Is Livejournal Dead?
..I hope not. I'm glad I can come on here to write and occasionally (more like rarely) transform my jumbled thoughts into concrete and coherent sentences.
By the way, everything and nothing has changed.
By nothing has changed, I mean that I am me, still. By everything has changed, I mean that this me-ness has beem amplified by some changes I've made. In other words, the changes may not be spectacularly visible to most people, but I can see them.
I read holy scripture and pray and reflect on how I treat people, how I regard God, and how my present actions might affect the future. In reading previous posts, I can see a major change in how I conceive of myself. I thought that I was so cool and unique and, therefore, so inaccessible or incapable of being understood (though I've always liked people). Quite frankly, I think there were some things I didn't like about myself and my Ego brushed on a patina of Romantic alienation unto this seeming unique-ness. Now, I've come to regard myself as someone constituted by character defects, attractive traits, and talents, just like everyone else. I no longer believe that I am a Romantic Solitary.
Another change, probably the one I'm most thankful for, is that I am no longer solely defined by academic accomplishments. The problem is that when things go south academically-speaking, then my mood and sense of self-worth also plummet. But deriving self-esteem from having listened attentively to a friend; from having done my squats; from having kept someone's secret despite massive gossiping about this someone; from going for a walk, or even just sharing a congenial laugh in the hallway with someone, all serve to enhance my identity as a holistically-developing human. One can over-develop one's intellect (or one's body, or one's sarcastic humor, etc), I think, a state of affairs noticeable in how badly one copes with other areas of one's life. So, I'm glad that I've been given the gifts and talents that I've been given and will try to strive for academic excellence, absolutely, but only because I'm meant to make the most of the intellect I've been given, not because it's the thing I hide behind or define myself by. I want to be the best me possible but in tension with the best-ness I see developing, or even in embryonic form, in others.
Been going to dinner by/with myself lately and it's been pretty good. The constant need for companionship (though I've styled myself a "loner," go figure), has abated somewhat. And I'm enjoying sorting things out within myself and dialoguing with God too. Though I don't think I have changed much physically, I'm starting to like the handsome man I'm seeing in the mirror. And it all has to do with the internal changes God is making. I even see myself smile differently, with an almost imperceptible crinkle around my eyes that I first found startling because it had an appealing charm in it, one I had never seen before. I think having a relationship with God, and in trying to treat others with dignity and gentleness, has had the unexpected effect of making me more attractive. I like myself more, and that's the greatest irony: in learning to think about others (while still being fair to myself) and in becoming more and more conscious of the Creator of the Universe, I become more myself.
By the way, everything and nothing has changed.
By nothing has changed, I mean that I am me, still. By everything has changed, I mean that this me-ness has beem amplified by some changes I've made. In other words, the changes may not be spectacularly visible to most people, but I can see them.
I read holy scripture and pray and reflect on how I treat people, how I regard God, and how my present actions might affect the future. In reading previous posts, I can see a major change in how I conceive of myself. I thought that I was so cool and unique and, therefore, so inaccessible or incapable of being understood (though I've always liked people). Quite frankly, I think there were some things I didn't like about myself and my Ego brushed on a patina of Romantic alienation unto this seeming unique-ness. Now, I've come to regard myself as someone constituted by character defects, attractive traits, and talents, just like everyone else. I no longer believe that I am a Romantic Solitary.
Another change, probably the one I'm most thankful for, is that I am no longer solely defined by academic accomplishments. The problem is that when things go south academically-speaking, then my mood and sense of self-worth also plummet. But deriving self-esteem from having listened attentively to a friend; from having done my squats; from having kept someone's secret despite massive gossiping about this someone; from going for a walk, or even just sharing a congenial laugh in the hallway with someone, all serve to enhance my identity as a holistically-developing human. One can over-develop one's intellect (or one's body, or one's sarcastic humor, etc), I think, a state of affairs noticeable in how badly one copes with other areas of one's life. So, I'm glad that I've been given the gifts and talents that I've been given and will try to strive for academic excellence, absolutely, but only because I'm meant to make the most of the intellect I've been given, not because it's the thing I hide behind or define myself by. I want to be the best me possible but in tension with the best-ness I see developing, or even in embryonic form, in others.
Been going to dinner by/with myself lately and it's been pretty good. The constant need for companionship (though I've styled myself a "loner," go figure), has abated somewhat. And I'm enjoying sorting things out within myself and dialoguing with God too. Though I don't think I have changed much physically, I'm starting to like the handsome man I'm seeing in the mirror. And it all has to do with the internal changes God is making. I even see myself smile differently, with an almost imperceptible crinkle around my eyes that I first found startling because it had an appealing charm in it, one I had never seen before. I think having a relationship with God, and in trying to treat others with dignity and gentleness, has had the unexpected effect of making me more attractive. I like myself more, and that's the greatest irony: in learning to think about others (while still being fair to myself) and in becoming more and more conscious of the Creator of the Universe, I become more myself.