yahoo it's mother's day - big family dinner tonight and won't it just be grand...i don't know why i bother with the sarcasm, i guess i'm just indifferent to the whole thing - we make less than no big deal at all about holidays or special events or whatever in my family (also considering that "family dinner" amounts to me, my mother and my father and that's all) so it's barely even on my mind...it's funny but kind of annoying too, seeing as i now as a relatively grown man have no concept of the significance of holidays or people's birthdays or "special" events or anything - i don't remember birthdays or the dates of holidays or anything because i just wasn't raised to. I've tried to correct that over the years but it's just one of those things. I mean i don't really mind either, it's just frustrating when your friend who you've known for ten years has to remind you fifteen times in the two weeks leading up to her birthday that she's having a party and you should come...it makes me feel like even more of a space cadet than i really am.
wow, that was totally not even what i wanted to write about. i guess sometimes you discover that you have a lot more to say about something than you give yourself credit for. anyway, moving on -
i was downloading a bunch of realaudio files of my favorite radio program this american life and i chanced upon a title of a show called "We Didn't" but at first glance I thought it said "Why We Didn't" which sparked off a whole series of thoughts in my mind and reminded me of something that i've turned over and over in my head for years but never really written out, so here goes - by the way forgive the extreme sketchiness of the following sentences as i'll be attempting to flesh out an idea that up til now has existed solely in the split pea soup that is my psyche without having concrete form, so there's a lot of mess involved - intellectual placenta, if you will - did i just write "intellectual placenta?" good god. anyway -
how much time do you spend second guessing yourself? if you're like the average person, probably a lot. i think it's something we all sort of do on a really basic level every day to the point where we think it's just a natural part of our decision making process, but it's really not. people assume that they largely function on intuition or force of habit but i think a very large part of the decision making process that doesn't get nearly enough credit is second guessing. more often than not it's a negative process, which is intriguing, considering the whole nature of intuition is kind of a positive thing - that is to say, intuition (or intention) says to you "okay, i'm going to do this. I'm going to create this event/action in the world where there was none previously." and second guessing seems to generally have the effect of saying "now wait" which is important in and of itself because it stops the whole chain of events right there " do i really want to do this (for whatever reasons depending on the circumstance)" and it's been my experience that a lot of times you'll find a reason not to or at least cast enough doubt into the whole process that everything gets all fucked up anyway.
so there's second guessing, and then you have to look at why it's effective, which is basically the thing that i'm driving at here, which is the reasoning that accompanies it. we all act, we're all constantly in the process of acting unless we're asleep or unconscious or something - everything we do is an act of one kind or another. you can't decide "not to do" something because you're just deciding to do something else or keep doing what it is you're already doing, even if it's just sitting on the couch staring at the ceiling (which i've done for quite some time...i think that's why i talk this way) so the thing that really interests me about all of this, and the thing that i spend the most time thinking about in all of this is "Why?" which if you knew me personally would be pretty understandable but anyway that's my main question here is in any situation, at any point in time..."Why didn't I?"
There are as many answers to that as there are different situations to consider of course, and there's no way you can ever conclusively PROVE why you didn't do something (or more appropriately, why you chose something else instead of what you were considering) but i have found that it's a very revealing and often quite difficult question to pose to yourself - take any situation in your memory where you were GOING to do something and then second guessed yourself out of it - and try and remember what your reasoning was, what motivated you to stop the whole chain reaction that leads to any sort of action whatsoever in its tracks and reconsider. oddly enough i usually can't remember why i didn't do something at any given instance, which probably says a lot about me as a person.
see, experience has made me into the kind of person who firmly believes that it's always better to take that chance, to risk it and act in a situation where your mind starts to come up with a million reasons why you shouldn't. it's ridiculous to admit this but there was a song a long time ago by some band that i don't even remember now but the one lyric that stuck with me was "it's better to regret something you did, than something you didn't do" which sounds so hallmarky-bullshit kind of inspirational tony robbins garbage but the sentiment really struck me and has stayed with me to this day, and is probably the closest thing to a fundamental theory on how to live your life that i've been able to identify with.
so the exercise for today is to look back on things, different situations where you could've, but didn't...and look at the reasons WHY you didn't, if you can remember them. it might show you something about yourself, if you're interested in seeing it.
so there. way more than i intended to write, but it feels good to have it all out there for once instead of just floating around in my head...makes more room for all NEW kinds of shit for me to think about. oh yeah and i might put up some more pictures today too...still waiting to see if anyone will ever read this...until next time...
wow, that was totally not even what i wanted to write about. i guess sometimes you discover that you have a lot more to say about something than you give yourself credit for. anyway, moving on -
i was downloading a bunch of realaudio files of my favorite radio program this american life and i chanced upon a title of a show called "We Didn't" but at first glance I thought it said "Why We Didn't" which sparked off a whole series of thoughts in my mind and reminded me of something that i've turned over and over in my head for years but never really written out, so here goes - by the way forgive the extreme sketchiness of the following sentences as i'll be attempting to flesh out an idea that up til now has existed solely in the split pea soup that is my psyche without having concrete form, so there's a lot of mess involved - intellectual placenta, if you will - did i just write "intellectual placenta?" good god. anyway -
how much time do you spend second guessing yourself? if you're like the average person, probably a lot. i think it's something we all sort of do on a really basic level every day to the point where we think it's just a natural part of our decision making process, but it's really not. people assume that they largely function on intuition or force of habit but i think a very large part of the decision making process that doesn't get nearly enough credit is second guessing. more often than not it's a negative process, which is intriguing, considering the whole nature of intuition is kind of a positive thing - that is to say, intuition (or intention) says to you "okay, i'm going to do this. I'm going to create this event/action in the world where there was none previously." and second guessing seems to generally have the effect of saying "now wait" which is important in and of itself because it stops the whole chain of events right there " do i really want to do this (for whatever reasons depending on the circumstance)" and it's been my experience that a lot of times you'll find a reason not to or at least cast enough doubt into the whole process that everything gets all fucked up anyway.
so there's second guessing, and then you have to look at why it's effective, which is basically the thing that i'm driving at here, which is the reasoning that accompanies it. we all act, we're all constantly in the process of acting unless we're asleep or unconscious or something - everything we do is an act of one kind or another. you can't decide "not to do" something because you're just deciding to do something else or keep doing what it is you're already doing, even if it's just sitting on the couch staring at the ceiling (which i've done for quite some time...i think that's why i talk this way) so the thing that really interests me about all of this, and the thing that i spend the most time thinking about in all of this is "Why?" which if you knew me personally would be pretty understandable but anyway that's my main question here is in any situation, at any point in time..."Why didn't I?"
There are as many answers to that as there are different situations to consider of course, and there's no way you can ever conclusively PROVE why you didn't do something (or more appropriately, why you chose something else instead of what you were considering) but i have found that it's a very revealing and often quite difficult question to pose to yourself - take any situation in your memory where you were GOING to do something and then second guessed yourself out of it - and try and remember what your reasoning was, what motivated you to stop the whole chain reaction that leads to any sort of action whatsoever in its tracks and reconsider. oddly enough i usually can't remember why i didn't do something at any given instance, which probably says a lot about me as a person.
see, experience has made me into the kind of person who firmly believes that it's always better to take that chance, to risk it and act in a situation where your mind starts to come up with a million reasons why you shouldn't. it's ridiculous to admit this but there was a song a long time ago by some band that i don't even remember now but the one lyric that stuck with me was "it's better to regret something you did, than something you didn't do" which sounds so hallmarky-bullshit kind of inspirational tony robbins garbage but the sentiment really struck me and has stayed with me to this day, and is probably the closest thing to a fundamental theory on how to live your life that i've been able to identify with.
so the exercise for today is to look back on things, different situations where you could've, but didn't...and look at the reasons WHY you didn't, if you can remember them. it might show you something about yourself, if you're interested in seeing it.
so there. way more than i intended to write, but it feels good to have it all out there for once instead of just floating around in my head...makes more room for all NEW kinds of shit for me to think about. oh yeah and i might put up some more pictures today too...still waiting to see if anyone will ever read this...until next time...