Posts tagged with "reflection"

No Wonder, Iago

Sometimes, some­one does some­thing…in char­ac­ter…and this sin­gle act can change my view of them. It’s as if this one thing is the last piece in the puz­zle, and once this hap­pens I fig­ure some­one out com­plete­ly. It’s sad that peo­ple can be so com­pli­cat­ed, and then sud­den­ly so one-dimen­sion­al. I’m not some sort of social genius by any means, but it sur­pris­es me how many times I end up feel­ing as if I know some­one through and through. It’s almost like being able to under­stand the mind of a child.

I think part of the rea­son is because of how many dif­fer­ent peo­ple I’ve been. I see parts of myself in these peo­ple, as so many types of per­son­al­i­ties I’ve had before. Once this hap­pens, a sort of con­nec­tion in my mind is made, and it’s almost as if I under­stand every­thing about them; their motives, their log­ic, their actions. Generally this means that I dis­like the per­son, since I dis­like so many of my past ideas and mind­sets.

I always won­der what it takes for some­one to change so dras­ti­cal­ly to me. With what sin­gle moment do I begin to under­stand some­one? I know that not every­one can be fig­ured out, only those who are relat­ed to what I used to be (which is only a tiny frac­tion of the peo­ple I meet). And yet, fair­ly often, some­one I know will end up being pre­dictable, bor­ing, and frus­trat­ing.

These are the peo­ple I usu­al­ly feel most com­fort­able around, since I know how to talk to them, their humour, what they want to hear, even how they want oth­er peo­ple to act. They’re also the peo­ple I gen­er­al­ly want to hang around the least. They remind me of how igno­rant a per­son I used to be, and offer no inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion (because I usu­al­ly already know every­thing they have say).

There are many more peo­ple I can’t fig­ure out, both ones I like and dis­like. I don’t pro­fess to be smart enough to under­stand any­one, and I cer­tain­ly don’t think that being able to do this makes me a more intel­li­gent per­son. It’s just odd to sud­den­ly come to such under­stand­ings some­times. I instant­ly lose respect for the per­son, and wish I had­n’t got­ten to this point.

In these cas­es it’s prob­a­bly bet­ter to be igno­rant.

The One Who Can Turn You Off Food

Pat is a very easy going guy. It’s rare for him to be angry or annoyed with some­one, as aggra­vat­ing as they can be. He has his four basic rules of get­ting along with peo­ple, which are a part of his per­son­al­i­ty. To me, they per­fect­ly explain how I can’t walk ten min­utes with him on cam­pus with­out some­one walk­ing by and greet­ing him. He’s one of the most pop­u­lar, friend­ly, out­go­ing peo­ple I know.

So I was sur­prised to hear him tell me about some­one he met whom he could­n’t stand. After all, this is Patty, the guy who loves and is loved by every­one. I did­n’t believe him until he explained how this per­son stood for every­thing he was against. Pat holds respect for oth­ers as one of the most impor­tant things in life, and this per­son had none.

It was odd to think that Pat has a nat­ur­al “ene­my”, some­one who con­tra­dicts him in almost every way, until I real­ized that I have one as well. I’ve met a per­son who is every­thing I try not to be. He’s obnox­ious, untrust­wor­thy, crude, over­bear­ing, pussy-whipped, jeal­ous, and closed-mind­ed. He has a decent set of man­ners, is gen­er­al­ly friend­ly to most peo­ple, and does have a rea­son­able intel­li­gence as far as I can tell, but none of this can real­ly make up for what he’s like.

I can feel myself being slight­ly, uncon­trol­lably biased against him, which I can’t stand in myself. One of Pat’s rules is that every­one should be giv­en a fair chance, and even though I feel like I’ve giv­en more than enough time for this per­son to change my opin­ion, I’m nev­er sure if it’s enough. I hate being biased.

I gen­er­al­ly can’t stand most peo­ple, but that’s my fault because of my intol­er­ance. This per­son, how­ev­er, is one of the only peo­ple I don’t blame myself for. Perhaps I dis­like him so much because he reminds me a lot of what I used to be. Of course, Aaron thinks that this is a good thing, a reminder of how far I’ve been able to come as a per­son.

Sometimes that’s just hard to see.

Balderdash Englightenment

I’ve late­ly been get­ting into dis­cus­sions where I gen­er­al­ly show a strong sense of con­fi­dence in my con­vic­tions. The role of dis­tance in a rela­tion­ship relat­ed to the lev­el of com­mit­ment, as a sub­ject per­haps, or instruc­tions in becom­ing a more socia­ble per­son, as anoth­er. I’ve been answer­ing ques­tions of life, love, and hap­pi­ness almost as if I know the answers. Yet I can’t fig­ure out where these opin­ions are com­ing from, or even where I’m get­ting the strength of my beliefs.

Have I gained so much strength so as to affect my think­ing? Have I become blind­ed by over­con­fi­dence? Or do I con­sid­er my expe­ri­ences to be suf­fi­cient enough to give advice when peo­ple ask me? This may pos­si­bly be the case even though I gen­er­al­ly don’t like to give advice, since I only speak when I feel that I have a suf­fi­cient under­stand­ing of the sub­ject.

The truth is that I don’t know where my assured­ness is com­ing from. In the last few weeks I’ve felt an odd sense of wis­dom, and my cer­ti­tude seems to be com­ing from this feel­ing. Perhaps an over­flow of emo­tions has caused me to feel this way, and every­thing I’m feel­ing now is tem­po­rary. The most impor­tant thing I try to keep in mind is the fact that I may be wrong in almost any­thing I believe. I need to keep an open mind. Yet late­ly I feel as if I do know much more about the way things work, the way life goes, the way the world turns.

I think of what I do know now, and try to remind myself that there is still a great deal I don’t know. I sim­ply have a strong trust in my judge­ments, deci­sions, and con­vic­tions made with the lim­it­ed amount of infor­ma­tion one always has in fore­sight. I’ve late­ly become more cer­tain about my life, and the direc­tion I want it want to take. I cer­tain­ly know what I want, but I try to remain flex­i­ble.

In the last two months I’ve learned more than I have in year before that, and the sud­den surge of con­fi­dence I’ve gained in my opin­ions seems to be relat­ed to this. I real­ize that I’ve learned a great deal through the course of my life.

But I have much more to learn as well.

Charge

How odd that the themes of my writ­ings have most­ly shift­ed in one direc­tion. I always won­der what peo­ple think of what I say. I would imag­ine that peo­ple think I’m being melo­dra­mat­ic, that I’m look­ing for some sort of pro­tag­o­nis­tic pathos, or that I’m being some pre­ten­tious fuck.

It’s as if a sin­gle inci­dent has shift­ed my mind­set, that I just can’t seem to com­plete­ly get over what has passed. The hurt­ing has stopped, to be sure, but the think­ing isn’t done. I still get inspired by mem­o­ries, ideas, emo­tions, almost any­thing I’ve expe­ri­enced through this.

I was once scared that I would nev­er fall in love again, and I used to be emo­tion­al­ly numb. Perhaps all of this was sim­ply a result of a life of stag­nan­cy, of bore­dom. Now I can write again, I have things to think about, I have emo­tions to expe­ri­ence, I seem to have things to look for­ward to.

Can heart­break be so ben­e­fi­cial? I know that I can feel. I don’t need to force my artis­tic writ­ing. My mind seems to be filled with new end­less thoughts. I can even appre­ci­ate cer­tain music on anoth­er lev­el now. This com­plex­i­ty, this mys­te­ri­ous­ness is so inter­est­ing.

My only wor­ry is that this new vital­i­ty will lev­el off into noth­ing­ness.

The Greatest Balance

When I went home a few months ago, I found a copy Soul Mountain at Chapters, which I had been look­ing for, ever since I found out about it. I’ve been read­ing as much as I can late­ly, when­ev­er I have the time and the ener­gy to con­cen­trate on what Gao Xingjian is try­ing to nar­rate to me.

The thing that makes the auto­bi­og­ra­phy inter­est­ing so far is that Xingjian was incor­rect­ly diag­nosed with fatal lung can­cer, and after prop­er review, had been giv­en a sec­ond chance on life. His out­look changes, and he begins to see every­thing around him very dif­fer­ent­ly.

I’ve late­ly felt that, although I’ve nev­er been threat­ened with any life-alter­ing inci­dents, I’ve begun to see things dif­fer­ent­ly as well. It’s as if I have noth­ing and every­thing to live for. That there would be no dif­fer­ence between dying tomor­row or in eight decades. It’s almost as if I’ve had my fair share of expe­ri­ences, each one as impor­tant as the oth­er in shap­ing who I am, good or bad, and that this is already suf­fi­cient for me to be sat­is­fied with my life. Perhaps I feel this is true when I com­pare the amount that I’ve already learned with the infi­nite amount that is impos­si­ble to learn. After all, what is the pur­pose of life any­way? For me, it is to con­tin­u­al­ly shape myself into a bet­ter per­son, whether it’s intel­li­gence, or a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion of music, or dex­ter­i­ty, or any­thing. And since there is no absolute goal I have to reach (or can reach), there is no way for me to fail, and death hence­forth becomes mean­ing­less.

When I tried to explain this to some­one, he got con­fused, and thought that I was telling him about how I had expe­ri­enced all there is to expe­ri­ence already. This could­n’t be fur­ther from the truth. There are a pletho­ra of things I haven’t done, that I haven’t been through, and when­ev­er I’m giv­en the chance to actu­al­ly expe­ri­ence one of these things, I feel as if I’ve gained more out of life.

Instead of see­ing the act of liv­ing as cross­ing out items on a life-long “to do” list, I see it as writ­ing down items on a “have done” list.

The great­est dis­tinc­tion for me between these two world­views is that I can take my time in doing what I want, instead of feel­ing rushed to accom­plish as much as I can before I die. Seeing life this way has cer­tain­ly allowed me to be a much more relaxed, flex­i­ble, easy-going per­son, unin­hib­it­ed by the fear of death. The good thing about this is that I did­n’t have to fool myself into this view, sim­ply because I was unsat­is­fied with my life. Somehow, this mind­set shaped itself in my brain, and even­tu­al­ly man­i­fest­ed itself through my ever-con­tin­u­ing matu­ri­ty.

It has made life mean­ing­ful and mean­ing­less at the same time.