I believed before that as I grew older and gained more experiences, I would become more proficient at understanding the various life situations that I encountered. I would have answers because each complex set of circumstances would become a derivation of a smaller set of basic circumstances, and similar situations demand similar approaches. This is not true. More knowledge does not simplify. Having more experiences means only having the awareness of numerous never-to-be-repeated outcomes, which have not the effect of guiding to a solution, but of offering as many more solutions as experiences might dictate. Multi-leveled circumstances require multi-leveled solutions that must be applied with multi-leveled vision, probably the most difficult aspect of all of this. I suppose that I've been amply warned that life gets harder before it gets harder again, and then ends, but I haven't yet figured out a way to take that attitude and shape it into a motivating force.
With this understanding comes yet more humility. Although it has been true in the past, now more than ever before when I contemplate my past selves, I retroactively recognize the absurdity of my confidence in my previous situational and life awareness. People are complex, and the world interacts with itself in complex ways, but in order to protect my sanity, and probably most of us do this, I reduce those complexities to single simple thoughts, or even a binary system, positive or negative. That person is good in my mind, that person is bad. This approach is totally necessary and reasonable for normal function, but only if it is used as a foundation and not as a multi-tool. Without additional layers, a person would be forced to become inflexible, only capable of rudimentary responses such as anger or unaware selfishness. Additionally, it can be used as a mirror for oneself, as self-reflection of why a certain person is good or bad can evoke a wealth of understanding of personal biases and assumptions that would otherwise be invisible.
There is a deep and obligate paradigm of the self that I have come to possess, one that is constantly changing and growing wider and more durable. It does not serve the purpose of giving me the pride of comparative understanding; it gives me the unpretentious vision that the wisdom of a person is not so much in the amount of knowledge already gained, but in the awareness of the ever-increasing amount of knowledge not yet learned.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Thursday, January 17, 2013
disorganize
often in time, more often recently than before, i have felt the inadequacy of various aspects of my personality. i do not have enough patience, enough understanding, enough tolerance, enough passion, enough wisdom, enough character, enough wit, enough strength, enough determination, enough of whatever it is that i need at the present. and yet, when those aspects of myself are not needed in the immediate moment, i feel strongly that i will never lack for them, that i have all the patience and passion and determination and whatever that i need to do anything that i want to do. what exactly is it about me that causes me to think this way? why do i have the utmost confidence in whatever it is that i plan to do, despite knowing that i may falter when the time comes to perform? confidence without reason, confidence in performance with a miserable track record.
what does it mean to compartmentalize, anyway? i'll say right now that i don't understand compartmentalization. i don't do it, because i have no idea what it means. at any point in my life, there is one thought or subject or requirement that pervades me at a time, and i focus on it, yet all the other parts of my life do not fade away. they influence everything. if i was happy at home, i don't go to another place and become unhappy, nor do i interact with different people and become unhappy, nor do i perform another activity and become unhappy, unless any of those things make me unhappy. if i feel a certain way, that is how i feel, and it is not "compartmentalized" or whatever. if i do a certain thing, i do it with the standards that i hold, not with a different set of standards, or morals, or beliefs, or whatever.
does compartmentalization mean that if i'm with my parents i don't swear? that i act differently because i want to cultivate a certain image of myself with them, versus with other people? is that what compartmentalization is? is compartmentalization a good thing or a bad thing? what does it mean?
at any given time, there is one issue in my life which is the most important to me, and other issues are just not as important. if that one issue is going poorly, then it causes everything else to go poorly, or at least feel as if everything else is going poorly. does compartmentalization mean that that one most important issue in my life doesn't affect the other issues? how is that possible? if your job is the most important part of your life, and it's going terribly, how can you go home and feel happy? and it doesn't even need to be the most important part of your life, maybe it's the second most important thing, or the third, or whatever. if something sucks, it sucks, and that in turns sucks you up and makes other stuff suck. isn't that how life goes? i wasn't aware that there was an alternative.
and what if the one most important thing to you is constantly terrible? how does one live like that? therein lies my lack in various aspects of my personality, of my character. i just can't deal with that feeling of terribleness; i'm unable to stomach it for very long before panicking and trying to find a different mode, to relinquish what i'm trying to hold on to as if it's too hot, and my hands are my brittle emotions, cracking apart under the heat into pieces.
maybe it's not constantly terrible. maybe it's terrible for one hour every day, but it's uplifting and wonderful for the other maybe fifteen hours you're awake. do i have enough character to deal with that? so far, not really, but at that point, the terrible feeling is not so pervasive as to prevent my ability to logically consider the consequences of letting go. i can weight the options. i can consult with friends. but even then, i'm unsatisfied, because i do have that one hour every day that is awful, and the more i think about that one hour, the more it becomes two hours, then three hours, then four, then too many hours for me to think logically and consider and deal with and by then my hands are cracking apart again and i'm breaking into pieces.
there's a certain lack of ability to cope here, an inability to cope with strenuous situations. i wouldn't call it difficult, because they are not truly difficult. nothing is really at stake, but intangible circumstances, which are always shifting anyway. i call them strenuous because it takes much for me to hold my course under any of these circumstances, and so far i've been wavering like mad, but probably back and forth enough that the wavering cancels out, or so i'd like to think.
another thing: being practical and planning for the future and such... overrated. or at least it is for me. once i start planning, i start thinking and rationalizing what possibilities exist for the future, but this is tantamount to making predictions, which is estimating, which is guessing, which is vaguely hoping for circumstances which are clearly impossible. the more i think about those impossibilities, though, the more and more hopeful i become, and soon enough i lose sight of what i knew to be impossible once upon a time, and now i'm just juggling images of possible futures that i once knew to be impossible. and once i'm there, i'm done, because all i can do is process the present in terms of those visions, and whether or not every event in the present contributes or detriments toward each vision, and once enough detriments stack up against my favorite vision of the future, it shatters and leaves me with all my hopes broken, all my expectations place on that vision one on top of the other simply falling down and crushing me. even worse is when i realize that all my motivations and activities were built on that false vision, that i was moving myself forward by reaching toward it, and now that it's totally destroyed i don't even know where i am or where i've been running toward.
but that's how life is, right? that's how it is, right?
yea?
what does it mean to compartmentalize, anyway? i'll say right now that i don't understand compartmentalization. i don't do it, because i have no idea what it means. at any point in my life, there is one thought or subject or requirement that pervades me at a time, and i focus on it, yet all the other parts of my life do not fade away. they influence everything. if i was happy at home, i don't go to another place and become unhappy, nor do i interact with different people and become unhappy, nor do i perform another activity and become unhappy, unless any of those things make me unhappy. if i feel a certain way, that is how i feel, and it is not "compartmentalized" or whatever. if i do a certain thing, i do it with the standards that i hold, not with a different set of standards, or morals, or beliefs, or whatever.
does compartmentalization mean that if i'm with my parents i don't swear? that i act differently because i want to cultivate a certain image of myself with them, versus with other people? is that what compartmentalization is? is compartmentalization a good thing or a bad thing? what does it mean?
at any given time, there is one issue in my life which is the most important to me, and other issues are just not as important. if that one issue is going poorly, then it causes everything else to go poorly, or at least feel as if everything else is going poorly. does compartmentalization mean that that one most important issue in my life doesn't affect the other issues? how is that possible? if your job is the most important part of your life, and it's going terribly, how can you go home and feel happy? and it doesn't even need to be the most important part of your life, maybe it's the second most important thing, or the third, or whatever. if something sucks, it sucks, and that in turns sucks you up and makes other stuff suck. isn't that how life goes? i wasn't aware that there was an alternative.
and what if the one most important thing to you is constantly terrible? how does one live like that? therein lies my lack in various aspects of my personality, of my character. i just can't deal with that feeling of terribleness; i'm unable to stomach it for very long before panicking and trying to find a different mode, to relinquish what i'm trying to hold on to as if it's too hot, and my hands are my brittle emotions, cracking apart under the heat into pieces.
maybe it's not constantly terrible. maybe it's terrible for one hour every day, but it's uplifting and wonderful for the other maybe fifteen hours you're awake. do i have enough character to deal with that? so far, not really, but at that point, the terrible feeling is not so pervasive as to prevent my ability to logically consider the consequences of letting go. i can weight the options. i can consult with friends. but even then, i'm unsatisfied, because i do have that one hour every day that is awful, and the more i think about that one hour, the more it becomes two hours, then three hours, then four, then too many hours for me to think logically and consider and deal with and by then my hands are cracking apart again and i'm breaking into pieces.
there's a certain lack of ability to cope here, an inability to cope with strenuous situations. i wouldn't call it difficult, because they are not truly difficult. nothing is really at stake, but intangible circumstances, which are always shifting anyway. i call them strenuous because it takes much for me to hold my course under any of these circumstances, and so far i've been wavering like mad, but probably back and forth enough that the wavering cancels out, or so i'd like to think.
another thing: being practical and planning for the future and such... overrated. or at least it is for me. once i start planning, i start thinking and rationalizing what possibilities exist for the future, but this is tantamount to making predictions, which is estimating, which is guessing, which is vaguely hoping for circumstances which are clearly impossible. the more i think about those impossibilities, though, the more and more hopeful i become, and soon enough i lose sight of what i knew to be impossible once upon a time, and now i'm just juggling images of possible futures that i once knew to be impossible. and once i'm there, i'm done, because all i can do is process the present in terms of those visions, and whether or not every event in the present contributes or detriments toward each vision, and once enough detriments stack up against my favorite vision of the future, it shatters and leaves me with all my hopes broken, all my expectations place on that vision one on top of the other simply falling down and crushing me. even worse is when i realize that all my motivations and activities were built on that false vision, that i was moving myself forward by reaching toward it, and now that it's totally destroyed i don't even know where i am or where i've been running toward.
but that's how life is, right? that's how it is, right?
yea?
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Nowadays I feel that my mind is so cluttered with thoughts and such that I cannot collect myself and become coherent. I am a leaf flapping in the wind, a mound of sand unable to hold a shape, a clutter of possessions strewn about a room; my form is controlled by forces external to myself. When did I lose the ability to gather my various pieces and become assembled? It is an irony to be struggling with the very fact of struggling.
I'm beginning to understand why I no longer enjoy television shows, or movies, or video games, or many forms of media entertainment that I once did. There is something false about these mediums, something untrue that I cannot shake, something about fiction, or even nonfiction that I cannot accept. I do not have trouble understanding or immersing myself into any media. What I feel is more a reluctance to do so, an unwillingness to use my time in these pursuits which are meaningless. I can imagine purposefulness or usefulness to these activities, but I cannot find desire or meaning in any of them. Perhaps my ambitions are growing too great for my current station, disallowing me from enjoying any lesser purposes.
I'm beginning to understand why I no longer enjoy television shows, or movies, or video games, or many forms of media entertainment that I once did. There is something false about these mediums, something untrue that I cannot shake, something about fiction, or even nonfiction that I cannot accept. I do not have trouble understanding or immersing myself into any media. What I feel is more a reluctance to do so, an unwillingness to use my time in these pursuits which are meaningless. I can imagine purposefulness or usefulness to these activities, but I cannot find desire or meaning in any of them. Perhaps my ambitions are growing too great for my current station, disallowing me from enjoying any lesser purposes.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
feelings
AAshley: mmm yeah
feelings are stupid
--
i need a giant feeling vacuum, which i can use every night before i sleep, to suck up all these unneeded feelings and give me rest. or perhaps just an on-off switch, or perhaps one of those reset buttons for which you need a very pointy object with which to press.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Being
So far as I know, I know. I know where I am. I know where I have been, where I come from, in both the sense of location, and in the sense of my previous state of consciousness and awareness. I know where I am going, at least in the next few moments, and I have a general sense knowledge of the future which fades into uncertainty. I know many aspects of myself, from my physical being to my intellectual being to my emotional being to my primal being. I do not know my soul, because that does not belong to me. I know why I behave the way I behave, why I speak the words I speak, why I feel the emotions I feel. Though I am loathe to divulge my meanest truths to others, I do know them so far as my capacity to understand truth. I have no doubt about myself. This I call confidence.
What I do not know is all that is not of myself. The inability to interact with my surroundings to produce a predictable result, this is what builds the foundation of my struggle in every moment. A lack of control over oneself is not reflective of a lack of knowledge of oneself; it is a demonstration of the inability to anticipate the necessary input required in order to produce the desired output. Awkwardness does not come from any innate inability to perform; it comes from not knowing which performance to provide; that performance is a property of the surroundings, the input-requiree, the universe. Likewise, any revelation that one might consider to be regarding oneself is only an expectation or outside projection, the input of another device which one's output has not matched. That input does not define oneself. These other devices I call uncertainty.
All this knowledge is in fact limited by my physical being. Any malfunction in my physical being is not necessarily under my control, and my physical being is necessarily the source of manifestation of any phenomenon which I believe to have originated from myself. My metaphysical manifestation, though not absolutely tied to any particular part of my physical being, can surely be altered as a result of many influences to my physical being. What I have explained previously assumes a nearly congruent state of physical being; this is necessary for maintaining confidence.
Clearly, the amount of uncertainty present in the universe is greater than the amount of confidence. This can be seen if one believes that any two human beings possess a comparable amount of confidence, and that the confidence of the first human being does not at all overlap with the confidence of the second, since these two human beings are in fact separate entities. This is beneficial, since I understand that part of my confidence is the need for uncertainty with which to experiment and experience.
This is not to say that confidence is a static object. Confidence is nearly always changing. Confidence is not defined by its contents, but rather by the knowledge of its presence. Every aspect of myself that I am aware of is my confidence, and there is no other portion of myself which is not a part of my confidence; there is no part of myself which is part of uncertainty, and this is by definition.
These concepts have been described as close to my confidence as my psyche can permit in this environment.
What I do not know is all that is not of myself. The inability to interact with my surroundings to produce a predictable result, this is what builds the foundation of my struggle in every moment. A lack of control over oneself is not reflective of a lack of knowledge of oneself; it is a demonstration of the inability to anticipate the necessary input required in order to produce the desired output. Awkwardness does not come from any innate inability to perform; it comes from not knowing which performance to provide; that performance is a property of the surroundings, the input-requiree, the universe. Likewise, any revelation that one might consider to be regarding oneself is only an expectation or outside projection, the input of another device which one's output has not matched. That input does not define oneself. These other devices I call uncertainty.
All this knowledge is in fact limited by my physical being. Any malfunction in my physical being is not necessarily under my control, and my physical being is necessarily the source of manifestation of any phenomenon which I believe to have originated from myself. My metaphysical manifestation, though not absolutely tied to any particular part of my physical being, can surely be altered as a result of many influences to my physical being. What I have explained previously assumes a nearly congruent state of physical being; this is necessary for maintaining confidence.
Clearly, the amount of uncertainty present in the universe is greater than the amount of confidence. This can be seen if one believes that any two human beings possess a comparable amount of confidence, and that the confidence of the first human being does not at all overlap with the confidence of the second, since these two human beings are in fact separate entities. This is beneficial, since I understand that part of my confidence is the need for uncertainty with which to experiment and experience.
This is not to say that confidence is a static object. Confidence is nearly always changing. Confidence is not defined by its contents, but rather by the knowledge of its presence. Every aspect of myself that I am aware of is my confidence, and there is no other portion of myself which is not a part of my confidence; there is no part of myself which is part of uncertainty, and this is by definition.
These concepts have been described as close to my confidence as my psyche can permit in this environment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)