12 posts tagged “musings”
I've seen so many of my friends post at different times all about how after looking back and reflecting a little bit they realized that they weren't the same people they were a year or six months ago, that so much about them had changed that they might as well be totally different people. Sometimes the person posting thinks that change was for the better, and sometimes they think it was for the worse. It varies from person to person, from voice to voice. The only constant is that when it comes to those of you who have been on my list for a while now, I've heard you make a statement to that degree at least once since knowing you.
I suppose I always felt left out when it came to that cycle of change. It seemed like everyone else changed, progressed, regressed, moved on at some point while I stood eternally stuck in the same spot as a tree is stuck because of it's very nature. A tree can grow and flourish, but it can't ever move. I started to worry that I was born to live as a tree, even though I had a human soul. I just wanted something to change -- to happen.
Somewhere along the way, that change did eventually take place, but I missed it. It was literally like going to sleep on a perfectly clear summer night, waking up in the morning to snow on the ground, and thinking "how did that happen". It wasn't a positive or a negative thing. It just simply was, and it had many arms that reached out in all directions like the branches I used to have that were now mysteriously missing.
I remember when I was still a tree, I thought I really had things figured out. I knew I was missing out quite a bit, but I didn't think that it mattered. Now that I move freely from place to place as humans are supposed to, sometimes I meet other trees stuck there on the side of the road, toes happily insinuated into the soil and the dust as if it were not a trap. They try to tell me all about how they have it all figured out, and they offer to teach me their secret so that I can have it all figured out, too.
What they don't know is that I'm one step ahead of them, not one step behind. All I can do is shake my head and hope that one day they figure it out for real, and learn how to use those poor, atrophied little feet of theirs at long last. The real secret is that no one has it all figured out. We're all just trying to learn and be what we can while we're here. You can't do that if you stay the same forever.
Every so often, I guess I go through periods where I don't feel at all like myself and I just need to hibernate for a while. I kind of feel like I'm coming out of one of those periods.
People really are like drinking vessels, I think. They are crafted to be filled and subsequently emptied for a purpose. I know a lot of coffee mugs. Everyone has a use for a coffee mug and very few do not have one or two or fifty in their kitchen cupboard. Some people adore coffee to distraction... so much so that they can't imagine starting a morning without it. Vessels meant to carry coffee are indispensable... very useful... very necessary even though they never seem to love that about themselves.
I've never been a coffee mug. I feel more like one of those highly impractical crystal goblets that don't get to see the light of day at all often because they're simply not as useful. You can't fill vessels like that with coffee or they'll break. Vessels like that are selected to contain intoxicating, old-fashioned concoctions that people rarely drink anymore as a rule, unless perhaps they want to feel unusual and unique. Absinthe. Maybe sherry, if it's the very strong, sweet kind. Concoctions that make you feel like you're stardust for an evening, but are forgotten as soon as the sun comes up.
Some days feeling that way makes me feel fortunate and special, but on others... I just want to know what it would be like to be something that people can't get through the day without instead. Today is one of the best days. When I woke up this morning, I felt fortunate to be so impractical... but then, what other type of day would bring anything but silence from me.
For some reason, I'm feely ballsy and self-important enough at the moment to get on my little soapbox and pretend I know everything today. You know how I get sometimes. I've been thinking a little bit about the concept of life lessons, and I felt like sharing a few of the ones I've learned so far, not only to share, but to file away for my own purposes and then look at again in a year or so to see where I've grown and where I can add to the list. That's always a good time... and an educational one, as I'm sure you all know. The following statements are all statements that I have found to be absolutely true as a result of the 31 years I've spent on the planet so far.
• You are the only person who can ultimately decide what's best for you. Not that I'm saying we should all be turning our nose up at good advice or snubbing the people who know us best or love us most when they try to help us out, but no one knows you or your life quite like you, and as such, you will always be the most informed person to seek advice from when it's truly important. The best thing I ever started doing for myself was trusting myself to start making really important decisions about my own life for myself instead of letting other people decide what was best for me and tell me what I ought to be doing, and if you're not already doing this, I suggest you start as soon as possible. Some of the best decisions I ever made about my life were the ones that seemed crazy to everyone else, but made perfect sense to me in my heart or hearts.
• The most important quality anyone can have is confidence. People tend to believe about you what you believe about yourself deep down... really. Your true sense of your own self worth shows regardless of how much smoke you throw up in front of it to try to hide it... trust me. People think the secret to life is all about how pretty they are, or what letters they have after their name, or what their I.Q. is when really it's all about confidence. If you believe that you are someone worth knowing, worth listening to, and worth respecting, other people will, too... and I have never met anyone who couldn't be worth knowing. I've only met people who don't believe in themselves and wind up making catastrophes of their lives because of it. Even the most obnoxious people I've ever met could be "someone special" if they'd just get to know themselves, be themselves, and develop a little confidence.
• A little positivity goes a long way... even if you're a pessimist at heart like me. One of the best and most helpful things I ever started doing for myself was forcing myself to look on the proverbial bright side whenever I could, even if I still bitched and moaned just as often. It sounds trite to a lot of people, but it really does help a lot even to just list five things that happened each day that were positive or made you happy, even if it was just for a moment and even if they were very small. I've found that even on the most horrible day, I could do this, and seeing that really helped me become more positive and more productive in general. It made me really see how many times I do smile or laugh even though I don't tend to think of myself as a "smiles and laughs" kind of person, and that's definitely a very good thing.
• If there's something you really want to do with your life, do it now. The perfect time to write that novel or take up that new skill you've always dreamed of having never comes. If I could go back and change just one thing about my life, it would be to start working on the things I considered to be my life goals as soon as I recognized them as such instead of waiting for "the perfect time". Luckily, "the perfect time" to start working on those things did more or less come for me, but what if it hadn't? I probably never would have done them. Plus, if I'd have done them sooner, there could have been so much in my life adding worth and purpose to it during some of the more stifling years. That would have made many burdens lighter and easier to tolerate at the time for sure.
So what are some of the life lessons you have learned? I'd love to hear some of them, as well as how you came to learn them if you feel so inclined.
What do you think? Do you think we remain always the same person from beginning to end, all changes the result of simply discovering facets of our psyches or personalities that were previously unknown to us? Is it this, or do we change over and over again, shedding old skin to reveal new year after year? I wish I knew... not to settle an unnerving debate between myself and my soul, but just to know what manner of fuel keeps prompting these transformations in me... both within and without... these metamorphoses from caterpillar, to chrysallis, to butterfly, and then back to caterpillar again to start a completely different dance. It's a marvelous ride. I wish I knew the vehicle is all.
I also wonder from time to time though how many of these discarded exoskeleton fragments were true reflections of me and how many simply were as a result of being what was best for someone else in my life and not what was actually best for me. There are many things that I think I believed or held to with absolute conviction "at the time" but now could not imagine believing in anymore. Was the shedding of such channels of thinking a true transformation, or simply a setting down of baggage placed in my care by someone other than myself? Is there really a difference either way?
This is one of those days where having a body seems more annoying than it normally does on other days. Bodies are so needy. They get tired, and sick, and old. They constantly need something... food, sex, sleep, medicine, maintenance. It's exhausting, and it gets in the way of all the things I'd happily devote all the hours of my life to if I could swing it... art, thought, intellect, insight. Some days I love having a body. It's usually a source of much pride and enjoyment for me, as you all well know. Other days though? I'd just as soon be a disembodied brain in a jar somewhere, you know? Heh... OK... well, maybe you don't know. That could very well have been one of my "very bizarre thoughts that no one else gets".
On a totally unrelated note, we finally watched Happy Feet last night. All I really have to say about it is "what the hell was going on with this movie". That wasn't at all what I expected. Honestly, we both found it to be really weird and hard to follow. The environmental message at the center of it felt extremely forced and overly preachy to me, and I thought all the singing and/or dancing penguins were downright bizarre. Overall, I felt like I had just gone to sleep and had some really strange dream after smoking like... a giant joint or something. I just really didn't like it, and I usually love all the little animated movies that come out. Try not to kill me. I know a lot of people saw it and did like it, but it just wasn't my bag at all. I'm honestly still scratching my head in confusion.
You know... I really think you can have your cake and eat it, too. The solution is honestly simple. Become a baker! Learn to bake for yourself and learn to bake well. Then you've all the cakes you could possibly ever want to eat... or have. Your choice, of course. That's your little piece of lop-sided wisdom for the day. Interpret it, use it, or disregard it as you will.
Sometimes I wonder how it is that I can appear one way to myself and another way to many others. Those who are very close to me and know a lot about me also know that I'm extremely hard on myself when it comes to allowing myself to take pleasure in any type of success. I often feel like I don't deserve the luxury unless the thing was perfectly executed, and of course nothing ever is no matter how good it might turn out. When it comes to "life in general", I really feel like I don't deserve to sit back and nod with satisfaction because I feel like I'm so far behind where others are with their life journeys. I got a relatively late start at really living life to the fullest due to a number of personal factors, so I always seem to feel like I have to race race race to catch up, and more often than not, I feel like I never will.
However, it always seems like others see things in the exact opposite light. Sometimes it's a friend or someone you're close to that offers the insight, but more often it's a stranger, and somehow that makes it even more interesting because the person really has no real gain to hope for by flattering you. For instance, I posted some general introductory "getting-to-know-you" stuff in a community recently and had several people reply back expressing amazement at how much they felt I had accomplished thus far. That type of thing has actually happened more than once actually, and it always leaves me completely taken aback when it does. Part of it's me and my own perfectionist hang-ups. Part of it's the fact that I came from a muddy little world where constant put-downs were par for the course when it came to anyone who actually wanted to make anything of themselves one day. Thank God for small favors, I suppose. They do make a difference... even to those such as myself who like to think ourselves immune to flattery. I guess it just depends on what flavor it is. I'm a picky eater when it comes to that as well, it would seem.
I've spent the last twenty-four hours devouring Greco-Roman myth off and on. It's been a while since I really sat down and spent any significant amount of time engrossed in my Bulfinch's, so I was due. I was reading a little bit about the different ages that were thought to have been during the early days of man... Bronze, Golden, et cetera. There was a specific train of thought expressed in which it is said that Themis (Justice) and Astraea (Innocence) are no longer with us in this age, but that one day they will return and bring back the Golden Age in their wake. I like that idea, and I most definitely like the way it is mirrored in one form or another almost completely across the board when it comes to religion... either living or dead. Infinite reflections of such ideas make me feel like they actually stand a chance of happening in reality someday.
Someone posted this image of the Queen of Hearts from Alice In Wonderland today in one of the storybook art communities I belong to. I just love it not only because the Queen of Hearts is my favorite character, but because I think she really looks like me. Or at least she looks like me if I were a stylized comic book character with unnaturally big boobs. So cool, because other than the Queen of Hearts self portrait I did of myself a while back, I've never seen this character depicted with tanned skin and red hair before.
One other very random thought is in my head right at this moment. I really really miss the way the sidewalk used to smell when I used to walk home from elementary school on very sunny days as a really little girl. It was a warm, comforting smell... kind of earthy, dusty, and even bakery-ish if that makes any sense. I think some trace memory of that particular smell popped up at random in one of my dreams from last night. It's weird what we dream about sometimes. It's even weirder how badly we can miss something so simple and seemingly insignificant.
It's lovely outside today. As most of you know by now, my winter just came to me a little bit late this year, but it did come, much to my great delight. It's been raining and snowing profusely off and on for a few weeks now and I love it. When water falls from the sky in any of its forms, there truly seems to be an aura of magic delicately draped over the world around you that almost makes it possible to believe that nothing bad will ever happen again. Even better, it makes you feel that if it did, it would inevitably turn out all right because nothing bad ever stays bad forever. Everything becomes and remains clean and still for a while and is blindingly beautiful in its purity. The world needs that once in a while and so do I.
I honestly feel very sorry for the other people that live here, or at least for the ones I've crossed paths with so far. I've never seen people so scared of a little weather. We're not even talking storms here... just gentle rainfall or snowfall without wind, or even much cold despite the fact that it's winter. I was walking from my apartment to the mailboxes the other day in the rain with my umbrella. It was almost warm out... pleasant... and certainly the rainfall was light enough to go that short distance on foot and actually enjoy taking in some fresh air at the same time. However, I saw a neighbor actually come out of her house and drive her car 50 feet to go and get her mail. She was that afraid of experiencing even a small amount of rain.
The sad thing is that I see that type of thing a lot these days. Things in that same family as actually getting into your car, starting it, warming it up, and then driving it just to go 50 effing feet to the mailbox and then another 50 feet to get back to your apartment. We learned long ago that the best time to go out and get anything done is if it's sprinkling or snowing, because most people hide in their houses for fear they're going to melt or something, leaving you the stores and restaurants all to yourselves, which both of us far prefer. And to think that anyone who knows I'm from California usually assumes that I can't deal with the weather here!
What's really sad is that years and years ago, I used to be just like Miss 50-Feet. So scared that something like a little rain might spoil my hair or give me pneumonia that I never knew how beautiful the world is when it's in that state. I'm so different from that now that I hardly recognize that person anymore, and I'm almost ashamed to admit I have anything to do with her. This is a small thing, I know, but sometimes it's the little realizations that remind us of how much we've really grown as people since way back when. People lock themselves up in all sorts of invisible cages without even knowing it sometimes.
It amazes me how often I see certain completely bizarre feelings of mine reflected in the thoughts of others. The one on my mind right this minute is how sometimes I feel fictional, for lack of a better word. Unreal. Like a fragment of the Red King's dream and nothing more.
Sometimes I feel like someone's alarm clock is going to ring in a few minutes, they are going to snap back to consciousness in an instant, and I will become nothing more than a barely remembered shadow cast by something intangible that this person struggles to remember over their morning bowl of corn flakes, and then gives up on and forgets forever.
I wonder. Where are the laws written that would govern such a phenomenon? If that were true, could I recur? Could I come back and be conjured again from the oblivion that harbors such shadows? If I could and did, would I be that type of dream that claws its way to the surface upon waking at the insistence of my father's will this time? Would I mercifully be transformed into a beautiful idea that inspires and remains?
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died
-Nickelback
