this is going to be really long and excruciating
What about an update...about me? This is my journal after all, not the coffee shop girls or The Cadets. And well, lately I've been down. I shouldn't be listening to the music I am listening to. It's so beautiful that I cried the first time I heard it, and it puts me in a funk. So perhaps I've induced my melancholy mood. I've sat around being
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First, excellent choice in music. I love "Appalachian Waltz." I was just listening to ... well ... I guess it would be the largo movement, today. This in contrast to the dude in the huge truck who was listening to country while the fireworks were going off. I understand how, when you're relatively happy, you sometimes need to listen to morose music as a counterpoint to the lack of sadness in your life.
As for your question, your seeking for your identity, I have several thoughts on that. First, you mention your intellect. But is your intellect really who you are? I ask because, really, you have nothing to do with that. Your intellect, your looks, your basic personality; all of these are a result of a combination of complex factors over which you have no control. They are determined by a set of genes (nature) and environment (nurture, your parents and family) that you did not choose. It just so happens that you have been blessed in both departments. You are very smart, have a wonderful family and (if I might wax creepy for a moment) are quite attractive. An argument could be made for this being what you "are."
But I don't believe it. I know enough people who got shitty deals on everything, and yet are wonderful people. Are they what nature and nurture conspired to make them? No! They are what they chose to make themselves. I am reminded of the sculpture by Albin Polasek called "Man Carving His Own Destiny" (http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/brookgreen/polasek1.jpg). The image is a little too humanistic for me (there should be many other people helping this man carve himself and, ideally, God as well), but you get the point.
Who is it that you choose to be? Who is it that you will to become? Here is what I see. I see someone who cares. Again, that could be attributed to your family, but I know plenty of students at CHS who seemed to have wonderful families, and most certainly didn't give of their time to free clinics, for instance. There are many other wonderful things about you, but this is the one thing which, I believe, you choose to be and, of all your qualities, the one which makes you a good person. (Don't read anything by Ayn Rand, 'cause she disagrees with me.)
As for the rest of what you wrote, I totally understand! I blogged many times on my obsession with what others thought of me, even my students. I see so much that I like in other people yet, oddly enough, that same positive extrospection (like that one? I made it up) doesn't apply to myself. I know myself for what I am and am afraid that other people see it as well. I can't believe it when I am liked/loved and, so, I need constant validation. Unfortunately, the search for constant validation drives people away, so I try not to seek it. More unfortunately, I am a weak person so I do anyway.
I don't think there's anything you can really do about it. Seek counseling, I guess. But, here's your daily dose of validation from me, an avid admirer. And, for what it's worth, I miss you very much.
Take care.
Mr. White
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