Monday
January 9, 2012
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Sunday
January 2, 2012
So, new year.
There have been the requisite existential questions, the wheres, whys, what nexts. And there have been some realizations, which I often think is good. Coming to any sort of awakening, whether timely or delayed, is always a sign that at least one is moving somewhere.
I experienced some dissonance right around Christmas, as the impending hurtle toward 2012 jolted me into realization that I hadn’t really achieved much last year, meaning everything seemed to stagnate from 2009. That i think is partly a consequence of not setting anything concrete in advance, being of the impression at the time that adopting a laissez faire attitude toward resolutions and having no expectations can result in pleasant surprises.
Daniel Kahneman posits that our view of self and the world is shaped both by experience and memory and it is the remembering self that is the story teller of our lives through time. We don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences. This is what distinguishes being happy in life and being happy with one’s life. We therefore think about the future not as experience but as anticipated memories.
I don’t know if there is still any advantage in thinking about future possibilities and the phrase ‘anticipated memories’ is so loaded I am loathe to even allude to it. But I have realized that self-actualization for me is more a need than a choice. So here I attempt to specify some goals. Also, it probably beats glossing over everything with a slick aphorism.
actively listen
verbalise thoughts in an elegant, if not coherent, form
practise retaining all that I learn
write more
My communication is overdue for some betterment, mainly because it is such an important means to my many ongoing ends. Also these are goals I know I can work with — though not necessarily succeed at — especially given my oft capricious nature.
As to judgement, tolerance, oversensitivity, empathy and all that heavy, good stuff, they never cease to plague me. But I can only hope that out of all this ongoing chaos, maybe one day a dancing star will emerge. Ok that last bit wasn’t really an aphorism, but it was clearly Nietzsche.
So right now I’m struggling with a fear of vulnerability.
To tell someone how you really feel about them, whether if it’s your heart bursting from good feelings, or how much you miss them. To simply put yourself out there, good side, bad side, gifts and flaws, knowing full well that your heart can be shattered and trampled on in an instant.
The experts and gurus say it is a risk the truly courageous take but you will never fully understand how intense it is until you find yourself on the edge with one foot of the cliff.
There are lots of things causing this fear, and i hate to admit it but mostly it comes from all the baggage of the past, all the ghosts of disappointments from before coming back to haunt me. How easy it is to get sucked in. But i realize that they are mine to bear and I have to take responsibility for them and deal with them. We are each responsible for ourselves and our well being. Realization is the easy part, what next?
So I’m going back to basics. I’m trying my hardest to take each day as it comes and not let my thoughts overrun everything. And tomorrow is a new day.
