Posts tagged with "self-evaluation"

Shift

I had the chance to watch Forrest Gump today, and re-expe­ri­ence was an amaz­ing film it was again. I spent many hours as a kid (or, more appro­pri­ate­ly, as a social her­mit) watch­ing it over and over again.

My grade nine his­to­ry class allowed me the priv­i­lege of under­stand­ing the sub­tleties of cer­tain scenes used as a time stamp, such as Governor Wallace protest­ing the deseg­re­ga­tion of the pub­lic school sys­tem, or each war Lieutenant Dan’s ances­tors died in.

It was odd to watch a film I haven’t seen in so long, yet to be able to quote most parts of it word for word, tone for tone, accent for accent. Everything seemed so for­eign yet so famil­iar. Every scene brought an old emo­tion, unfelt since the last time I watched it so long ago.

It was inter­est­ing to under­stand new things about the movie, things which were beyond my com­pre­hen­sion in my youth. It became appar­ent that I learned much since then, and that I was expe­ri­enc­ing the movie in a dif­fer­ent way. As James Cole notes in 12 Monkeys while watch­ing Vertigo, one may watch a film twice, but it may seem dif­fer­ent when the changes are sole­ly in one­self.

I only now under­stand Lt. Dan’s strug­gles with his fate and phi­los­o­phy. I remem­ber being very phys­i­cal­ly attract­ed to Robin Wright, and I guess I sim­ply lost that attrac­tion. I had­n’t ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed the strength of Forest’s moth­er until see­ing it again today. The list goes on.

It must be rare to have some­thing which can be used as a meter or ruler in which one can mea­sure ones progress. I hold self-improve­ment and intel­li­gence as such impor­tant things in my life that I am con­stant­ly try­ing to use one to bet­ter the oth­er, and con­se­quent­ly I may lose sight of how far I’ve gone.

Hopefully there is more to go.

My Own Deadline

I feel as if I have so much to say with­out the appro­pri­ate time to say it in. Every time I over­flow with emo­tion I feel the need to write, and it ends up lead­ing to nowhere, sim­ply because I’m too busy or too tired. Even now I can only think of the errands I need to run tomor­row or what needs to be accom­plished in the next week. I wish I could spend more time writ­ing, care­ful­ly observ­ing each emo­tion I expe­ri­ence so that I can bet­ter under­stand myself.

But that is all for anoth­er day.

Vs.

I remem­ber watch­ing Seinfeld, and not being able to stand Kramer. He seemed to ruin so much of what his friends were doing, like hir­ing cig­ar rollers to roll crêpes, only to have them explode in the faces of cus­tomers, some­how caus­ing George’s girl­friend to break up with him.

It always made me won­der why Jerry would nev­er break off his friend­ship with him, why Jerry would always put up with some­one who nev­er seemed to give as much plea­sure as the amount of strife he cre­at­ed.

I find the sit­u­a­tion to be so com­mon. I sup­pose that I’m con­stant­ly re-eval­u­at­ing my rela­tion­ships, and that as soon as a lim­it is reached, I have no inter­est in con­tin­u­ing the rela­tion­ship. It’s prob­a­bly the rea­son why I get over my break-ups so quick­ly, if not the idea of the sit­u­a­tion, than the com­fort. The fact that I’ve always been the breaker prob­a­bly helps too.

I spoke with Aaron about it, and he explained to me very well that to Jerry, the friend­ship was worth it. I now under­stand that peo­ple see their friend­ships in a dif­fer­ent man­ner, and that what I would­n’t put up with may just be a sim­ple mat­ter to oth­ers.

Sometimes I wish that I did­n’t see every­thing so day-to-day. However, by con­stant­ly re-eval­u­at­ing my rela­tion­ships, I not only clear­ly see the prob­lems with bad ones, but I am able to appre­ci­ate the ones that are good as well.

An idea that has become com­mon in my beliefs is that I should live as a demand­ing per­son, but I should give as much as I get. Perhaps that’s why I stop being friends with cer­tain peo­ple, where­as oth­ers I would die for. I would pre­fer to live with a few close friends, as opposed to a pletho­ra of acquain­tances. Sometimes it still con­fus­es me though, how peo­ple can put up with what I can only see as a ter­ri­ble flaw.

There’s a fine line between know­ing when to be self­ish, and know­ing when to be kind to oth­ers, even if kind­ness means sac­ri­fice.

The Urgency For Antipathy

I think I’ve been struck with an even greater need for antipa­thy than before, but this is no plea­sur­able need. My mind burns with painful ideas, and it knots my stom­ach. I feel awk­ward think­ing about it every time.

I need antipa­thy to feel nor­mal again. To know that I am worth some­thing. Why must I find out so much about some­thing that pains me so much? Perhaps I sim­ply think about the sit­u­a­tion too much, and I’ve become hyper-sen­si­tive to it. Yes, that’s prob­a­bly it.

Hope is the mind­killer.

New

Things feel very dif­fer­ent right now. I know that every­thing is always chang­ing, every­thing is con­stant­ly mov­ing, and that no mat­ter how sta­t­ic my life seems at the time, my mind is always work­ing. I begin to see things quite dif­fer­ent­ly. I’m real­ly not sure how to explain it. For some rea­son, my thoughts begin to come around full cir­cle every six months or so. My mind is nev­er at the same place I am.

It’s an odd real­iza­tion, to know that I’ve changed so much, yet so lit­tle with­in the last six months. I remem­ber telling Sam one time when I was 15 that I prob­a­bly would­n’t change from the way I was back then. How wrong I was. There has been noth­ing but change, change that I can only see long after it has passed. I look back on what I was like in first year, and I become so embar­rassed.

And now things feel so odd, as if I’ve nev­er been in such a sit­u­a­tion before, as if I’m look­ing through a new pair of eyes, yet kept my old expe­ri­ences. It’s such a hard sit­u­a­tion to define, since I feel like I can nev­er tru­ly under­stand it until is over, like the dead in Dante’s Inferno.

None of this feels famil­iar.