(no subject)
The shit we do to ourselves to deal with the shit done to us is weird. We essentially poison ourselves any way we can. It's ironic that what kills us a little bit makes us feel more alive. No wonder Christian doctrine is essentially "if it feels really good, it's probably bad, so stop".
I'm not railing on our precious vices. Whiskey and wine may mess with my mind, but they also make me open up a lot. Goldschlager is still 'liquid sunshine' (that's what I want for my 21st birthday, btw haha it's like candy!)
I've never been high, so I can't attest to what that's like, BUT...
There are elements of my being that surface when I've had a couple beers or shots or whatever. I don't care so much what people think of what I say. If I say something stupid, I embrace it as stupid and laugh my ass off. If I want to go talk to someone, I go talk to them. I fight for my opinion, regardless of how absurd it may sound and how many people may be laughing at me, I still say "no seriously, I think that if cats could fly, firemen in the 1950s might have had a lot less to do during the day." Et cetera.
I'm convinced that life would feel fuller if we could pull those devil-may-care qualities out of ourselves in our every day lives. I've succeeded on some levels but I'm still a pretty self-conscious person.
But the people I really worry about are the ones who aren't simply looking for a good time, they're running away from something else. The problem with this is that in the morning, after coffee and a shit-ton of water, it's back. If you just needed a break from it, just the one little break to put some distance between you and your dilemma, to give it some perspective, I respect that. Everyone needs to go crazy to retain their sanity. But after that it's time to try something else.
My production design professor can put anything in perspective.
Method one: when your peers come to you with a 'crisis', ask three simple questions: 1 'is anyone dead?' 2 'is anyone bleeding?' 3 'is anything on fire?' If the answer to all of these is 'no', you have a PROBLEM, not a crisis, and a problem can be dealt with without losing your head.
Method two: when faced with a seemingly life-changing decision or event, and you're fretting about the possible outcomes, ask 'what's the worst that can happen?' The absolute worst that can happen is that you could die.
'Everything will be OK'. Pain and suffering are PARTS of life. They only take over if you allow them to. If you think about it right, it is as simple as flipping a switch to change your mood.
Example: Last Wednesday I woke up in a foul mood. I fought off tears of frustration from the time I got up at 9:30am to the time I left my production design class at 1pm. Granted, the problem in question was minor compared to past situations, there's no time like the present, especially if in the present you're lacking sleep, proper nutrition, and any sort of academic motivation.
Anyway, back to the story. As I walked back from Crites, I realized it was a really nice day. The sun was shining, making the cold a little more bearable. I thought back on all the bad days I've had in the past and realized that the day I had in front of me (I had another class and then 5 hours of work after it) was not a good one to go through that way. After all, 9 hours is a long time, especially when you're going to spend 5 of them dealing with people you have a hard time respecting and who probably don't have a lot of respect for you either (customers).
With this train of thought, I looked up at the bright blue sky, smiled, added some bounce to my step, and went on with my day on a little jolt of seratonin.
This isn't to say that I fully forgot about my problem, or that my mood didn't change back a little here and there, but at least my mood changed. It was an exercise that WORKED because I told myself it would and actually believed it.
I like it when you can describe someone's character as "strong". I think that fits. Our character is something that needs to be exercised and challenged throughout our lives. I feel like too many of us are convinced that we can't do anything about where or who we are in life, perhaps because it's easier to simply give up on human nature and say "well I'm not perfect but who is?"
Fuck perfect. Nobody wants perfect. But what does make humans fantastic is our plasticity, how moldable and malleable we are. You may not be able to teach an old DOG new tricks, but you can certainly make conscious changes in the way you make decisions, and in THAT way you can change.
So this all kind of started as my musing over a friend's current state, and turned into a soapbox speech about my personal philosophies. I mean to tell him he's got a good thing going on as a student and friend and person, that whatever pain is weighing in on his soul is curable, something that can be let go of without him hurting himself. That pain is a parasite, darlin', and you gotta get rid of it before it eats your soul. You got a lot of soul, don't let that pain depress it.
Not that he'll read this, I don't think I've friended him, but those of you that dig prayer, just give mention of my friend. He's one of the coolest guys I've ever met. I hope he'll take the hand of someone stronger to help him out, be it mine or otherwise.