I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions. I feel like if at any point I find something I want to change about myself, I don't want to wait until New Year's to make it happen. As such, I haven't made many New Year's resolutions to date.
However, I did make one resolution this year.
Resolution 2015: Get my shit together.
Quality resolution, isn't it?
My goal by the end of college was to figure out what I want to do with my life (career-wise, personal life, etc.). I didn't expect to have made progress towards whatever that ends up looking like, but I at least wanted to know what direction I was going in.
I realized just before winter break that I'm lucky enough to be in a place where I have a strong sense of purpose in my life, and that's something many people of my age cannot say for themselves. In particular, I want to spend my life making people happy and improving their quality of life, but in a very surefire way. I don't mean some wishy-washy social committee-type thing. I mean scientifically rigorously looking at ways that people can attain greater fulfillment and satisfaction. I want to engineer happiness.
Even though that's still very big picture and doesn't offer much granularity, it serves as a pretty good guide for my decision-making. In fact, in the long run, it is much better to have this top piece (the why) and be able to go top-down in figuring out what I want to do rather than having a sense of what I like to do/am good at/am competent at without knowing why I continue to do it.
So why do I feel like I'm stuck and moving so slowly? Why do I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time? Why do I not feel like I have my shit together?
I spent winter break trying to figure out why this is, and I identified a couple of general things I need to do.
1) Know when to fold.
I am incredibly susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy. I place weight on past effort expended or invested in a particular activity, class, or person, but that's a naive basis to make future decisions. I get deeply attached to a lot of things. In C-'s words: just like a poker player doesn't expect to win every hand and instead must choose to commit to hands wisely, so must we be cognizant of when certain decisions didn't play out like anticipated and be willing to cut losses and prepare for other decisions we make going forward.
More concretely, this has led me to readily drop classes I attended for two and a half weeks before realizing it's not for me. I've started putting distance between me and the Stanford Robotics Club because it simply wasn't making me happy, despite what I've dedicated to founding the club and keeping it running smoothly. I've stopped watching TV shows that I no longer enoyed in later seasons. I've stopped investing time in people I don't believe care about me in the same way. I've halted job interview processes when it becomes clear that I don't want to work there, even if I was never rejected as a candidate.
This doesn't mean truths in the past were any less true. I am not any less authentic because what motivates me now differs from what once did. The past can (and should) still shape me. Past values matter insofar as how they inform or influence my current beliefs and values.
2) Commit wholeheartedly when you commit.
This is sort of the opposite of knowing when to fold. For the vast majority of choices I make, I will not have absolute certainty about at the time that I make the decision nor ever. If I wanted to wait until I had certainty on anything, I'd be completely paralyzed. Waiting for certainty is precisely that: a wait. It's passive, and relinquishes control to forces beyond our control.
That complacency leads to inaction and general sluggishness. When you have an array of good choices in front of you, and you (and the people who know and care about you) cannot determine which is the correct or best choice, chances are there isn't a best choice. Have some confidence that you'd be able to identify an obvious best choice. Instead, it's all about picking one and making it great.
(Caveat: in poker, bets are rarely just a matter of going all-in and not at all. Similarly, committing wholeheartedly doesn't necessarily mean rule everything else out, but it does mean taking ownership of whatever extent of commitment you make in any given distribution of commitment of resources. I feel like blogging has that effect for me, where by having them written down somewhere it gives my thoughts much more substance, and helps me commit and take ownership of change I want to see in myself.)
3) Do not let myself slip into negative self-fulfilling prophecies and exacerbation cycles.
Over break I noticed that 1/13 marked the day that I've been out of my relationship with E- longer than I had been in it (barring some technicalities in counting). I think I've figured out what was holding me back from moving on: I have this flawed model of how what is meaningful or important to me is allowed to change over time. If you imagine a graph of time vs. importance, I've only allowed myself to say that how important any given thing is always monotonically increasing or decreasing.
This model is problematic in three ways. One, it assumes my assessment is perfect, which it is not. It doesn't not allow me the opportunity to revise first impressions once they're on track to be monotonically increasing or decreasing. Secondly, my assessment has nothing to do with a reciprocal such assessment, and reciprocity (as my own psychology research has shown, hah.) plays a huge role in determining socializing or altruistic behavior. Thirdly, it means that anything that grows in importance to me can never be less important ever. In particular, this third piece has left me feeling suffocated by guilt, unable to accept that someone I have cared for deeply in the past can acceptably be cared for less, and unable to bear the pain of being less important than I once was to someone.
Borrowing from romcoms, I've realized why it is so important to commit wholeheartedly to something. Romcom protagonists often seem absurd because they go to ridiculous lengths in their unconditional love. Sure, it's not a guarantee that all of your wholehearted commitments will pay off the way every single romcom protagonists' seem to. But the reality is that you cannot have those romcom moments if you don't try. If you fail, then you are just someone whose grandiose whathaveyou did not bear fruit, as everyone would expect; if you succeed, then you do become the stuff of legends/Hollywood. Seems like a reasonably good risk-reward to take to me.
Aside: To some extent, being able to take that stance comes from a place of privilege in more ways than one. I can't deny that. I was raised by a mother who has left me with a secure enough (though not 100% secure) attachment style that I can withstand potential emotional setbacks if putting myself out there and making myself vulnerable leads to hurt. I happen to have skill sets that employers are willing to pay good money for, and that gives me the financial means to be fairly liberal in the capacity in which I commit to things wholeheartedly. It is a privilege I have, and, equal or not across everyone, I should use this to the best of my ability.
Romcom protagonists--at least in their moments of emotional triumph, anyway--tend to have very short-term memory for the setbacks they encounter while maintaining saliency in memories of elation or happiness. For the same magnitude of positive and negative emotions, the positive emotions always last much longer while negative emotions become transformative forces from which they draw strength and courage and spunk. This kind of mindset keeps them optimistic and protects them from negative self-fulfilling prophecies. The best way to make your life a real romcom, it seems, is to believe and live as if it already is. If you feel like the world is falling apart around you, just think to yourself that romcoms virtually all have happy endings, so you can't be at the end. Keep looking for the next thread of storyline to chase.
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What am I trying to do more to be consistent with those 3 things above, aka getting my shit together?
1. Read more, especially stuff that makes me think. The more thoughtfully I can think about my own actions and the people and world around me, the better I can fold or commit appropriately.
2. Be open about myself. I've been trying to make myself vulnerable to people again, mainly in the form of demonstrating how much I care about them even if I feel silly or uneasy or unsure how they'll receive my expression. In professional contexts, I've made a personal website that attempts to inject my character and personality into what otherwise would be just a distilled professional profile (i.e. resume) (I say "attempts" because it's a work in progress, and would love to hear your thoughts on the website).
3. Disregarding norms or rules when I see fit. I've always trusted my judgment, but I've often acted against my best judgment to be consistent with norms or rules. I've been trying to be very clear to myself what it is that I actually want, as opposed to stuff I want to want only because there is some level of external social, financial, or whatever prestige associated with getting that.
4a. Stand up for myself. Give myself space and alone time when I need it. Act on what is important to me, rather than what will maintain peace and harmony among the people around me. Be able to recognize when I have every right to believe that I am right.
4b. Be humble. Confidence and self-assurance is good, but over-confidence is not. Being mindful of when what I have once stood up for is flawed, and graciously and openmindedly reconciling the differences when appropriate.
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Thoughts on Performing and Value (What We Want)
I've been thinking a lot about performing after taking Liquid Flow, doing Gaieties, and going to Spoken Word shows. In the Liquid Flow, the instructor emphasized heavily how we should "dance through life" starting from the first day. At first, I had an eyeroll reaction to that sentiment because of how cliche'd it was. However, it became rather clear that her idea of what dance entails is far broader than what I had previously associated with the word dance.
To me, dancing meant intentional physical movement for the purpose of exhibition. It's what people do on on stages when you go see a dance show. To dance through life, then, would be to constantly be putting on an exhibition for people, and that sounds absolutely exhausting. It sounds exhausting and scary because, like all live entertainment (from dance to music to figure skating and ski jumps and whatnot), your final delivery is under complete scrutiny of the audience, and in that final delivery, and all of your hard work could pay off or all go to waste in the blink of an eye. In fact, when I found out that N- and K- were ESFPs, often called "The Performers," I felt a combination of pity and utmost respect that they lived for that kind of pressure.
Okay sure. Maybe the way I've engaged in performing arts in the years leading up to college, that's been the case. Between grade school orchestra classes and private cello or piano competitions, that has been precisely the nature of the performances I've been a part of. I've been assigned grades or scores or the like. There's been winners and losers, first stands and second stands and then everyone else.
It's funny how nicely that analogizes to how many people think about value, where value is defined as what they want. For both value and performance, we construct some system to quantify it that is misaligned with how we should think about them.
For value, we've constructed the system of currency. We quantify value in these monetary ways, and we are encultured to associate economic value with what we want when in fact, what we want is happiness and fulfillment. That's not to say that we should be naive and think that you can be supremely happy having no economic wealth; on the contrary, you'd probably starve to death. But it is to say that, past some threshold, that system falls apart. There is plenty of research that shows that happiness does not continue to grow with income past some threshold. I'd say this actually is consistent across all layers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in that, once you're x% satisfied with your security at a particular level, you get diminishing returns in subjective well-being within that category.
I think what's hard to grasp is that layers in Maslow's Hierarchy can actually be contradictory to each other. An obvious example is charity. Charity is often consistent with morality (self-actualization needs) and leads to getting respect by others (esteem needs), yet is inherently detrimental to security of resources (safety needs). You're spending money on something else, how could you!
The problem is that we are taught to address (and, at a neurobiological level, can only comprehend or grapple with) the needs in the bottom-up order in Maslow's Hierarchy. By the time we have the cognitive functions to do abstract thinking (starts at 11-12 years old or so, and finishes developing at 25 or so), we're already so ingrained into thinking about the world with preference on a particular layer. By the time I am old enough to think about my esteem and self-actualization needs, I probably have been taught for 20 years to strive for a high-paying job. If I get a $60000/yr job, aim for an $80000/yr promotion. If I get that, then go for the $100000. At no point am I helped to the realization that continuing to pursue my safety needs are going to get me diminishing returns, and actually inhibit me meeting my higher needs! True value is not actually zero-sum, whereas the metric of economic value is! When you help out at a food kitchen, you could be satisfying your esteem and self-actualization needs while satisfying someone else's physiological needs, for instance.
For performances, we've similarly constructed the system of objective assessment, or at least that's how I had been taught to think about performance. When there are winners and losers, performance becomes just as zero-sum, and the currency is the mechanics or technical prowess. I hated that. I quit cello because I was so frustrated by my orchestra class. In fact, I did this against the advice I was given by counselors and my parents: one of the oft-cited reasons for doing music through middle school and high school seems to be that it helps get into college. How dry is that? It totally sucks away all of the best parts of performance.
Through Liquid Flow, pretty much any way in which we moved our bodies with conviction the instructor considered dance. On the day of our final performance, she gave us all a pep talk before we began the show, and she told us that she loves to perform because it is one of the selfless things. It is not selfish, like trying to make more money, or being the center of attention. To her, it involved inspiring the audience, and whether that was an actual formal audience at a show or a classroom of ragtag students from various walks of their student careers just trying to dabble in dance it didn't matter.
I didn't get it at the time, but I think I finally know what she means. Dance, and performance in general, is an invitation. It is something you extend to an audience, and they can choose to accept or ignore. If they accept, you as a performer and them as the audience form a team in an effort to create an extraordinary experience. As a performer, it's all about what you can do for the audience, how to touch their lives for those short minutes (or hours if you're lucky), and how you can move them emotionally or physically or spiritually.
When it comes to formal shows, the actual "performance" mindset starts well before the actual show; it involves countless hours carefully crafting an experience with the audience in mind, much of which goes unnoticed, culminating in one short-lived but spectacular exhibition. No need to worry about how technically sound your performance is; for them to show up to the show, they've already accepted your invitation, and they're there to help. Case in point: the snapping at Spoken Word when people forget their lines.
To dance through life, therefore, is to constantly live and behave openly in a way where the invitation to create something that defies zero-sumness is always there for someone to take. I think that's exactly how people like N-, K-, people in SBS, Spoken Word, and many people in Gaieties regard performance, whether consciously or not. And when that's what performance is, I love it. I always want to be extending that invitation, and I always want to be around people who will extend that invitation to me, and when I am I always want to accept it.
----
Just a housekeeping note. I might have to get surgery in my eye. There's something wrong with the meibomian glands in my right eye that led to the eye infection from a few months ago and the inflammation from late last winter/early spring quarter.
To me, dancing meant intentional physical movement for the purpose of exhibition. It's what people do on on stages when you go see a dance show. To dance through life, then, would be to constantly be putting on an exhibition for people, and that sounds absolutely exhausting. It sounds exhausting and scary because, like all live entertainment (from dance to music to figure skating and ski jumps and whatnot), your final delivery is under complete scrutiny of the audience, and in that final delivery, and all of your hard work could pay off or all go to waste in the blink of an eye. In fact, when I found out that N- and K- were ESFPs, often called "The Performers," I felt a combination of pity and utmost respect that they lived for that kind of pressure.
Okay sure. Maybe the way I've engaged in performing arts in the years leading up to college, that's been the case. Between grade school orchestra classes and private cello or piano competitions, that has been precisely the nature of the performances I've been a part of. I've been assigned grades or scores or the like. There's been winners and losers, first stands and second stands and then everyone else.
It's funny how nicely that analogizes to how many people think about value, where value is defined as what they want. For both value and performance, we construct some system to quantify it that is misaligned with how we should think about them.
For value, we've constructed the system of currency. We quantify value in these monetary ways, and we are encultured to associate economic value with what we want when in fact, what we want is happiness and fulfillment. That's not to say that we should be naive and think that you can be supremely happy having no economic wealth; on the contrary, you'd probably starve to death. But it is to say that, past some threshold, that system falls apart. There is plenty of research that shows that happiness does not continue to grow with income past some threshold. I'd say this actually is consistent across all layers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in that, once you're x% satisfied with your security at a particular level, you get diminishing returns in subjective well-being within that category.
I think what's hard to grasp is that layers in Maslow's Hierarchy can actually be contradictory to each other. An obvious example is charity. Charity is often consistent with morality (self-actualization needs) and leads to getting respect by others (esteem needs), yet is inherently detrimental to security of resources (safety needs). You're spending money on something else, how could you!
The problem is that we are taught to address (and, at a neurobiological level, can only comprehend or grapple with) the needs in the bottom-up order in Maslow's Hierarchy. By the time we have the cognitive functions to do abstract thinking (starts at 11-12 years old or so, and finishes developing at 25 or so), we're already so ingrained into thinking about the world with preference on a particular layer. By the time I am old enough to think about my esteem and self-actualization needs, I probably have been taught for 20 years to strive for a high-paying job. If I get a $60000/yr job, aim for an $80000/yr promotion. If I get that, then go for the $100000. At no point am I helped to the realization that continuing to pursue my safety needs are going to get me diminishing returns, and actually inhibit me meeting my higher needs! True value is not actually zero-sum, whereas the metric of economic value is! When you help out at a food kitchen, you could be satisfying your esteem and self-actualization needs while satisfying someone else's physiological needs, for instance.
For performances, we've similarly constructed the system of objective assessment, or at least that's how I had been taught to think about performance. When there are winners and losers, performance becomes just as zero-sum, and the currency is the mechanics or technical prowess. I hated that. I quit cello because I was so frustrated by my orchestra class. In fact, I did this against the advice I was given by counselors and my parents: one of the oft-cited reasons for doing music through middle school and high school seems to be that it helps get into college. How dry is that? It totally sucks away all of the best parts of performance.
Through Liquid Flow, pretty much any way in which we moved our bodies with conviction the instructor considered dance. On the day of our final performance, she gave us all a pep talk before we began the show, and she told us that she loves to perform because it is one of the selfless things. It is not selfish, like trying to make more money, or being the center of attention. To her, it involved inspiring the audience, and whether that was an actual formal audience at a show or a classroom of ragtag students from various walks of their student careers just trying to dabble in dance it didn't matter.
I didn't get it at the time, but I think I finally know what she means. Dance, and performance in general, is an invitation. It is something you extend to an audience, and they can choose to accept or ignore. If they accept, you as a performer and them as the audience form a team in an effort to create an extraordinary experience. As a performer, it's all about what you can do for the audience, how to touch their lives for those short minutes (or hours if you're lucky), and how you can move them emotionally or physically or spiritually.
When it comes to formal shows, the actual "performance" mindset starts well before the actual show; it involves countless hours carefully crafting an experience with the audience in mind, much of which goes unnoticed, culminating in one short-lived but spectacular exhibition. No need to worry about how technically sound your performance is; for them to show up to the show, they've already accepted your invitation, and they're there to help. Case in point: the snapping at Spoken Word when people forget their lines.
To dance through life, therefore, is to constantly live and behave openly in a way where the invitation to create something that defies zero-sumness is always there for someone to take. I think that's exactly how people like N-, K-, people in SBS, Spoken Word, and many people in Gaieties regard performance, whether consciously or not. And when that's what performance is, I love it. I always want to be extending that invitation, and I always want to be around people who will extend that invitation to me, and when I am I always want to accept it.
----
Just a housekeeping note. I might have to get surgery in my eye. There's something wrong with the meibomian glands in my right eye that led to the eye infection from a few months ago and the inflammation from late last winter/early spring quarter.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Thanksgiving
I haven't had a chance to do much introspection recently between classes, SBS, RAing, and Gaieties, so a more comprehensive post will probably come after finals are over.
With that said, I have thanks to give!
I am thankful for my friends. For this past quarter, I've felt like I'm in my own world. I don't have the people who I feel closest to and who know me the best around me on a day-to-day basis the way I've had in the past, so I've been more alone than I would like. But despite this aloneness, I don't feel too lonely. There are people to catch me if I fall. I hope they also know that I am here to catch them as well, even if I'm not physically around them.
I am thankful for my family. I'm not in the business of convincing myself that my family is perfect, but in spite of all of the strife and all of the rifts between my family, I have people in my life who value (in some way, anyway) my being part of their family. If nothing else, it means there are always people from whom I can learn and grow from, even if I don't feel like I'll ever become emotionally close with them. And of course, my mom has been among my biggest supporters since forever ago, even from hundreds of miles away.
I am thankful for my health. Many of the goals I have would be unattainable or much more difficult if I weren't as physically healthy. Sure, I'm not the pinnacle of good health. Between eye infections and fevers and just the common colds, there are days, maybe a few weeks at worse, that just downright suck. But I'm lucky that the word I had to use there was "days" and not something longer.
I am thankful for the countless of unsung individuals in my life who I take for granted. There are a lot of nameless faces who somehow improve my life, from custodial and kitchen staff in the dorms and dining halls, to the emergency medical personnel I've been able to rely on during on-call crises, to the classmates in section who reached to help me pick up a pen I dropped without hesitation. It turns out there are a lot of people who want the best for you, just in very little, less visible ways. I need to remember that when I'm going through personal struggles.
I am thankful for coming out of difficult times still with the capacity for love and trust and optimism. I don't think I'm wearing rose-colored glasses the same way I was in the past in that I don't try to coerce my perception of any given moment into something splendid. However, I am comfortable facing the reality that things might not be going well and still believe that they can and will get better, particularly if I do something about it. That's something I hope I don't ever lose, because I've seen what not having that looks like. There are people I know personally who, in the aftermath of particularly frustrating or upsetting experiences, adopt a mindset characterized by insatiable cynicism and general jadedness. It's downright paralyzing, and not how I want to live.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Saturday, October 25, 2014
The skies are crying in solidarity with my heart.
Again... maybe I can single-handedly end the drought, in the most Omelas of fashions.
(As it turns out, that apparently is not too deviant from my personality anyway.)
(As it turns out, that apparently is not too deviant from my personality anyway.)
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Why do I sing?
"You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear." ~Oscar WildeI sing in public. I sing in the shower. I sing with friends. I sing in Side by Side.
I sing to make people happy. I sing the song of the naive idealist. I sing the song of the hopeless romantic, with birds chirping and laughter ringing. I sing the song of the overprotective friend that feels just a little too motherly for the people he cares about. I sing the song of the measured optimist, where people give the benefit of the doubt and couples actually do live happily ever afters but only because they talk through their problems.
I sing for self-preservation. I sing the song of vulnerability. I sing the song of a broken family, and I sing the song of insecurity as I try to salvage its remains. It contains the melancholy melody of the unwanted, and its variations include that of the unwanted twin brother and the unwanted son.
I sing and sing and sing and sing and hope that some people, no matter how few, will hear my song, tell me to turn up the sound, and listen to every last second of every last note, even if sometimes my song is four tied whole notes and only as interesting as the cello part of Pachelbel's Canon, and maybe find that one person that will start to harmonize with my song, and it will sound so good that, as wonderful and classic as my original might have been, the duet cover is a far greater hit.
I sing so that in due time my song will strike a chord with that someone, something about the song I choose or timbre of my voice or the look in my eyes as the notes fall out of my mouth or the purpose with which I sing. They'll stop where they're going and bike alongside me and tell me they like my song and want to hear more, and I'll stop and listen to their song. Or maybe it'll happen the other way around, I don't know.
But right now, I feel like I already did find someone who fervently, enthusiastically sang with me. Together, we recorded our song, and I absolutely loved it, and for 9 months and 21 days I listened to it, and then I accidentally deleted the track. So for now, I sing the song of the broken-hearted.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Soulmateship and Vulnerability
It's been a good while since I posted anything here. It's not that I've had a drought of sentimentality or visceral thoughts (I'm kind of just always sentimental, goo-prone, and generally pathetic); quite the opposite actually, as I've had too many and don't really know what to make of them. I've needed a lot more time to think about it, and I'm still not convinced I have all the questions answered. This is a long post.
In a nutshell:
Not everyone is your soulmate, though you can sort of convince yourself of it, because there is a difference between the feasibility of maintaining a relationship and how happy doing so actually makes you. Everyone has vulnerabilities, but vary greatly in what they are and willingness to share them. It is better to share your vulnerability with others and sincerely try to be there for them even if it seems uncomfortable than to let it brew because unless you take a shot you'll never know how they express vulnerability. The worst that could happen is that you don't learn anything about them, but at least they'll know you care.
---
Thoughts on soulmates:
A few weeks ago, S- sent me a link to this article urging people to marry young. Her main argument was that soul mates aren't found, they're made out of the person you marry. My first reaction to the article was that I could totally see where the author was coming from. I didn't necessarily agree with her for a variety reasons. Her premise simply didn't happen in the marriages in my life, namely my parents. But I could see how romantic relationships, including my own, could follow such a trajectory. I like to think that, unlike my parents, I put a substantial amount of effort into my relationships and am decent at making them work.
As someone who generally trusts people until they prove unworthy of it and finds solace from my own troubles by reaching emotional depths in relationships with other people, I certainly would not reject the idea of marrying someone with complete faith that post-marriage I will establish an emotional connection (i.e. become soul mates) with them, even if that connection hadn't been established pre-engagement. Unlikely, but possible. I can just as easily see how that idea would be completely repulsive to others; some people naturally have all their walls up, and only that special person can chip away at them until they come down, and only then are they comfortable committing to a life-long relationship. I respect both viewpoints.
With these thoughts came a somewhat nightmarish realization--if I can essentially fall in love with anyone, why the hell should I not marry the next girl that passes me by on the street? I can establish a meaningful connection with her, right?
A nice conversation with J- served as a good reality check. There were a good number of holes in the author's argument. Obviously, she didn't just marry any ol' bimbo; she had been with her eventual husband for at least a little while. That's a little more comforting--I do think that I am good enough at human interaction to make any long-term commitments that I am actually interested in (as opposed to a relationship with a random stranger) work, romantic or otherwise. Furthermore, after J- brought it up it seemed so obvious: the argument seemed almost traditionalist. Marry someone without knowing where it'll go expecting that the relationship will grow from there, almost borderline arranged marriage (though psychology studies show that divorce rates don't actually differ between arranged and self-chosen couples, so nothing against it), as if marriage were a business transaction. That simply isn't how I want my relationships to be. I want my relationships to be with people I am happy with right from the get-go.
Recently, a variety of different things, however, are convincing me of something I'm deeply saddened by. Feelings of attraction can be very easily manipulated as we learned in PSYCH 70. Indeed, it seems that my stupid, feeble mind is actually quite susceptible to what is only supposed to be banter about my love life from N-. Call it conformity or priming or what have you--it seems to have an effect.
I borrowed Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman from E-, and as far as I can tell that an understanding of love languages can be applied beyond just a romantic relationship you're invested in. In that sense, it seems that, with sufficient practice, I can speak any love language, even if it isn't my preferred one, to better be able to be there for someone in their times of sorrow or share in their moments of joy. In that sense, it almost becomes possible to be "compatible" with anybody.
The idea that you can be compatible with anybody, though I don't exactly buy it, is scary as hell. Sure, it will facilitate smooth relationships, but does it also threaten your relationships at the same time because you so easily mesh with others? While consoling and comforting K- through the recent relationship rockiness she's been experiencing, she told me that any girl would be lucky to have me as a boyfriend. That's generally considered one of those classic, somewhat demoralizing tip-off phrases for friendzoning, but in this context where she knows I'm interested in someone else, it made me think a little.
Scotty McClellan's Valentine's Day sermon from my love class had a section where he denounced passionate, romantic love as a mere projection of one's own concept of other people upon them, and when people defy your image of them, the mirage of love dissolves. When I first read that, the idealist in me kicked in and was revolted, because I absolutely believe that romantic love exists and is valuable. However, now that I think about it more, the whole idea of projecting your image of others on to others, though not strictly a synonym to romantic love, is sometimes found in relationships.
As someone who values peace and harmony in interpersonal interactions, I often find myself in sort of a social chameleon mode, and that makes me susceptible to have others' impressions or images of me projected upon me. I feel very guilty when I can't be what others expect of me; this is healthy when there is mutuality in that aspect of my relationships, but when there is not, I simply lose sight of myself and the relationship is not healthy. In other words, sure I'd be a fantastic relationship partner for many people, but it would not be a healthy relationship at least for me.
What it really comes down to, I suppose, is the difference between being capable of and being happy in maintaining a good relationship with someone. The conclusion I seem to be arriving at so far is that I'd be capable of maintaining a caring, compassionate relationship (platonic and romantic both) with most people, but it isn't always natural, comfortable, and reciprocal and thus not always conducive to my own happiness and well-being.
---
Thoughts on vulnerability:
Having arrived at the above conclusion about the possibility of forming relationships with people, the task at hand, then, is to determine the subset of people with whom I'd be happy and comfortable maintaining a close relationship with.
I consider myself pretty well-versed in the literature surrounding attraction, human prosocial behavior, personality psychology, etcetc. So far, I've found that this gives me surprisingly good control over the emotional atmosphere of social situations, even if I'm not doing so very conspicuously or outwardly. Subtle non-verbal cues and changes in diction and tone all help. A recurring theme in conversation between S- and I is how much potential someone who understands how people think and act has to be manipulative, for good or bad.
However, as someone who is very concerned with his own emotional well-being and happiness, I am very conscious not to let my psychology antics interfere with my social interactions. It would only be to my own detriment to disturb the natural course of social situations, because it hinders my ability to get to know people and how they respond to me in my own natural way.
I think what's helped me the most in figuring out who the people I want to surround myself with is to make myself vulnerable to people. I got into the habit of doing so with some of my close friends because it helps me deal with my inner turmoils to try to put things to words. Everyone has vulnerabilities; the worst that could happen is that yours fall on deaf ears, and you can just avoid sharing personal details to them in the future. However, you might find some comfort from them, or encourage them to share some of their own vulnerabilities, and that opens the gates for building an emotional connection.
The concept of vulnerabilities has baffled me for a while now. It means so many different things to different people, and there's so many types of it. I like the idea of a deep body of water with gates along the way because it analogizes nicely to emotional depth. For me, I don't open up to people immediately, and it takes a little getting to know and convincing (usually indirectly; at some point I decide I trust you whether you know it or not) for me to open up. A diver in my emotional depths would have some clean spring water to get through before reaching a gate, and they'll have to find some way to open it. Once past the gate, however, how far you desire to explore is entirely up to you; the waters are a bit more murky, more muddy, so more viscous, but I will continue to share my inner feelings with you so long as you keep expressing genuine concern or desire to get to know me. Only towards the end is there a final gate, which takes a lot of time and commitment to open. Very few people ever get there, but if you do the emotions come out like like a geyser at the very core: extremely heated or impassioned thoughts, usually in short bursts of sentimentality, and it is very easy to be pushed back out of that last gate if you don't put enough effort into growing our relationship.
But that's just me. For other people, there might not be any gate, just muddy water all the way through. For some people, it's gate after gate after gate each hiding away crystal clear water, with friends being sorted into multiple tiers of closeness, and each tier being revealed the same personal details with utmost transparency.
Moreover, what if the vulnerability comes across unintentionally? What if someone notices you crying in what you thought was the privacy of your room, or the shower, or your favorite secluded spot on campus? That's like being a maintenance repairmen for one of the gates, and getting a free pass directly through that gate whether the gate is open or not. Can a close relationship be formed under these circumstances?
I certainly think so. S- and I have talked a lot about a desire to help people achieve what we perceive as their potential. We want to make people we care about into the fantastic people we can imagine them being, even if we honestly have no right to. Now that I think about it, being on the receiving side of unintentional vulnerability simply allows you to better understand someone. Whether they like it or not, you are now better to appreciate them as a whole than most.
One of my favorite quotes of all time, by Neale Donald Walsch: “The purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.” The more I think about it that way, the more it feels an obligation for you to try to be there for someone when they become unintentionally vulnerable to you. You were able to witness their completeness, embrace it, share it with them.
At SBS retreat this past weekend, our talk questions sort of reached a critical point as far as seriousness or depth, which had been mounting over the past few quarters. I remember the first talk questions were silly things like "which starter Pokemon would you be and why?" Through the talk responses at retreat, I found that my observations of many people's behavior and hunches about some of their personalities or insecurities were pretty spot on. I feel like I might've inadverdently broken the ice at retreat for talking about especially heavy topics.
In retrospect, I am so glad I did because I feel much closer to many members of SBS for having done so, but I also can't help but recall how uncomfortable it was doing so. I was way out of my comfort zone, not sure if I was sharing too openly and that was making people uneasy or bored or coming across as insincere. I was also unsure how to best express empathy, striking a balance between showing concern and being too nosy or awkward, towards the people whose experiences I could draw parallels to in my life.
The takeaway, in my head at least, was that I clearly need to not cower from initiating attempts at forming deeper emotional connections with people. Perceptiveness and empathy are some of my greatest strengths, and as someone whose sense of fulfillment is fundamentally rooted in what I mean to or can be for others, I need to learn to step out of my comfort zone to make myself happier. Building deep emotional connections is precisely what I want and would be happy with in a relationship, so don't settle for shallow relationships even if I'm capable of maintaining those too simply because I'm too conscientious to move the relationship to that stage.
In a nutshell:
Not everyone is your soulmate, though you can sort of convince yourself of it, because there is a difference between the feasibility of maintaining a relationship and how happy doing so actually makes you. Everyone has vulnerabilities, but vary greatly in what they are and willingness to share them. It is better to share your vulnerability with others and sincerely try to be there for them even if it seems uncomfortable than to let it brew because unless you take a shot you'll never know how they express vulnerability. The worst that could happen is that you don't learn anything about them, but at least they'll know you care.
---
Thoughts on soulmates:
A few weeks ago, S- sent me a link to this article urging people to marry young. Her main argument was that soul mates aren't found, they're made out of the person you marry. My first reaction to the article was that I could totally see where the author was coming from. I didn't necessarily agree with her for a variety reasons. Her premise simply didn't happen in the marriages in my life, namely my parents. But I could see how romantic relationships, including my own, could follow such a trajectory. I like to think that, unlike my parents, I put a substantial amount of effort into my relationships and am decent at making them work.
As someone who generally trusts people until they prove unworthy of it and finds solace from my own troubles by reaching emotional depths in relationships with other people, I certainly would not reject the idea of marrying someone with complete faith that post-marriage I will establish an emotional connection (i.e. become soul mates) with them, even if that connection hadn't been established pre-engagement. Unlikely, but possible. I can just as easily see how that idea would be completely repulsive to others; some people naturally have all their walls up, and only that special person can chip away at them until they come down, and only then are they comfortable committing to a life-long relationship. I respect both viewpoints.
With these thoughts came a somewhat nightmarish realization--if I can essentially fall in love with anyone, why the hell should I not marry the next girl that passes me by on the street? I can establish a meaningful connection with her, right?
A nice conversation with J- served as a good reality check. There were a good number of holes in the author's argument. Obviously, she didn't just marry any ol' bimbo; she had been with her eventual husband for at least a little while. That's a little more comforting--I do think that I am good enough at human interaction to make any long-term commitments that I am actually interested in (as opposed to a relationship with a random stranger) work, romantic or otherwise. Furthermore, after J- brought it up it seemed so obvious: the argument seemed almost traditionalist. Marry someone without knowing where it'll go expecting that the relationship will grow from there, almost borderline arranged marriage (though psychology studies show that divorce rates don't actually differ between arranged and self-chosen couples, so nothing against it), as if marriage were a business transaction. That simply isn't how I want my relationships to be. I want my relationships to be with people I am happy with right from the get-go.
Recently, a variety of different things, however, are convincing me of something I'm deeply saddened by. Feelings of attraction can be very easily manipulated as we learned in PSYCH 70. Indeed, it seems that my stupid, feeble mind is actually quite susceptible to what is only supposed to be banter about my love life from N-. Call it conformity or priming or what have you--it seems to have an effect.
I borrowed Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman from E-, and as far as I can tell that an understanding of love languages can be applied beyond just a romantic relationship you're invested in. In that sense, it seems that, with sufficient practice, I can speak any love language, even if it isn't my preferred one, to better be able to be there for someone in their times of sorrow or share in their moments of joy. In that sense, it almost becomes possible to be "compatible" with anybody.
The idea that you can be compatible with anybody, though I don't exactly buy it, is scary as hell. Sure, it will facilitate smooth relationships, but does it also threaten your relationships at the same time because you so easily mesh with others? While consoling and comforting K- through the recent relationship rockiness she's been experiencing, she told me that any girl would be lucky to have me as a boyfriend. That's generally considered one of those classic, somewhat demoralizing tip-off phrases for friendzoning, but in this context where she knows I'm interested in someone else, it made me think a little.
Scotty McClellan's Valentine's Day sermon from my love class had a section where he denounced passionate, romantic love as a mere projection of one's own concept of other people upon them, and when people defy your image of them, the mirage of love dissolves. When I first read that, the idealist in me kicked in and was revolted, because I absolutely believe that romantic love exists and is valuable. However, now that I think about it more, the whole idea of projecting your image of others on to others, though not strictly a synonym to romantic love, is sometimes found in relationships.
As someone who values peace and harmony in interpersonal interactions, I often find myself in sort of a social chameleon mode, and that makes me susceptible to have others' impressions or images of me projected upon me. I feel very guilty when I can't be what others expect of me; this is healthy when there is mutuality in that aspect of my relationships, but when there is not, I simply lose sight of myself and the relationship is not healthy. In other words, sure I'd be a fantastic relationship partner for many people, but it would not be a healthy relationship at least for me.
What it really comes down to, I suppose, is the difference between being capable of and being happy in maintaining a good relationship with someone. The conclusion I seem to be arriving at so far is that I'd be capable of maintaining a caring, compassionate relationship (platonic and romantic both) with most people, but it isn't always natural, comfortable, and reciprocal and thus not always conducive to my own happiness and well-being.
---
Thoughts on vulnerability:
Having arrived at the above conclusion about the possibility of forming relationships with people, the task at hand, then, is to determine the subset of people with whom I'd be happy and comfortable maintaining a close relationship with.
I consider myself pretty well-versed in the literature surrounding attraction, human prosocial behavior, personality psychology, etcetc. So far, I've found that this gives me surprisingly good control over the emotional atmosphere of social situations, even if I'm not doing so very conspicuously or outwardly. Subtle non-verbal cues and changes in diction and tone all help. A recurring theme in conversation between S- and I is how much potential someone who understands how people think and act has to be manipulative, for good or bad.
However, as someone who is very concerned with his own emotional well-being and happiness, I am very conscious not to let my psychology antics interfere with my social interactions. It would only be to my own detriment to disturb the natural course of social situations, because it hinders my ability to get to know people and how they respond to me in my own natural way.
I think what's helped me the most in figuring out who the people I want to surround myself with is to make myself vulnerable to people. I got into the habit of doing so with some of my close friends because it helps me deal with my inner turmoils to try to put things to words. Everyone has vulnerabilities; the worst that could happen is that yours fall on deaf ears, and you can just avoid sharing personal details to them in the future. However, you might find some comfort from them, or encourage them to share some of their own vulnerabilities, and that opens the gates for building an emotional connection.
The concept of vulnerabilities has baffled me for a while now. It means so many different things to different people, and there's so many types of it. I like the idea of a deep body of water with gates along the way because it analogizes nicely to emotional depth. For me, I don't open up to people immediately, and it takes a little getting to know and convincing (usually indirectly; at some point I decide I trust you whether you know it or not) for me to open up. A diver in my emotional depths would have some clean spring water to get through before reaching a gate, and they'll have to find some way to open it. Once past the gate, however, how far you desire to explore is entirely up to you; the waters are a bit more murky, more muddy, so more viscous, but I will continue to share my inner feelings with you so long as you keep expressing genuine concern or desire to get to know me. Only towards the end is there a final gate, which takes a lot of time and commitment to open. Very few people ever get there, but if you do the emotions come out like like a geyser at the very core: extremely heated or impassioned thoughts, usually in short bursts of sentimentality, and it is very easy to be pushed back out of that last gate if you don't put enough effort into growing our relationship.
But that's just me. For other people, there might not be any gate, just muddy water all the way through. For some people, it's gate after gate after gate each hiding away crystal clear water, with friends being sorted into multiple tiers of closeness, and each tier being revealed the same personal details with utmost transparency.
Moreover, what if the vulnerability comes across unintentionally? What if someone notices you crying in what you thought was the privacy of your room, or the shower, or your favorite secluded spot on campus? That's like being a maintenance repairmen for one of the gates, and getting a free pass directly through that gate whether the gate is open or not. Can a close relationship be formed under these circumstances?
I certainly think so. S- and I have talked a lot about a desire to help people achieve what we perceive as their potential. We want to make people we care about into the fantastic people we can imagine them being, even if we honestly have no right to. Now that I think about it, being on the receiving side of unintentional vulnerability simply allows you to better understand someone. Whether they like it or not, you are now better to appreciate them as a whole than most.
One of my favorite quotes of all time, by Neale Donald Walsch: “The purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.” The more I think about it that way, the more it feels an obligation for you to try to be there for someone when they become unintentionally vulnerable to you. You were able to witness their completeness, embrace it, share it with them.
At SBS retreat this past weekend, our talk questions sort of reached a critical point as far as seriousness or depth, which had been mounting over the past few quarters. I remember the first talk questions were silly things like "which starter Pokemon would you be and why?" Through the talk responses at retreat, I found that my observations of many people's behavior and hunches about some of their personalities or insecurities were pretty spot on. I feel like I might've inadverdently broken the ice at retreat for talking about especially heavy topics.
In retrospect, I am so glad I did because I feel much closer to many members of SBS for having done so, but I also can't help but recall how uncomfortable it was doing so. I was way out of my comfort zone, not sure if I was sharing too openly and that was making people uneasy or bored or coming across as insincere. I was also unsure how to best express empathy, striking a balance between showing concern and being too nosy or awkward, towards the people whose experiences I could draw parallels to in my life.
The takeaway, in my head at least, was that I clearly need to not cower from initiating attempts at forming deeper emotional connections with people. Perceptiveness and empathy are some of my greatest strengths, and as someone whose sense of fulfillment is fundamentally rooted in what I mean to or can be for others, I need to learn to step out of my comfort zone to make myself happier. Building deep emotional connections is precisely what I want and would be happy with in a relationship, so don't settle for shallow relationships even if I'm capable of maintaining those too simply because I'm too conscientious to move the relationship to that stage.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Mandatory Liposuction
Some thoughts
-Why mandatory liposuction? Body fat is the largest untapped source of energy in the world. Hence, it would be very pragmatic for the government to subsidize and mandate liposuction.
-Does love die? Love does not die. Being in love does. People change, but the impression of someone you love etched in your mind does not. You foster a love for this figment of memory, and as people change you no longer are in love with the different them, but will always extend affection for a previous them.
-My mom bought some pringles that went on special manager discount because they weren't being sold at all. The flavor is Restaurant Cravers: Mexican Layered Dip, and it doesn't taste half bad, though it leaves a weird aftertaste.
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