29 6/12: The Arrival

I haven’t had much to say late­ly. Suffering has always been a pre­req­ui­site for my cre­ativ­i­ty, as I only need to write when unful­filled or unhap­py, and late­ly I haven’t felt either.

The real­iza­tion that I was hap­py only came when some­one asked how I was doing; I respond­ed with my usu­al, gener­ic, “I’m doing well, thanks”, and for the first time in as long as I could remem­ber, I did­n’t feel like I was lying.

Self portrait at 29 6/12

 

Not that the desire to write has left me com­plete­ly. I still want to, though only because it’s an enjoy­able exer­cise in itself, not because I need to get some­thing off my chest. The world final­ly makes sense, and I won­der if it’s nec­es­sary to have this blog a place to sort out my thoughts any­more.

I’m sat­is­fied with the per­son I’ve become. I’ve stopped try­ing to change, or con­stant­ly fig­ur­ing out how to improve. I like me.

The seren­i­ty is get­ting bet­ter still, almost to the point where it’s an uncon­scious state-of-mind. Things don’t both­er me the way they used to. I can dream with­out desire, I can live with­out bias, I can give with­out expect­ing, I can think with­out wor­ry, and I can enjoy with­out guilt.

I turn 30 in half a year, and I final­ly feel like I’m where I should be.

The Turning 30 Series

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  1. I like the new lay­out.

    I wish I could have arrived here at this point. But I’m only a year younger than you… Makes me won­der if I will ever reach this point?

    • I’m sure you will. You come off as a very self-aware per­son, who’s inter­est­ed in improv­ing but not tied down by arro­gance. I think those are key attrib­ut­es to find­ing ful­fill­ment no mat­ter what one’s sit­u­a­tion.

  2. being able to write regard­less of your feel­ings or feel­ings on the matter…isn’t that the next stage of skill?

    • Hahahahh, it could be tak­en that way. To be able to write with­out inspi­ra­tion must be what makes some­one a pro­fes­sion­al writer.

      • Joe

        Ah, inter­est­ing point here. I think it’s about hav­ing the feel­ings and being able to be on top of them, hence, using them as inspi­ra­tions.

        You say this change has hap­pened a few times in the past, I won­der if this time the change is a last­ing one. And can you share with us how this change came about?

      • Hmmm…my def­i­n­i­tion of “feel­ings” is that you can’t be on top of them. They are out of one’s con­trol. Otherwise, they’d be con­sid­ered “thoughts” or “ideas”.

        Even though I felt strong­ly about this seren­i­ty in the past, I could tell it would­n’t last. This time, how­ev­er, I feel like there’s strong stay­ing pow­er because it’s a much more sub­tle feel­ing.

        I think that sur­viv­ing my recent brush with sui­cide helped the most in grant­i­ng me this seren­i­ty. It was prob­a­bly the clos­est I’ve ever come to dying. Not that I appre­ci­ate things more (because I also did before), but I’ve been able to let go of things and just enjoy life now.

  3. I left off mine for this rea­son. Often tempt­ed to go back when fig­ur­ing some­thing out or annoyed to the point of rant.
    My only ques­tion now is, is it worth it for any­one else to read what I have left to report? maybe I should con­tin­ue?. Hm. eh.

    I’d like to think I’d be con­tent if you were. But I doubt I could detach myself from the feel­ing that under my mem­o­ry eyes some­where I was miss­ing an arm or some­thing. That vague shape­less men­tal­ly held broth­er­per­son you have become in my read­ing life has been as much of a sure­ty as any fam­i­ly mem­ber to me (per­haps more — but that’s say­ing my fam­i­ly is pret­ty pal­try even where it exits). While that may sound pathet­ic, I think of it more as a per­son such as myself seek­ing out light just as any plant would. And I think of it as hav­ing found a per­son whose expe­ri­ence res­onat­ed with mine. More than that, as well, I enjoyed try­ing to encour­age you, where I could.

    So yes I’d total­ly under­stand if you were just… done here. But it does­n’t mean you would­n’t be missed.

    • If I stop writ­ing, I also won­der whether I’ll take down all the things I’ve writ­ten.

      But I don’t think I’ll be done here com­plete­ly. I’ll prob­a­bly slow down for a while, and most like­ly there’ll be a shift in tone and sub­ject mat­ter. This change has hap­pened a few times in the past, though much more sub­tly and grad­u­al­ly.

  4. Jeff you are so hand­some it’s star­tling!

  5. Awesome self por­trait. You should be very hap­py and proud of your­self. I am very hap­py and proud of you! You’re quite the tal­ent­ed indi­vid­ual and you have so much to offer in this world. I do wish we lived clos­er because we have a lot in com­mon and I think we’d have fun hang­ing out :) I do want to get into pho­tog­ra­phy more seri­ous­ly, I just need to find the time and go through my pho­tos and spend more time shoot­ing.

    • Thanks Soph. It’s fun­ny to be hear­ing these things from some­one, when my par­ents have nev­er said such things. I don’t know if I can think of any­one else who’s said they’re proud of me, so that means a lot.

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