One thing I'm terrified to contemplate is my identity. One thing I can describe is that I am a perpetually negative person - I constantly cling to the flaws in things. Tell me you like X, I will tell you what is wrong with X. This is not to say that X is bad and that you shouldn't like it, but I obsess with inadequacies.
One thing I've found that this means is that I, personally, am nothing. I don't adhere to any real beliefs, or should I say ideologies. I have a lot of beliefs, but ideologies bother me. Once you apply a label to a set of beliefs it masks so many different nuances both explicit and implied. So to avoid any misconceptions I run away from doing anything substantial, to avoid criticisms I make no positive affirmations, and I think that I'm finding that in doing this I am not finding true happiness.
This is a glaring issue in most facets of my life, but the worst right now is in religion. By extension this means the community I construct around me as religion should be a means of finding communion with your fellow man. However, since I'm not into inherited religion or group delusions I find my spiritual leanings conflicted. Ostensibly I adhere to neopaganism in the vicinity of Wicca, but both those labels are loaded with connotations and stereotypes that are inapplicable.
And again I lament the lack of success in finding others with a similar degree of critical attention. Of course I'm also lamenting here that I *have* this degree of critical attention, but I think one reason why I suffer is an inability to develop a community around me through which to exercise my cynicism away. My critical leanings are not trivial, and constantly they are dealt with trivially by people around me. I wish I could find a group of friends who would help be embrace this, digest it, and pass it through.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Potential
If you have a low tolerance for arrogance I suggest you turn away now. It's not that I'm so drenched in hubris that this will be intentional, acknowledged in the first remark, and still pursued. What it is though is musings on destiny.
We'll start with in how I don't believe we have one. We're not preordained to accomplish any substantial feat when we first set forth from the womb into the world. As we grow and generate our own little adorable cognitive psyche we do not become cogs in a predetermined machine nor to we slip into roles set out in the cosmic dance.
This is of course simply a belief system I choose to hold. If the opposite were true - and I was predestined to believe the above (that being a lie) I would of course be powerless to change it and well thats the kind of discussion best saved for M.C. Escher paintings.
What I do believe is that our souls are happiest doing ... something. A big problem with the world is that people don't figure out what that something is and get waylaid with all sorts of impressions and invitations and insinuations that what will make our souls happy is coincidentally something that when obtained will advance the agenda of someone else. Thus the battle for dollars and mindshare is ever continuing.
And its not that materialism is bad. Maybe some souls are happiest selling and some buying and some being envious and others happy as a fucking pig in shit breaking into your house and stealing all of your crap to buy black market prescription drugs. The problem as I see it is I do not see people actually engaging in a personal dialog and trying to understand what really makes them happy. In my theory the answer can be anything, but those who are cleaving to one thing or another without exploring the issue have not found their answer because in my experience finding that answer is a difficult path fraught with peril and I find it hard to believe anyone could accidentally stumble down it.
I don't know exactly what makes my soul happy. I'm very fond of sex, as well as all forms of multimedia engagement. I suspect to be happy I must continually dabble within both spheres. However I have a nihilistic approach to both spheres, and especially the people who purport to adhere to either.
I previously mentioned in sensationalistic passing that we have attended orgies in the past. We've stopped having anything whatsoever to do with the local swinging scene as in our opinion - or, let me say my opinion as I can only speak for me - the people involved were pretty off kilter.
I do have fantasies and visions of a subculture where I can exist in a sublime lack of self doubt and fear, and a big part of that would be the ability and comfort with expressing my sexuality in whatever way I see fit. But given the levels of social pitfall society builds around sexual expression, I can't accept a cavalier migration to that sort of existence as anything other than a self-destructive denial that eventually ruins everything it touches. So when we encountered a group that was dominated by men and women who would have sex with anyone, clearly (and openly) accelerated by all manner of drug, and these people were more than a little lazy about barrier protection in sexual behaviors, I was both fascinated and filled with a defensive urge to run as fast as humanly possible in the other direction.
The fascination stems from a carnal voyeuristic impulse, and that no matter how you slice it watching 6 or 7 women have group sex is all sorts of hot. The defense mechanism comes from the simple mathematics that while I am very open to advanced sexual frontiers this willingness is build on a foundation of openess, honesty, and trust. Nothing any of these people seems to give a damn about. My overall conclusion is that it would be nothing short of suicidal to engage sexually with these people.
And let me tell you how much I didn't want that to be the case.
It is, really, the same with multimedia; less pretentiously video games and movies. I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, but the internet subcultures that build up around such genre entertainment is fucking frightening. It seems to be a quest to artificially create a social niche in which one can define oneself according to pre-shared community standards rather than a sincere expression of enjoyment or a celebration of an artistic work. I've attended one video game convention and found it very hard to relate to the people there - I feel I love video games more than anyone I met there, but I was unwilling to slot myself into a convenient fandom and thus was not speaking the same language.
The parallel to religion is perhaps very apt, and I as always am filling the role of the true heretic. Each subculture builds up certain things and I feel compelled to dwell on the deficiencies each thing brings to the table. It is not a pessimism, it is a hard and fast desire to be un-beholden to anything other that the reality of the experience and to pick and choose from various candidates. Indeed, perhaps it could be said I evaluate things not on what they do right or how good they are, but on how much they do wrong or how bad they are. Again this isn't cynicism, it is more a unflinching appreciation for honesty. Everything is terrible - some of it just tries harder.
And it is that trying that makes the critical difference. Picture two individuals attempting the same task. One will undoubtedly accomplish it better than the other and in doing so be "better". However we should not evaluate our lives based on the complex and multivalued standards of others, no, instead we should find out what is going to make our soul happy and strive to do that as well as we can. As long as we are open to some surprising understandings of the self this seems to be a foolproof proposition as its only real directive is "try" followed by "keep trying". I see myself surrounded by people that defy the fundamental honesty that is necessary to even begin that struggle, and it makes me sad.
But I'll try to be more open about that tomorrow.
We'll start with in how I don't believe we have one. We're not preordained to accomplish any substantial feat when we first set forth from the womb into the world. As we grow and generate our own little adorable cognitive psyche we do not become cogs in a predetermined machine nor to we slip into roles set out in the cosmic dance.
This is of course simply a belief system I choose to hold. If the opposite were true - and I was predestined to believe the above (that being a lie) I would of course be powerless to change it and well thats the kind of discussion best saved for M.C. Escher paintings.
What I do believe is that our souls are happiest doing ... something. A big problem with the world is that people don't figure out what that something is and get waylaid with all sorts of impressions and invitations and insinuations that what will make our souls happy is coincidentally something that when obtained will advance the agenda of someone else. Thus the battle for dollars and mindshare is ever continuing.
And its not that materialism is bad. Maybe some souls are happiest selling and some buying and some being envious and others happy as a fucking pig in shit breaking into your house and stealing all of your crap to buy black market prescription drugs. The problem as I see it is I do not see people actually engaging in a personal dialog and trying to understand what really makes them happy. In my theory the answer can be anything, but those who are cleaving to one thing or another without exploring the issue have not found their answer because in my experience finding that answer is a difficult path fraught with peril and I find it hard to believe anyone could accidentally stumble down it.
I don't know exactly what makes my soul happy. I'm very fond of sex, as well as all forms of multimedia engagement. I suspect to be happy I must continually dabble within both spheres. However I have a nihilistic approach to both spheres, and especially the people who purport to adhere to either.
I previously mentioned in sensationalistic passing that we have attended orgies in the past. We've stopped having anything whatsoever to do with the local swinging scene as in our opinion - or, let me say my opinion as I can only speak for me - the people involved were pretty off kilter.
I do have fantasies and visions of a subculture where I can exist in a sublime lack of self doubt and fear, and a big part of that would be the ability and comfort with expressing my sexuality in whatever way I see fit. But given the levels of social pitfall society builds around sexual expression, I can't accept a cavalier migration to that sort of existence as anything other than a self-destructive denial that eventually ruins everything it touches. So when we encountered a group that was dominated by men and women who would have sex with anyone, clearly (and openly) accelerated by all manner of drug, and these people were more than a little lazy about barrier protection in sexual behaviors, I was both fascinated and filled with a defensive urge to run as fast as humanly possible in the other direction.
The fascination stems from a carnal voyeuristic impulse, and that no matter how you slice it watching 6 or 7 women have group sex is all sorts of hot. The defense mechanism comes from the simple mathematics that while I am very open to advanced sexual frontiers this willingness is build on a foundation of openess, honesty, and trust. Nothing any of these people seems to give a damn about. My overall conclusion is that it would be nothing short of suicidal to engage sexually with these people.
And let me tell you how much I didn't want that to be the case.
It is, really, the same with multimedia; less pretentiously video games and movies. I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, but the internet subcultures that build up around such genre entertainment is fucking frightening. It seems to be a quest to artificially create a social niche in which one can define oneself according to pre-shared community standards rather than a sincere expression of enjoyment or a celebration of an artistic work. I've attended one video game convention and found it very hard to relate to the people there - I feel I love video games more than anyone I met there, but I was unwilling to slot myself into a convenient fandom and thus was not speaking the same language.
The parallel to religion is perhaps very apt, and I as always am filling the role of the true heretic. Each subculture builds up certain things and I feel compelled to dwell on the deficiencies each thing brings to the table. It is not a pessimism, it is a hard and fast desire to be un-beholden to anything other that the reality of the experience and to pick and choose from various candidates. Indeed, perhaps it could be said I evaluate things not on what they do right or how good they are, but on how much they do wrong or how bad they are. Again this isn't cynicism, it is more a unflinching appreciation for honesty. Everything is terrible - some of it just tries harder.
And it is that trying that makes the critical difference. Picture two individuals attempting the same task. One will undoubtedly accomplish it better than the other and in doing so be "better". However we should not evaluate our lives based on the complex and multivalued standards of others, no, instead we should find out what is going to make our soul happy and strive to do that as well as we can. As long as we are open to some surprising understandings of the self this seems to be a foolproof proposition as its only real directive is "try" followed by "keep trying". I see myself surrounded by people that defy the fundamental honesty that is necessary to even begin that struggle, and it makes me sad.
But I'll try to be more open about that tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Feeling Empowered, for a Change
For those of you who may of missed it, we are now into 2007. A new year for most people is an opportunity to outline the areas of our lives where we feel we could be doing better, the areas we'd like to actively work to improve over the upcoming year.
I don't usually get too excited about resolutions and to this point in my life have not really participated in the cult of the New Year Resolution.
This year is looking pretty good though and I guess I'm pumped about it. It seems to be ripe with opportunity, with untapped potential and I'm feeling like maybe, just maybe I can set some goals this year and take advantage of this positive energy.
So, for this year I've taken a look at the areas in my life that I know I can do better in and I'm hoping that just the act of saying them out loud and recording them here might prompt me down the road to self improvement and actualization.
1 ~ Weight Watchers. So far, I know this is working for me. And it works even better when I actually stick to the program. I've grown lazy when it comes to recording my food intake, drinking my water and have become entirely apathetic when it comes to those unknown foods (it's really easy to 'forget' to record food when you know you don't know how many points it was worth). The holidays have not been kind to me and I need to get back on the boat. This is a BIG deal and I am determined that I am going to lose a significant amount of weight before I become pregnant.
2 ~ Doing my best at work. It is sometimes easy to slack off in my position, but I have realized that if I am going to use the position as a launching pad for future government jobs that I need to work as hard as a I can and I need to do that all the time. I need to be giving this job my all right now. I'm only going to develop my professional skills as much as I 'want' to. I know that. I need to push myself to do things I don't really like doing. Presentations is a big thing--I don't mind them really, but I certainly don't go looking for opportunities to present. And I need to. I am also going to be supervising a practicum student until April and I'm really nervous about that. I know what it's like to be a student and have really poor leadership. It's difficult to learn and you feel as if you are wasting your time. I don't want to do that to this guy. He deserves the best I have to offer him and he will get it.
3 ~ Increasing activity level. There are a couple of aspects to this. Resident Manservant has plateaued with his weight loss. He dropped nearly 30 pounds within the first 2 months and has been steady for the past 3 weeks. I need to start being more active. It's part of the program overall, and I've been entirely neglecting it. I don't know what we are going to do exactly. We have discussed joining a gym together, we also were doing aquafit classes together for a time. It seems to be easier if we are doing things as a couple, so we need to focus on finding things that work for both of us.
4 ~ I want to read more. In the last month or so I have picked up a couple of books that have been laying around for some time and have actually been reading them! I'm horrible for this. I see books that I think I'd like and I buy them, but never seem to get around to reading them. I've nearly finished reading a novel that I started on Boxing Day and have been fondly reminded of how much I enjoy reading. I never seem to have time. But I would like to start making time. I miss it.
5 ~ Planning for Success. For me this a broad statement relating to both my weight loss, but also to financial stuff. We've a wack of debt that we need to work more effectively at managing. We have already discussed some of our options with our bank and are planning to visit to go over them in more detail. For the next several months I am hoping that both of us can curb our personal spending and and work down the debt as much as possible before we refinance. Planning for continued success is an idea that I'm slowly coming around to. It doesn't happen accidentally--either gaining or losing. Planning meals, planning shopping, planning for eating out--these are all essential to our continued success.
6 ~ SEX, SEX, SEX. We don't have nearly enough of it. When we do, it's amazing, but we are generally pretty lucky lately if we are able to get to it twice a week. AND THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!!! But let me tell you, since Resident Manservant has dropped his weight, it is so much more amazing that I want it all the time.
7 ~ Relationship stuff. I think we have learned a lot in the last year on how to be a better couple, but I'm sure there is still a ton to learn. I have realized what it means to work as a team, to act as a team, to support each other as a team. But there is always room for improvement.
8 ~ Spirituality. Resident Manservant has already spoken to the path of the year, and I hope that we can continue down this path together. And maybe this time we can be a little less side-tracked and much more focused.
9 ~ Ab work. This one's kind of silly and fits into the general fitness idea, but I'd like to focus on gaining abdominal strength. I have done this in the past by doing as little as 15 minutes of ab work before bed in the evening, along with my stretching. I'd like to do this 3 evenings a week.
That's my list. It's long. I do think though that we have done a lot of work already that has primed us to start working even harder now. This doesn't seem that overwhelming after all.
Totally doable, right?
I don't usually get too excited about resolutions and to this point in my life have not really participated in the cult of the New Year Resolution.
This year is looking pretty good though and I guess I'm pumped about it. It seems to be ripe with opportunity, with untapped potential and I'm feeling like maybe, just maybe I can set some goals this year and take advantage of this positive energy.
So, for this year I've taken a look at the areas in my life that I know I can do better in and I'm hoping that just the act of saying them out loud and recording them here might prompt me down the road to self improvement and actualization.
1 ~ Weight Watchers. So far, I know this is working for me. And it works even better when I actually stick to the program. I've grown lazy when it comes to recording my food intake, drinking my water and have become entirely apathetic when it comes to those unknown foods (it's really easy to 'forget' to record food when you know you don't know how many points it was worth). The holidays have not been kind to me and I need to get back on the boat. This is a BIG deal and I am determined that I am going to lose a significant amount of weight before I become pregnant.
2 ~ Doing my best at work. It is sometimes easy to slack off in my position, but I have realized that if I am going to use the position as a launching pad for future government jobs that I need to work as hard as a I can and I need to do that all the time. I need to be giving this job my all right now. I'm only going to develop my professional skills as much as I 'want' to. I know that. I need to push myself to do things I don't really like doing. Presentations is a big thing--I don't mind them really, but I certainly don't go looking for opportunities to present. And I need to. I am also going to be supervising a practicum student until April and I'm really nervous about that. I know what it's like to be a student and have really poor leadership. It's difficult to learn and you feel as if you are wasting your time. I don't want to do that to this guy. He deserves the best I have to offer him and he will get it.
3 ~ Increasing activity level. There are a couple of aspects to this. Resident Manservant has plateaued with his weight loss. He dropped nearly 30 pounds within the first 2 months and has been steady for the past 3 weeks. I need to start being more active. It's part of the program overall, and I've been entirely neglecting it. I don't know what we are going to do exactly. We have discussed joining a gym together, we also were doing aquafit classes together for a time. It seems to be easier if we are doing things as a couple, so we need to focus on finding things that work for both of us.
4 ~ I want to read more. In the last month or so I have picked up a couple of books that have been laying around for some time and have actually been reading them! I'm horrible for this. I see books that I think I'd like and I buy them, but never seem to get around to reading them. I've nearly finished reading a novel that I started on Boxing Day and have been fondly reminded of how much I enjoy reading. I never seem to have time. But I would like to start making time. I miss it.
5 ~ Planning for Success. For me this a broad statement relating to both my weight loss, but also to financial stuff. We've a wack of debt that we need to work more effectively at managing. We have already discussed some of our options with our bank and are planning to visit to go over them in more detail. For the next several months I am hoping that both of us can curb our personal spending and and work down the debt as much as possible before we refinance. Planning for continued success is an idea that I'm slowly coming around to. It doesn't happen accidentally--either gaining or losing. Planning meals, planning shopping, planning for eating out--these are all essential to our continued success.
6 ~ SEX, SEX, SEX. We don't have nearly enough of it. When we do, it's amazing, but we are generally pretty lucky lately if we are able to get to it twice a week. AND THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!!! But let me tell you, since Resident Manservant has dropped his weight, it is so much more amazing that I want it all the time.
7 ~ Relationship stuff. I think we have learned a lot in the last year on how to be a better couple, but I'm sure there is still a ton to learn. I have realized what it means to work as a team, to act as a team, to support each other as a team. But there is always room for improvement.
8 ~ Spirituality. Resident Manservant has already spoken to the path of the year, and I hope that we can continue down this path together. And maybe this time we can be a little less side-tracked and much more focused.
9 ~ Ab work. This one's kind of silly and fits into the general fitness idea, but I'd like to focus on gaining abdominal strength. I have done this in the past by doing as little as 15 minutes of ab work before bed in the evening, along with my stretching. I'd like to do this 3 evenings a week.
That's my list. It's long. I do think though that we have done a lot of work already that has primed us to start working even harder now. This doesn't seem that overwhelming after all.
Totally doable, right?
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