Comments | pegkerr: Life List

pegkerr

Life List

Mar 05, 2003 21:49

A number of thoughts have been coming together lately on the idea of making a life list. One was this recent LiveJournal entry, where I talked about how my greatest character flaw, perhaps unrecognized until just lately, has been a reluctance to take risks, to stretch myself. A number of other things have come up that I have been reflecting upon ( Read more... )

thinking about this, lists, jane austen

Comments 9

dragonpaws March 5 2003, 20:14:49 UTC

I've always kept a sort of life list in my head (I tend to lose pieces of paper and computer files just don't have the authority a life list needs, for me) and one of the big items on it has been to learn how to dance ballroom. I'm in college now and I've been a member of ballroom club for the past six months. It feels great to be working on things like that, especially after high school and feeling like my entire self can be summed up by my GPA.

As for the martial arts proficiency, I have friends who are in it (one in particular who loves it) and from seeing them and their teachers, I have to say that to really learn martial arts it has to become a way of life. Part of what seems to be the essential drive of any person in martial arts is that they can always get better. I don't believe they ever consider themselves truly proficient. (how encouraging, no? Of course, this is hakkaryu karate jitsu -the spelling may be off- and other forms may have different philosophies)

skg March 5 2003, 20:30:52 UTC

I have had a list like this, and have thought about having a life list, but I never really started to live by it until this past year.

[By the way, Peg, I bought the List Your Self book too. Great for getting into characters' heads. And my own. Thanks ( ... )

bookshop March 6 2003, 07:21:03 UTC

nooo, no, don't shut up, that was wonderful. *hugs sarah* i will be thinking about this post, and Peg's, all day ( ... )

On martial arts... ex_muzukashi890 March 5 2003, 20:56:33 UTC

Decide what you want to do with it. Do you want to be able to face any armed attacker and kill them? Take the Israeli martial art. Do you want something to relax and help you focus ki/chi? Look into aikido, tai chi, or check out good ole yoga. Something in between for self-defense? Not Tae Kwan Do. (No offense to anyone who may be in it--American style is too much of a sport.)

It's amazing what martial arts training will do for your focus and willpower, though. And as someone who took a bit of Tai Chi, I'd definitely encourage it. It's soothing, graceful, relaxing, and also quite nasty to others if you speed it up. :)

Re: List of life...such an excellent idea. Thanks!

chamois_shimi March 6 2003, 01:12:52 UTC

I wrote out a list titled "Things To Do Before (Or After) I Die" during the summer that I was 20 and travelling through Australia. At the time, the purpose of my list was to remind me of all the things that were still to do and see in the world, since, like a lot of people about that age, I occasionally went through rather bleak spots where I wasn't sure that there was anything worthwhile left in the world. The list has been lost for almost 10 years, now, and every now and then I go on a rampaging hunt through boxes full of random junk trying to find the spiral notebook I wrote it in, but no luck yet. Some of the things I'd have crossed off if I still had the list: learning to drive, getting married, being in the dedication of a book (if you can count someone's Master's thesis), graduating from college, going skinny-dipping, and riding a camel. Those are the only entries I actually remember... maybe I should do a new list. If I ever find the old one, it would be interesting to see the changes.

diony March 8 2003, 15:09:22 UTC

Regarding the martial art -- is your goal to study one or to become proficient at one? They're different things, after all; the destination is not the journey & all of that. Which martial art will depend in large part on what you'd like to accomplish with it -- are you studying it for self-defense, for exercise, because it's beautiful, so you can better write martial artist characters?

Perhaps instead of looking for an initial organising principle, you could keep writing down more things that you'd like to do and then examine why you want to do each of those things. What is the driving goal behind the things which interest you?

It also occurs to me that you seem to have a goal already; you want to remain engaged with life and learn how to take more risks. Might that be an organisational princple?

A very worthy comment pegkerr March 8 2003, 15:18:32 UTC

and one which will spark further thought. Thanks. I like your summing up of my organizing principle; yes, I think that is it. The point of taking more risks of course isn't to stupidly endanger myself for the sake of thrills--but I do want to experience life more fully ( ... )

Re: A very worthy comment diony March 8 2003, 15:47:33 UTC

I'm glad it was helpful to you. Commenting in journals is much more fun & interesting than actually finishing my music history midterm. :-)

I agree about risk -- risk does not have to be 'do something stupid and dangerous for the sake of the adrenaline rush' -- and indeed, I don't think there are many people in the world who need that sort of thing in their life. My personal biases are showing, yes. But the sort of risk which is pushing one's own personal boundaries and levels of comfort -- that I think is necessary to living a full and engaged human life. Growth isn't comfortable, just necessary ( ... )