Contrast, Revisited
I made a post a long time ago about the importance of contrast in life. You can't know if you're happy unless you know what sad feels like. Basically, it justified black-and-white thinking. I believed it wholeheartedly, though.
I'm not going to argue that it's no longer valid, but more recently, I've realized that it's not the black or the white that make life interesting. To explain, let me launch back into an excessive metaphor (as I like to do). If you develop a photo with the contrast punched as high as it will go, or even better, photoshop it and push the contrast until everything is posterized black and white, what do you have? You have an image that, although perhaps formally interesting, is unreadable. People whose lives might be described that way are the people we might like to read about, out of (sometimes morbid) curiosity, but would never want to be. Life needs strong blacks and clean whites, yes, but life itself exists in the range of greys in the middle. Those greys are where balance, plurality, poetry and nuances reside. We don't need to hit each extreme on every swing of the pendulum; we just need to recognize that they're there, and perhaps develop the ability to identify them without being in them. Living in the grey can mean stability, but it doesn't have to mean stagnation. There can still be a range in between the extremes; there can still be mobility, the pursuit of goals, and enough ups and downs to keep life interesting. Comfort isn't necessarily stagnation either, and it doesn't have to come only as a result of stability. It is possible to learn to be comfortable with change, and to find a certain comfort in the knowledge that everything will pass. Discomfort itself will pass.
[On that note, while looking for my old post, I read a lot of posts from the post-breakup w/ Jake period, and it was really reassuring to realize that, despite how much pain I was in then, it really has passed. Pain passes. Life changes. Things happen for a reason and exactly how they're supposed to. People move on, and hopefully move forward.]
My black-and-white thinking probably has had its roots anchored deep in my brain since birth, but at some point it began to grow and take up more and more space in my head. Through high school, it drove me to success through workaholism. In the past couple of years, it steered me into an eating disorder. The most extreme black-and-white thinking, or rather, physiology, is manic-depression. I'd rather not reach that, but I think I already have, on occasion. In truth, I'm more comfortable at the extremes, because then at least it can't go any farther in that direction. I need to take my own advice and stop seeking comfort, per se. I'm not comfortable in the grey area, with a life that is balanced, when I'm not being a workaholic putting in 10 hours over the weekend, every weekend, in the studio. I'm not comfortable there, but I need to admit and accept that where I've been comfortable isn't necessarily where I've been healthy. I've gotten better about trying to evade burnouts and foresee them before they've taken over my functioning, but that's only one baby step, if that. There's a lot of acceptance I need to work on...
I've probably waxed philosophic enough for now, so onto that thing we call "real life." Basically, since this is going to be my one post for this term (probably), here's what I'm up to:
I've been painting and printing a lot. There's stuff on my DeviantArt, which gets updated decently often. In that vein, I want to figure out how to update my site on PSU's webspace using DreamWeaver (which I have a copy of) because I kind of really hate frontpage. Or I could just get my own webspace. But I kind of feel retarded and unable to figure out how to actually go about that. Or... I could bring up the tower that's at my mom's house that was originally destined to be a server/webspace for myself. Not that I really know how to do that either, but maybe Jeebus could help me... (please?)
I started crew (rowing) practice this week on Tuesday. It will be 4 days a week (Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri) at 5:30-7:30 in the morning. That means a pretty drastic change in my sleep schedule, but I think it will be worth it, assuming it doesn't kill me. Class til 9:20 Thursday nights (and not getting home until 9:45 or 10 sometimes) and then getting up at 4:30 Friday morning won't be pretty... I like being up that early, though. I think, ultimately, I'm a morning person. I seem to be more productive and focused. We'll see if it continues. And I like the actual rowing, except for a fear of falling in the water. I almost tipped my little one-person boat when I rowed in Spain, and apparently that traumatized me. I'll get over it, though, I'm sure. I'm told that it's almost impossible to tip an 8-person boat. (Almost?? That implies that it's possible.)
I'm actually getting closer to being moved in. I hung up a shelf/cd rack, coat rack, and my Moroccan rug on the walls of my room, and cleared out a couple more boxes. Slooowly, but surely. Living in a house is a lot of fucking effort, but the theory is that it will be worth it in the end. I'll be more convinced of that once we have a washer and dryer downstairs that work. I spent a large chunk of today disassembling the stacked one we got a while ago in order to: 1- use the panels for a painting project, and 2- so we can get the fucker back up the stairs. I found various objects lodged in the guts of the beast (as well as fist-sized dusty lint chunks), which could explain it's lack of functioning. Cross your fingers that these next ones will actually last a couple of years.
I cooked in the crockpot yesterday. I've been meaning to do that since the term started, since I was going to have Fridays off and thus have so much time. Haha, funny joke. But I made lentil stew, and it's actually pretty good. More importantly, it's food that'd not canned/boxed/frozen.
I think I'm in the home stretch of having Vincent toilet-trained. Toilet, not box. Sometimes I think he's a pretty smart cat, but other times he's just retarded.
If you actually read that whole damn thing, I commend you (I think). There's a good chance I'll post again during finals due to slightly more unstructured time and the urge to procrastinate.
I'm not going to argue that it's no longer valid, but more recently, I've realized that it's not the black or the white that make life interesting. To explain, let me launch back into an excessive metaphor (as I like to do). If you develop a photo with the contrast punched as high as it will go, or even better, photoshop it and push the contrast until everything is posterized black and white, what do you have? You have an image that, although perhaps formally interesting, is unreadable. People whose lives might be described that way are the people we might like to read about, out of (sometimes morbid) curiosity, but would never want to be. Life needs strong blacks and clean whites, yes, but life itself exists in the range of greys in the middle. Those greys are where balance, plurality, poetry and nuances reside. We don't need to hit each extreme on every swing of the pendulum; we just need to recognize that they're there, and perhaps develop the ability to identify them without being in them. Living in the grey can mean stability, but it doesn't have to mean stagnation. There can still be a range in between the extremes; there can still be mobility, the pursuit of goals, and enough ups and downs to keep life interesting. Comfort isn't necessarily stagnation either, and it doesn't have to come only as a result of stability. It is possible to learn to be comfortable with change, and to find a certain comfort in the knowledge that everything will pass. Discomfort itself will pass.
[On that note, while looking for my old post, I read a lot of posts from the post-breakup w/ Jake period, and it was really reassuring to realize that, despite how much pain I was in then, it really has passed. Pain passes. Life changes. Things happen for a reason and exactly how they're supposed to. People move on, and hopefully move forward.]
My black-and-white thinking probably has had its roots anchored deep in my brain since birth, but at some point it began to grow and take up more and more space in my head. Through high school, it drove me to success through workaholism. In the past couple of years, it steered me into an eating disorder. The most extreme black-and-white thinking, or rather, physiology, is manic-depression. I'd rather not reach that, but I think I already have, on occasion. In truth, I'm more comfortable at the extremes, because then at least it can't go any farther in that direction. I need to take my own advice and stop seeking comfort, per se. I'm not comfortable in the grey area, with a life that is balanced, when I'm not being a workaholic putting in 10 hours over the weekend, every weekend, in the studio. I'm not comfortable there, but I need to admit and accept that where I've been comfortable isn't necessarily where I've been healthy. I've gotten better about trying to evade burnouts and foresee them before they've taken over my functioning, but that's only one baby step, if that. There's a lot of acceptance I need to work on...
I've probably waxed philosophic enough for now, so onto that thing we call "real life." Basically, since this is going to be my one post for this term (probably), here's what I'm up to:
If you actually read that whole damn thing, I commend you (I think). There's a good chance I'll post again during finals due to slightly more unstructured time and the urge to procrastinate.