I have been struggling lately with dissonance -- between myself and who i want to be. I see someone in my who can be happy and at peace but at the same time, who i am now is nearly antithetical to who i want to be. Does that mean that I need to get rid of everything that makes me me?
I am a creature of excess, of ebullience and frivolity and in that i am wonderful and annoying; occasionally joyful and more often than not melancholy. So i want to change my core. I want real satisfaction and that means changing my priorities. So how much of myself changes--if i change what i'm working for and find some peace will
I change? Will i still be joey? Will the parts of myself that i like survive?
of course they should. THe parts of me that I like are hopefully not the codependent, narcissistic spendthrift consumer. But that is a part of me. A big part. I recall on the island when I was talking to margaret about something and I said that the way i always approach a problem is to buy supplies and make a kit and get ready to face it. she said she doesn't do that (the buying supplies part) and I realize that is an eminently reasonable position. I have been so intent on preparing a supply kit that I remove the most important functionality from the equation--myself, my ability, my drive. I don't need to go buy specific items for every occasion or problem. I am the queen of making do, i just don't. I need to give myself some credit.
On:
DeservingI was doing some thinking yesterday about a progression of drives that i read on some consumerism site and they included: I want (thus) I need (thus) I deserve. I think these things are related but are not causal. You generally want the things you need but don't need everything you want. Like squares and rectangles. However, Deserve is a different ball game. Who deserves anything? What do they deserve? who decides what you deserve? I was struggling with this last night.
i decided that 'deserve' is a different category than want or need. I came up with its pair last night--earn. To earn something is like deserving it but from an internal standpoint. I decided that want and need are internal things but deserve is in some way external. There is a fallacy that need (becomes want) somehow equals or in some way begets deserve. And that's not true. It's the 20th century motor company all over again (Atlas Shrugged) and it's a misinterpretation.
I think interaction is a contract with what i get being what I earn. That's how it should be at least. I deserve what I earn. What i earn is not related to what I want or need; it is my responsibility to make sure that what i earn is equivalent to what I need. If it's not i need to earn more or need less. wanting and deserving have no place in this balance.
I am trying to shape my own world view, to take from other viewpoints that which resonates with me and leave behind what I feel is not relevant (yet). I read something somewhere about the circuits in our brain that shape our emotional outlook are some of the last to mature, well into the 20's and that gives me hope--that I am pruning my own synapses through sheer will. I am going to change what I value because I have been allocating value in a way that fails to make me happy.
I was thinking last night about worry--i worry about money and things and running out of things and not having everything i want. THis is apparently a little OCD but more often than not it's a distraction. And i know that. the act of disguising what I am truly unahppy about from what I feel is so nefarious, so immediate that I don't realize it is happening until i take a step back and say outloud "i am not really worried about running out of butterscotch candies. I am worried about being alone forever."
because in all of my reprioritizing i don't think that pure ascetism is what I am seeking, certainly not emotional ascetism. Voluntary Simplicity is not hermit-dom and it would be a mistake to think i am creating simplicity by eliminating people in my life. that's a cowards lie. In fact, the greatest failing in my life as is, my greatest failing, is a failure to find people who fill my life with joy. I have coworkers who i care about a lot and friends who mean more to me than i can say without sounding cheesy but i still go home to a house filled only with pets. People are important and I am alone. I am lonely. I coined the term this time last year of 'alonely.' Heck, i probably didn't coin it. i'm sure it's been said before. but that's what I am. I'm alonely. and the hard thing is i don't think it will change until i change it. I need to go back to the world but i feel unprepared. I have been buying tools for change all year--lipgloss, clothes, exercise--but it's a lie. they're not tools, they're a costume and they don't change who i am.
So then it comes down to it again--do i want to change who i am? or am I already ok, i just need to change what I value. Because i am in conflict with myself. I am alone and occasionally unhappy and although I am happier and more peaceful now than I have been--it is not enough. I feel that i deserve more. But That is irrelevant. What I am going to do is earn better--earn friendships by being a good friend, earn peace and meaning by making it. I read something yesterday that meaning is not found, it is made. and i think that's true. the meaning of life isn't an inscription somewhere--it's what you create of your life by filling it with things that you value (and by things i don't mean possessions) and people that you care about and experiences that make the world a part of you and you a part of the world.
