days when I don't want to be apathetic, and then when all that is done and over, I can't decide which was the real me speaking, because while one clearly sounds better than the other, both feel equally desirable to me now, in the present. More likely I really am saying both and just keep teeter-tottering from one end to the other, because I can't just settle for one impression or feeling; I have to experience both extremes.
The reality is, sometimes I actually don't mind having depressing thoughts as much as I do mind having them, and that notion is both comforting and disturbing to me. I feel this pressure to conform to a society that values one side over the other, and I stress over the fact that I don't presently feel the same way, but at the same time I don't really want to worry so much over something (my tendency to experience depressing thoughts) that feels so much like just another typical facet of life. Or at least, mine own anyway. Because I would rather be a realistic pessimist than a delusional optimist.
I suppose you could call this my quarter-life crisis.
(yes, I know it's possible to be a realistic optimist or simply just a... realist, but I'm still a ways away from that point.)
Original note: I seem to have a habit for having not so uplifting thoughts while driving alone at night for an hour... and another habit for forgetting the contents of said thoughts the moment I get out of the car. But this is my attempt to recall said thoughts regardless. I really should have a recorder on me or something.
Words are all that I'm capable of thinking in, but words do not suffice.
Once you acknowledge that there will always be a barrier between yourself and other people to some extent, that there will always be some level on which you can never really connect, your view of the world (at least in my case) grows incredibly dim. You stop seeing opportunities in the conversations you might have but then decide not to, because why bother if it won't really go anywhere anyway? If, at the end of the day, you'll just go your separate ways, and then probably not talk again for another day or two or three or week or month or couple of months or half-year or year or so it goes on. So life goes on. And then maybe one or two or four or all of those times one of you might lament how you wish you had more time when you clearly don't and never will have any, so why bother bringing up a pointless subject to begin with.
And it's not even about just that fundamental inability to fully connect which is kind of inevitable anyway, because it's also about your own personal ineptitude. Your own inability to appear happy on command, because looking grim just happens to be your default face and smiling actually hurts more than it sounds even though it somehow uses less muscles than frowning. You can't mask what you're feeling because you like being honest with other people, but at the same time you're having trouble acknowledging or recognizing what exactly it is you're feeling in the first place, so when people call you out for not looking happy you respond that you really are happy and just suck at showing it. Which may also be true, but you really don't know.
All you know is that you aren't satisfied, and you can't figure out how to go about becoming satisfied because you don't believe you ever will be. Faith is believing in something despite that fact that you might not ever see it in your own lifetime, because Abraham had faith in a promise that he personally never lived to witness. And in your own case, it'd wind up being more selfish to simply give up and move on with your life than continue to hope for something you possibly [probably] will never see happen, even though to be frankly honest in this case you'd rather take the selfish route because you feel like you have a right to being content with the way things are. And any more talk about this subject is just continuing to beat on a dead horse that you silently killed years ago.
And clearly, thinking negatively in this fashion isn't right either, because other people will then call you out for not being your normal self because you clearly need help and need to cheer up. But why can't it simply be normal to regularly have negative thoughts of this sort? Isn't the majority of life as it is technically mundane for most people anyway, if you really think about it? Why can't you just acknowledge that and just be okay with the fact that you can't always be happy all the time? Why can't you just be content with the fact that you're not totally satisfied right now? And why the hell does that sound like a paradox when it makes sense in your head?
Is it weird that I find myself drawn towards negative thoughts and emotions? That I love being bleak and depressing sometimes and for the record like talking to other people even when they're also feeling that way? [As my coworker likes to tell me: "You revel in that shit."]
That said, it's not like I don't want to be more pleasant sometimes either. I often do wish I could be that person that brightens someone's day just by being present. I wish I could simply be fully open and sunny and likable and easily approachable and always present and all those other positive-sounding adjectives, inside and out.
But I can't be someone I'm not, and I'm not a genuine happy-go-lucky open and inviting person all the time. I am not someone who likes to draw attention or who is capable of making other people happy when I'm often incapable of doing so for myself. I am not popular or a center or attention or completely inspiring or ambitious or full of dreams for the future or much of a good role model for that matter. And for that matter, nor do I possess any real concrete interest of becoming that person, at least not for everyone or even the majority of the people I actually still see around. Even though I did actually wish for something along those lines at one point, until I realized what folly it was to hope for so much. Because if I really were fully all of those things, I wouldn't really be myself anymore.
If there's one thing I've been hearing a lot, it's that it's better to be an honest asshole than it is to be nice and disingenuous. And I've also been realizing lately that it's becoming increasingly more difficult for me to actually be genuinely... nice with most people. Instead, I notice how jealous I can be when I don't want to be, how apathetic I can be when I shouldn't be, and how self-serving I can be when it comes to me. The me of previous years would've been upset with the me of today, whereas now I don't really seem to care as much anymore except to... lament me, I guess, because I'm fine with lamenting things at least. It fits within my range of low-key emotional capability.
And apparently I'm also fine with choosing to be upset with things I don't really have to be upset over. Or it might be more apt to say that I often end up choosing to focus on the bad rather than the good, because for some messed up reason I sometimes like to feel as though I've been wronged and deserve to be vindicated or something, when in a lot of these cases, I really... don't. It's like saying I want to feel sad so that people will pity me when there really isn't anything to be pitied about (unless you consider it sad that my mind winds up resorting to this state, I guess).
Deep down, I secretly crave attention, and yet I simultaneously hate being the center of attention. I want to be pitied but I don't want to be noticed when I feel pitiful. I want to be close to people but at the same time I don't want to be bothered by them. I want to believe, but I don't want to really believe if it means that I'm lying to myself. I want this entry to be read but at the same time I don't know if I actually want anyone to read this.
I feel like I'm trapped in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance, as if I'm suffering some sickness of the mind, but it also feels terribly normal and expected, as if that's just the way things are and always have been and being not sick is actually abnormal. I lament the fact that I'm even in this situation to begin with, that I couldn't simply just shut my mind off for once, except that the thought of shutting my mind off sounds terrifying and undesirable because I feel like I'd be betraying my own values in the process, by running away from my own problems. A mind can only take so much, but my mind doesn't want to stop taking.
And when my mind isn't lucid enough and people ask me about these things, I just shut down further. I can't truly think about them except for times like now when I'm alone. The moment someone else confronts me about them in person, I feel incapable of answering them honestly because I feel totally apathetic about it when they ask. And then when they're not around, I don't feel apathetic anymore. But I want to be able to still talk about these things when people are around, rather than continue skirting them under the rug... but I don't want to bother people with them.
There are days where I want to be apathetic [about life, the universe, and everything], and then there are days when I don't want to be apathetic, and then when all that is done and over, I can't decide which was the real me speaking, because while one clearly sounds better than the other, both feel equally desirable to me now, in the present. More likely I really am saying both and just keep teeter-tottering from one end to the other, because I can't just settle for one impression or feeling; I have to experience both extremes.
The reality is, sometimes I actually don't mind having depressing thoughts as much as I do mind having them, and that notion is both comforting and disturbing to me. I feel this pressure to conform to a society that values one side over the other, and I stress over the fact that I don't presently feel the same way, but at the same time I don't really want to worry so much over something (my tendency to experience depressing thoughts) that feels so much like just another typical facet of life. Or at least, mine own anyway. Because I would rather be a realistic pessimist than a delusional optimist.
I suppose you could call this my quarter-life crisis.
(yes, I know it's possible to be a realistic optimist or simply just a... realist, but I'm still a ways away from that point.)
Friday, April 4, 2014
reflections on the social dance floor.
I feel inclined to both like people and not trust them.
Part of the reason why I had trouble committing to coming out to swing dancing weekly for a long time (aside from becoming busy with things) was that I didn't really feel like I fit in with the swing crowd. Still don't. I always feel like one of those misfits standing off to the side, unable to really socialize with anyone beyond the context of a single dance itself because I have trouble finding much to say to anyone. I can dance okay now and stuff- heck, it was even more difficult when I barely knew anything and always felt like I was letting the follow down from making so many mistakes and not being able to do much- but now I just feel like I can dance around for a bit with someone and then that's it. I can respond well enough if someone else hits up a conversation with me on the spot, but I find that most of the time people on the dance floor are focused on other things or are busy talking to other people they already know anyway.
And after months of that every week, it just started getting lonely, in a way, lonelier than I ever really felt when I was actually alone at home minding my own business. I felt more comfortable dancing with random strangers than I did with the people whose faces I recognized from seeing around every week, who by proxy already knew other people there as well. I may have talked to the folks in the latter category once or twice, but it'd only take another week and then it'd be like we'd never really interacted at all. And that's just awkward.
Maybe it's just my overall mood whenever I'm around people: I'm the kind of person who prefers to be reached out to than to do the reaching out by nature, and when no one interacts with me first I usually end up just standing there awkwardly. It pretty much defines my experience at IV for a good chunk of the time I was there, and a lot of other social experiences. It takes me a long time to warm up to most people in general (and when I actually think about it, it took me a rather long time to actually get closer to most of my existing friends; 5 years, 1 year, 1.5 semesters, and 1.5 years all come to mind).
What it comes down to largely is trust, and I've realized that I take a rather long time to get to a point of trusting people enough to even just talk to them like a normal friend. It's as if you'd need to pass some test or measure of trustworthiness in my head (apparent willingness to reciprocate in conversation; apparent friendliness; etc.) before I'd feel comfortable enough to open up to you, and with regards to the atmosphere of social dancing, it's really difficult to maintain a conversation where you'd get a good feel for those things with another person while the music's blaring and loads of other people are dancing and just running about and whatnot. And sometimes I feel like it's the same attitude that other people have towards me, considering that I'm generally quiet and not very openly sociable to begin with. To me it usually feels like the other person is just disinterested in continuing talking after a certain point, which I find normal anyway because I also do the same thing.
I found last night that none of this has really changed for me since the time I stopped coming out to the dances over a year ago; the only difference is that I'm not letting this stop me from wanting to continue learning new moves and techniques just for the sake of enjoying learning those things. Maybe if I got out of the mentality of worrying about socializing with people and just tried to enjoy the experience of dancing for what it is, I'd actually feel more comfortable socializing on the dance floor for once... ironically.
I don't blame folks who disappear after a couple of weeks or even a few months or so, because it honestly takes a real commitment and love of dance to keep coming out consistently, week after week. If you're just there to try and meet people or casually dance a little, you can only go so far.
Well, there's always next week.
Part of the reason why I had trouble committing to coming out to swing dancing weekly for a long time (aside from becoming busy with things) was that I didn't really feel like I fit in with the swing crowd. Still don't. I always feel like one of those misfits standing off to the side, unable to really socialize with anyone beyond the context of a single dance itself because I have trouble finding much to say to anyone. I can dance okay now and stuff- heck, it was even more difficult when I barely knew anything and always felt like I was letting the follow down from making so many mistakes and not being able to do much- but now I just feel like I can dance around for a bit with someone and then that's it. I can respond well enough if someone else hits up a conversation with me on the spot, but I find that most of the time people on the dance floor are focused on other things or are busy talking to other people they already know anyway.
And after months of that every week, it just started getting lonely, in a way, lonelier than I ever really felt when I was actually alone at home minding my own business. I felt more comfortable dancing with random strangers than I did with the people whose faces I recognized from seeing around every week, who by proxy already knew other people there as well. I may have talked to the folks in the latter category once or twice, but it'd only take another week and then it'd be like we'd never really interacted at all. And that's just awkward.
Maybe it's just my overall mood whenever I'm around people: I'm the kind of person who prefers to be reached out to than to do the reaching out by nature, and when no one interacts with me first I usually end up just standing there awkwardly. It pretty much defines my experience at IV for a good chunk of the time I was there, and a lot of other social experiences. It takes me a long time to warm up to most people in general (and when I actually think about it, it took me a rather long time to actually get closer to most of my existing friends; 5 years, 1 year, 1.5 semesters, and 1.5 years all come to mind).
What it comes down to largely is trust, and I've realized that I take a rather long time to get to a point of trusting people enough to even just talk to them like a normal friend. It's as if you'd need to pass some test or measure of trustworthiness in my head (apparent willingness to reciprocate in conversation; apparent friendliness; etc.) before I'd feel comfortable enough to open up to you, and with regards to the atmosphere of social dancing, it's really difficult to maintain a conversation where you'd get a good feel for those things with another person while the music's blaring and loads of other people are dancing and just running about and whatnot. And sometimes I feel like it's the same attitude that other people have towards me, considering that I'm generally quiet and not very openly sociable to begin with. To me it usually feels like the other person is just disinterested in continuing talking after a certain point, which I find normal anyway because I also do the same thing.
I found last night that none of this has really changed for me since the time I stopped coming out to the dances over a year ago; the only difference is that I'm not letting this stop me from wanting to continue learning new moves and techniques just for the sake of enjoying learning those things. Maybe if I got out of the mentality of worrying about socializing with people and just tried to enjoy the experience of dancing for what it is, I'd actually feel more comfortable socializing on the dance floor for once... ironically.
I don't blame folks who disappear after a couple of weeks or even a few months or so, because it honestly takes a real commitment and love of dance to keep coming out consistently, week after week. If you're just there to try and meet people or casually dance a little, you can only go so far.
Well, there's always next week.
Friday, March 28, 2014
And now for something slightly different.
I take a lot of relationships for granted, and have taken a lot of relationships for granted.
I mean this both in the oblivious, not fully aware sense (until such people suddenly disappear from my vantage point of life) and also in the kind of aware but placed in the back of my mind sense. I want to particularly emphasize the "until such people suddenly disappear" part because it gets to happen fairly often when you've met enough people. For another social media analogy, it's something that can be characterized by the hundreds of Facebook friends I have and the large enough subset of those who've either defriended me or who I don't really talk to in the first place anyway. In that respect, I've come to expect this as inevitable; who can really expect to keep up with that many people in their life anyway?
Even then, I can't help but feel a small pang of regret whenever I notice these things.
Back in college, I served in hospitality team for my Christian fellowship my senior year, and it made me ever more conscious, or should I say paranoid, of who was present/not present on any given week of the people I knew, even while I myself never quite entirely felt like I fit in to begin with (but that's another story). And although my role was largely focused around the experience of new, incoming folks who were much more likely not to stick around for too long in the first place (and whether or not hospitality team actually worked is a completely other subject of debate beyond the scope of this post), I would still notice when folks who'd been around for a while disappeared as well.
And I guess to a certain extent my role in this group resulted in a conflict of interest, particularly if I hadn't really interacted with these people much outside of the normal context of this group. Would it still be appropriate, or rather, would it be right to try and keep in contact with these people when I hadn't really done it much before? Would they see me as trying to proselytize them or just bothering them when they didn't want to be bothered? Why did I want to contact them in the first place, if we hadn't really established that sort of connection? Or to put it more bluntly, why did I never really talk to these people that much in the past to begin with?
Sometimes you don't realize the value of the presence of another person until they're gone.
One other thing I appreciated about my fellowship, or in particular my small group, was that it provided a regular context for which I could see people who I might not regularly be able to see or talk to otherwise (regardless of how much I actually talked to these people normally outside of that context, because as Ryan L puts it I'm like a sponge who soaks in the presence of other people... but don't take that analogy too far because that image is a little too much for my taste). But at the same time, I realized after a while that I took for granted that responsibility the group took on. For what about when the group ended, as it inevitably did with the end of college? How many of these people would I still actually keep in contact with, like I do with some of my closer friends in college? How many of these people would still feel comfortable having a conversation with me years later?
At this point, I've been both in a central position of a social circle, and also somewhat on the fringes of another one, multiple times each. I know what it's like to be feel included and left out, to feel both connected and disconnected, to feel like I've contributed something or other times feel like I'm taking up space. I acknowledge that the best kinds of relationships are the ones that last long beyond the context they originally started in, but at the same time I can still see value in the ones that only persisted for the duration of that context. I still find it difficult to accept the latter case sometimes when it happens, though.
These thoughts come to me now as I start to see some of my existing social circles undergoing a recognizable state of flux, as past ones have done: people coming and going as their own personal life circumstances change. I might not ever see some of these folks again, or at least not for a long while. I've wished I could've been closer to some of them even though I find my own ability to do so a bit lacking, since it becomes much more difficult to establish close relationships with people in your life as you grow older. These kinds of relationships take effort and work to start and then maintain; they aren't generally the kinds of things that you can simply leave alone until the person on the other line arbitrarily decides one day to hit you up again out of the blue (as much as I would love to be on the other end of that line...). Well, technically it does happen sometimes, but usually only with the people with whom you've established a precedent for allowing that interaction to occur in the first place, like good old friends.
Presently, I've grown accustomed to holding most people sort of at arm's length for lack of consistent and persistent contact compared to what I had in college combined with growing accustomed to living alone, which has made it rather more difficult to develop the close kinds of relationships I've enjoyed in the past. So when people in my current circles for example tell me about how they don't feel as connected or comfortable with the way a group is, it sort of takes me by surprise because I'm already used to that sort of detachment and maybe don't mind it as much.
Sure, in the past I've wondered why I still bothered coming out to some events myself, but that never really stopped me from coming out in the long run- I think that's partly a function of how my personality is, if anything. I could still find something worthwhile out of the moment even if I didn't really fit in the same way that others did. But after hearing from other people who don't experience these things the same way, it makes me wonder how much I've overlooked the concerns of these individuals for the sake of some group, let alone those who I haven't really talked to that much. How much did I take the mere presence of these people for granted, rather than see if I could try to engage their own social and personal needs just as I was getting mine own fulfilled already? You should already be able to tell from this blog how preoccupied I often am with my own thoughts; seems like hardly enough attention is given to the concerns of others as it is.
Engaging people on their own terms means a willingness to put oneself out there as available, to sometimes be willing to lend an ear, to listen to another, even when that person isn't necessarily expecting to be heard in the first place. I've often stumbled before ever getting to that point, out of fear out of offending another person or coming across as being too pushy or just not knowing where to start or if I should even bother trying why am I thinking about this I should just go home and mind my own business like everyone else does. But really, this just ends up with conversations years later of some people asking me, "how come you never talk to me?"
Because I'm complacent with a status quo where I only respond to people who reach out to me first (but if you do reach out first, I'd love to respond!... in a somewhat delayed fashion). Because I'm afraid of risking the possibility of being rejected by you the moment I try to reach out. Because I often overthink these things and focus mostly on how I feel and not about how you're feeling or doing. Because I worry more about how what attempts I might make to communicate with you will affect your perception of me (do I come across as too persistent or annoying to you?) than I do about how they might help maintain our relationship. I take you as a friend for granted.
And I'm sorry for all of that, honestly.
...But I also feel that saying sorry is not enough, and have even been told as much before in the past, because I have a shallow tendency to say sorry all the time even for things I shouldn't be sorry for or am not actually sorry for. And for what it's worth, writing these words on this blog won't really matter all that much, when they probably won't even reach the people they ought to be meant for (I'm presuming if you're still reading this blog, you're probably likely to still be in contact with me in some form or another even if only once in a while) and won't make up for what's happened in the past, what I did or didn't notice. And as my last post put it, maybe there just wasn't much there to develop to begin with, and I'm just making much ado about what could've happened scenario in my head, rather than accepting the past in all of its imperfection for what it was.
My real hope in writing this thought process out is to make myself more conscious of these issues whenever they inevitably do happen around me, and to step out of my comfort zone of pleasant detachment from the lives of other people for once. And that these words wouldn't simply be laid to rest here, but would serve as the root for some actual action at hand to be taken.
Now if only I had more time to do something other than maybe read something quick and sleep. I originally felt like writing something about goodreads (see link in sidebar) but then this came up. Another time. Good night!
I mean this both in the oblivious, not fully aware sense (until such people suddenly disappear from my vantage point of life) and also in the kind of aware but placed in the back of my mind sense. I want to particularly emphasize the "until such people suddenly disappear" part because it gets to happen fairly often when you've met enough people. For another social media analogy, it's something that can be characterized by the hundreds of Facebook friends I have and the large enough subset of those who've either defriended me or who I don't really talk to in the first place anyway. In that respect, I've come to expect this as inevitable; who can really expect to keep up with that many people in their life anyway?
Even then, I can't help but feel a small pang of regret whenever I notice these things.
Back in college, I served in hospitality team for my Christian fellowship my senior year, and it made me ever more conscious, or should I say paranoid, of who was present/not present on any given week of the people I knew, even while I myself never quite entirely felt like I fit in to begin with (but that's another story). And although my role was largely focused around the experience of new, incoming folks who were much more likely not to stick around for too long in the first place (and whether or not hospitality team actually worked is a completely other subject of debate beyond the scope of this post), I would still notice when folks who'd been around for a while disappeared as well.
And I guess to a certain extent my role in this group resulted in a conflict of interest, particularly if I hadn't really interacted with these people much outside of the normal context of this group. Would it still be appropriate, or rather, would it be right to try and keep in contact with these people when I hadn't really done it much before? Would they see me as trying to proselytize them or just bothering them when they didn't want to be bothered? Why did I want to contact them in the first place, if we hadn't really established that sort of connection? Or to put it more bluntly, why did I never really talk to these people that much in the past to begin with?
Sometimes you don't realize the value of the presence of another person until they're gone.
One other thing I appreciated about my fellowship, or in particular my small group, was that it provided a regular context for which I could see people who I might not regularly be able to see or talk to otherwise (regardless of how much I actually talked to these people normally outside of that context, because as Ryan L puts it I'm like a sponge who soaks in the presence of other people... but don't take that analogy too far because that image is a little too much for my taste). But at the same time, I realized after a while that I took for granted that responsibility the group took on. For what about when the group ended, as it inevitably did with the end of college? How many of these people would I still actually keep in contact with, like I do with some of my closer friends in college? How many of these people would still feel comfortable having a conversation with me years later?
At this point, I've been both in a central position of a social circle, and also somewhat on the fringes of another one, multiple times each. I know what it's like to be feel included and left out, to feel both connected and disconnected, to feel like I've contributed something or other times feel like I'm taking up space. I acknowledge that the best kinds of relationships are the ones that last long beyond the context they originally started in, but at the same time I can still see value in the ones that only persisted for the duration of that context. I still find it difficult to accept the latter case sometimes when it happens, though.
These thoughts come to me now as I start to see some of my existing social circles undergoing a recognizable state of flux, as past ones have done: people coming and going as their own personal life circumstances change. I might not ever see some of these folks again, or at least not for a long while. I've wished I could've been closer to some of them even though I find my own ability to do so a bit lacking, since it becomes much more difficult to establish close relationships with people in your life as you grow older. These kinds of relationships take effort and work to start and then maintain; they aren't generally the kinds of things that you can simply leave alone until the person on the other line arbitrarily decides one day to hit you up again out of the blue (as much as I would love to be on the other end of that line...). Well, technically it does happen sometimes, but usually only with the people with whom you've established a precedent for allowing that interaction to occur in the first place, like good old friends.
Presently, I've grown accustomed to holding most people sort of at arm's length for lack of consistent and persistent contact compared to what I had in college combined with growing accustomed to living alone, which has made it rather more difficult to develop the close kinds of relationships I've enjoyed in the past. So when people in my current circles for example tell me about how they don't feel as connected or comfortable with the way a group is, it sort of takes me by surprise because I'm already used to that sort of detachment and maybe don't mind it as much.
Sure, in the past I've wondered why I still bothered coming out to some events myself, but that never really stopped me from coming out in the long run- I think that's partly a function of how my personality is, if anything. I could still find something worthwhile out of the moment even if I didn't really fit in the same way that others did. But after hearing from other people who don't experience these things the same way, it makes me wonder how much I've overlooked the concerns of these individuals for the sake of some group, let alone those who I haven't really talked to that much. How much did I take the mere presence of these people for granted, rather than see if I could try to engage their own social and personal needs just as I was getting mine own fulfilled already? You should already be able to tell from this blog how preoccupied I often am with my own thoughts; seems like hardly enough attention is given to the concerns of others as it is.
Engaging people on their own terms means a willingness to put oneself out there as available, to sometimes be willing to lend an ear, to listen to another, even when that person isn't necessarily expecting to be heard in the first place. I've often stumbled before ever getting to that point, out of fear out of offending another person or coming across as being too pushy or just not knowing where to start or if I should even bother trying why am I thinking about this I should just go home and mind my own business like everyone else does. But really, this just ends up with conversations years later of some people asking me, "how come you never talk to me?"
Because I'm complacent with a status quo where I only respond to people who reach out to me first (but if you do reach out first, I'd love to respond!... in a somewhat delayed fashion). Because I'm afraid of risking the possibility of being rejected by you the moment I try to reach out. Because I often overthink these things and focus mostly on how I feel and not about how you're feeling or doing. Because I worry more about how what attempts I might make to communicate with you will affect your perception of me (do I come across as too persistent or annoying to you?) than I do about how they might help maintain our relationship. I take you as a friend for granted.
And I'm sorry for all of that, honestly.
...But I also feel that saying sorry is not enough, and have even been told as much before in the past, because I have a shallow tendency to say sorry all the time even for things I shouldn't be sorry for or am not actually sorry for. And for what it's worth, writing these words on this blog won't really matter all that much, when they probably won't even reach the people they ought to be meant for (I'm presuming if you're still reading this blog, you're probably likely to still be in contact with me in some form or another even if only once in a while) and won't make up for what's happened in the past, what I did or didn't notice. And as my last post put it, maybe there just wasn't much there to develop to begin with, and I'm just making much ado about what could've happened scenario in my head, rather than accepting the past in all of its imperfection for what it was.
My real hope in writing this thought process out is to make myself more conscious of these issues whenever they inevitably do happen around me, and to step out of my comfort zone of pleasant detachment from the lives of other people for once. And that these words wouldn't simply be laid to rest here, but would serve as the root for some actual action at hand to be taken.
Now if only I had more time to do something other than maybe read something quick and sleep. I originally felt like writing something about goodreads (see link in sidebar) but then this came up. Another time. Good night!
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Insomniac Musings, The Inaugural Edition
I'm starting a new label here for the stuff that prevents me from falling asleep whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, which seems to be happening a lot lately. There may or may not be some overlap with the already overinflated Thoughts label, as whenever I wake a second time after, these thoughts already feel like a dimension away, except that the source is still there somewhere in me.
(warning: this post entails excessive use of the word "friends" and may tread over previously blogged territory. I have memory issues nowadays, what can I say.)
Once upon a time when I was younger and presumably a lot more naive (I would like to imagine I'm less naive now, but I never really know), I had this crazy idea that I wanted to be friends with every person I knew. Maybe not so extreme in the sense of the "all-roommates-are-best-friends" aura that I seem to recall inhaling from my first roommate, but at least good enough friends to be able to talk and hang out with them semi-regularly, or even on a whim. This applied to anyone coming from any walk of life, regardless of race, gender, origin, background, etc.etc. Very idealistic sounding, right?
Of course, over the course of a decade, this wound up becoming in practice:
- wanting to befriend whoever my existing friends were friends with ("the friend of a friend is a friend"), regardless of how well I could actually get along with them. There was also an overall preference towards people who were well liked by my other friends in general.
- trying to get involved with a few groups of people who I never really fit in that well with or didn't really know how to talk to, but still enjoyed their presence for whatever the reason.
- feeling left out or discouraged whenever I wasn't invited to something involving people I felt even marginally close to. this would prove rather more distressing later when friends who I'd inadvertently helped introduce to each other wound up hanging out more often than I did with either. this is part of the reason why I despise cliques even though they inevitably happen (and I've been part of them myself).
- feeling left out or uncomfortable whenever I was in the presence of friends talking about a subject that I wasn't privy to knowing about. especially girltalk (note: I know guys who are good at girltalk. I am not one of them.)
- becoming jealous overall of the closeness I saw in relationships between people who I'm not as close to.
(I make exceptions for dating couples because those are already a given, although I do enjoy third-wheeling when they allow me to. :P)
Essentially, that initial idealistic thought or impulse gave way to a lot of anxiety and distress, but almost entirely self-generated and self-centered. Moments where I had trouble talking to people or discovered other social events or knowledge that I wasn't privy to turned turned into blows against my own pride, for making me realize how much I wasn't the easily relatable, well-liked guy I wanted to be, or else sleights against myself, for there must be something wrong with me if this person won't tell me what's really going on. The one time that someone who I personally felt close to confided in me that they couldn't really... confide in me (ironically) for personal reasons, I had an emotional breakdown shortly afterwards and spent the rest of the night walking home in tears and then crying in bed. All for reasons I can't really put into words... but you can probably gather from what I've written so far. And I couldn't simply appreciate what good relationships I did have already, because evidently those weren't enough to satisfy me.
Every once in a while I end up recalling my past failed interactions up until now, the people I ultimately wasn't able to befriend or become as close to in the manner I'd liked, the words left unspoken (or should I phrase it more accurately as the "things people wouldn't tell me"), and the ways in which I wound up becoming more of an annoyance to those whom I incessantly tried to be around even though we weren't that close to begin with. From that first time someone told me to "go away" for implicitly obvious reasons in middle school (ironically, wound up being decent friends with that person for a while), to the times I invited myself to other folks' personal conversations or activities whenever I saw them in college, to the limbo state I find myself in with some social circles even now- these memories tend to creep up when I least expect them, especially in the middle of a sleepless night.
And with the kind of identity complex that I have, it's never been about what these other people did to me (...did they even do anything? did they even really notice?) so much as it's been about what I did wrong or what was wrong with me in general, like it's because I'm too quiet or too introverted for us to establish that kind of open communication. I may make it sound humble when I put it that way, but I mean it in a completely opposite, self-centered way. I even tried to make light of it in my head by noting that I've never really held grudges against anyone involved or even hated or disliked someone for what happened in the past, but that notion in itself meant only to salvage my own pride more than anything. And it makes me wonder if I ever really potentially cared about these people to begin with, or if I only cared about maintaining friendships with them as a way of making myself look better as a person, like "look at how many awesome and unique friends I have thereby making me also awesome and unique!" (I think the social media phenomenon that corresponds to that today would be what, Klout?).
After years of mulling over this, I can write about this now in a somewhat detached fashion and pinpoint where it all came from. To be honest, it doesn't feel like I feel anything right now other than a vague sense of regret, but something more on the level of forgetting my wallet at home and not on the hyper-induced midway to panic attack level I generally experience in the middle of the night, let alone the actual panic attacks I've had. But at the same time, this level of detachment combined with the passage of time has helped at least in making me recognize how problematic my "ideal" view of myself has been over the years, when in reality I shouldn't expect to be able to befriend anyone and everyone even if my own friends are capable of doing so with the same folks. I'm only human and should only expect to be able to achieve so much.
It's been a gradual process for me, learning to accept the current state of the relationships I have, to become thankful for the people who are still present in my life, and to make the most out of what is there to the best of my capacity. Folks will come and go throughout my life, inevitably; better to seize the opportunities that are present with them with an expectant heart, rather than continue to lament over what isn't there or perhaps never really was to begin with. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my own mind that I forget.
"The only way to make a friend is to be one."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson? (although I first heard this as a child from a Wee Sing video or something -_-)
And to be one means much more than serving your own heart, in this case.
(warning: this post entails excessive use of the word "friends" and may tread over previously blogged territory. I have memory issues nowadays, what can I say.)
Once upon a time when I was younger and presumably a lot more naive (I would like to imagine I'm less naive now, but I never really know), I had this crazy idea that I wanted to be friends with every person I knew. Maybe not so extreme in the sense of the "all-roommates-are-best-friends" aura that I seem to recall inhaling from my first roommate, but at least good enough friends to be able to talk and hang out with them semi-regularly, or even on a whim. This applied to anyone coming from any walk of life, regardless of race, gender, origin, background, etc.etc. Very idealistic sounding, right?
Of course, over the course of a decade, this wound up becoming in practice:
- wanting to befriend whoever my existing friends were friends with ("the friend of a friend is a friend"), regardless of how well I could actually get along with them. There was also an overall preference towards people who were well liked by my other friends in general.
- trying to get involved with a few groups of people who I never really fit in that well with or didn't really know how to talk to, but still enjoyed their presence for whatever the reason.
- feeling left out or discouraged whenever I wasn't invited to something involving people I felt even marginally close to. this would prove rather more distressing later when friends who I'd inadvertently helped introduce to each other wound up hanging out more often than I did with either. this is part of the reason why I despise cliques even though they inevitably happen (and I've been part of them myself).
- feeling left out or uncomfortable whenever I was in the presence of friends talking about a subject that I wasn't privy to knowing about. especially girltalk (note: I know guys who are good at girltalk. I am not one of them.)
- becoming jealous overall of the closeness I saw in relationships between people who I'm not as close to.
(I make exceptions for dating couples because those are already a given, although I do enjoy third-wheeling when they allow me to. :P)
Essentially, that initial idealistic thought or impulse gave way to a lot of anxiety and distress, but almost entirely self-generated and self-centered. Moments where I had trouble talking to people or discovered other social events or knowledge that I wasn't privy to turned turned into blows against my own pride, for making me realize how much I wasn't the easily relatable, well-liked guy I wanted to be, or else sleights against myself, for there must be something wrong with me if this person won't tell me what's really going on. The one time that someone who I personally felt close to confided in me that they couldn't really... confide in me (ironically) for personal reasons, I had an emotional breakdown shortly afterwards and spent the rest of the night walking home in tears and then crying in bed. All for reasons I can't really put into words... but you can probably gather from what I've written so far. And I couldn't simply appreciate what good relationships I did have already, because evidently those weren't enough to satisfy me.
Every once in a while I end up recalling my past failed interactions up until now, the people I ultimately wasn't able to befriend or become as close to in the manner I'd liked, the words left unspoken (or should I phrase it more accurately as the "things people wouldn't tell me"), and the ways in which I wound up becoming more of an annoyance to those whom I incessantly tried to be around even though we weren't that close to begin with. From that first time someone told me to "go away" for implicitly obvious reasons in middle school (ironically, wound up being decent friends with that person for a while), to the times I invited myself to other folks' personal conversations or activities whenever I saw them in college, to the limbo state I find myself in with some social circles even now- these memories tend to creep up when I least expect them, especially in the middle of a sleepless night.
And with the kind of identity complex that I have, it's never been about what these other people did to me (...did they even do anything? did they even really notice?) so much as it's been about what I did wrong or what was wrong with me in general, like it's because I'm too quiet or too introverted for us to establish that kind of open communication. I may make it sound humble when I put it that way, but I mean it in a completely opposite, self-centered way. I even tried to make light of it in my head by noting that I've never really held grudges against anyone involved or even hated or disliked someone for what happened in the past, but that notion in itself meant only to salvage my own pride more than anything. And it makes me wonder if I ever really potentially cared about these people to begin with, or if I only cared about maintaining friendships with them as a way of making myself look better as a person, like "look at how many awesome and unique friends I have thereby making me also awesome and unique!" (I think the social media phenomenon that corresponds to that today would be what, Klout?).
After years of mulling over this, I can write about this now in a somewhat detached fashion and pinpoint where it all came from. To be honest, it doesn't feel like I feel anything right now other than a vague sense of regret, but something more on the level of forgetting my wallet at home and not on the hyper-induced midway to panic attack level I generally experience in the middle of the night, let alone the actual panic attacks I've had. But at the same time, this level of detachment combined with the passage of time has helped at least in making me recognize how problematic my "ideal" view of myself has been over the years, when in reality I shouldn't expect to be able to befriend anyone and everyone even if my own friends are capable of doing so with the same folks. I'm only human and should only expect to be able to achieve so much.
It's been a gradual process for me, learning to accept the current state of the relationships I have, to become thankful for the people who are still present in my life, and to make the most out of what is there to the best of my capacity. Folks will come and go throughout my life, inevitably; better to seize the opportunities that are present with them with an expectant heart, rather than continue to lament over what isn't there or perhaps never really was to begin with. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my own mind that I forget.
"The only way to make a friend is to be one."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson? (although I first heard this as a child from a Wee Sing video or something -_-)
And to be one means much more than serving your own heart, in this case.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
addendum to the last post
Tonight was the most fun I've had from swing dancing in a loong time, literally. A reminder to not become subservient to my moods, especially when they discourage me from enjoying the good things in life.
Also to eat less spicy food before dancing because ow my intestines.
Also to eat less spicy food before dancing because ow my intestines.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
anti
In the midst of an anti-people mood.... which is not to say that I hate people right now, but rather, I don't feel particularly inclined to talk to or see anyone right now and would rather just sit at home and read books all day.
Which is why I'm going swing dancing tonight for the first time in a year and heading to SF this weekend to see people. Sigh.* (*not an 'I don't want to' sigh, just more a sigh at my ongoing mood. I like people.)
It's like when you start to recognize patterns or extra voices in your thoughts contrary to... other present patterns or voices. One that speaks of the things that depress you, and another that speaks of how pumped and excited you are to do things, like you're reclaiming your life for the first time again.
It's also like the book I'm reading now, Ulysses. It's got an undertone of painful seriousness wrapped within a crazy nonsensical sense of humor that pokes fun at death and the oddities of the English language. And it's also incredibly difficult to make sense of at times... because stream of consciousness.
Waking up to the knowledge that nothing in your life is perfect, and the notion that it unlikely will be as idealistically great as you want it to be. So make of it what good you are able to while you still can.
Which is why I'm going swing dancing tonight for the first time in a year and heading to SF this weekend to see people. Sigh.* (*not an 'I don't want to' sigh, just more a sigh at my ongoing mood. I like people.)
It's like when you start to recognize patterns or extra voices in your thoughts contrary to... other present patterns or voices. One that speaks of the things that depress you, and another that speaks of how pumped and excited you are to do things, like you're reclaiming your life for the first time again.
It's also like the book I'm reading now, Ulysses. It's got an undertone of painful seriousness wrapped within a crazy nonsensical sense of humor that pokes fun at death and the oddities of the English language. And it's also incredibly difficult to make sense of at times... because stream of consciousness.
Waking up to the knowledge that nothing in your life is perfect, and the notion that it unlikely will be as idealistically great as you want it to be. So make of it what good you are able to while you still can.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)