Five questions from DS

I waved to the talented blogger Distracted Spunk (whose blog I enjoy reading immensely, not only bec. she's a fellow PhD:er) and said, more or less,"helloo over there, I see that there's an interview meme going on... can I play?". So she was helpful enough to get me up on the wagon (which is mostly rolling around in North America and maybe Canada, as far as I can tell).

There were rules to this interview, which were:

1. If you want to participate, leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” (And your e-mail address, please.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

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So Distracted Spunk gave me a moment's pause on the following five subjects.

1. What's your favorite form of punctuation?

I'm ridiculously partial to the semi-colon, to the point of telling skeptical friends that "the semi-colon is your friend"; but I also like ampersands (&) because I worked so hard on learning to draw them as a kid.

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2. If you could relive any one day in your life, what day would it be?

It would be a night, actually; the awesome, awesome night that Gogol Bordello played a concert at Chalmers University campus, and I had so much fun and danced so wildly that I had a flower-shaped bruise on my collarbone from being repeatedly beaten by the medallion necklace I wore that night.
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3. What do you think it would take for you to stop blogging?

Maybe not so much; In fact, since I write chiefly as a creative outlet and haven't really become part of a blogging community (you'd think that geographical distance doesn't play a part, but I get the feeling it does), I guess that if I found another outlet, say writing a book, maybe I'd have less energy left over for blogging. I actually get more reactions to this blog from friends in real life rather than in the comments fields. (But since they say they like what I've written, I feel fueled to go on.)
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4. Have you ever had an "almost" moment - where it seemed like things were just about to start but they never actually did? Job-wise, relationship-wise, friend-wise, etc.

YES I have. Once, I had two friends over at my place, and at one point, one of them asked, "What do you think happens when we die?". It felt like a really big, deeply 'saturated' moment, but my other friend nervously joked it off by first mentioning what her religious upbringing required her to believe, and then she started making fun of it. After that, the other two of us couldn't really pick the subject up again. The moment was gone. (I remember what I wanted to answer, but have been too nervous to bring the subject up again with my asking friend).
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5. What would your dream bathroom look like? Explain in detail! :)

My dream bathroom involves plenty of floor space and HUGE mirrors, preferably full-figure. This is not me hinting at some dubious fetish, It's all based on my childhood impression of the mirrors in my parents' bathroom as HUGE, and remembering how luxurious that felt. (Also, I practised a lot of ballet poses in front of them, and I'll admit it's a habit that still lives, since I'm still training). Preferably there'd be some cabinet with mirrors that you can angle against each other so you can see the back of your head (because I need to see those parts when I straighten my hair, Ah jus' ca'an't manage without them!)

Also, I'd like the floor and walls to be covered in 3x6 cm grey and sea-green tiles, with heat wiring underneath (because I freeze like an imbecile most of the time). I have been without a tub for so long that having one would be real nice, but I'm torn between that and a brutally spacious shower. Finally, it would be super nice with daylight in this maa'hvelous bathroom of mine, so a large, frosted window to the south-west.

And oh; lights, please! Plenty of lights.
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Relief, courtesy of the future

So, a sunny beauty of a spanking new year, and I have found a principle that I will gladly and whole-heartedly cling to. It helps me balance out the fear of choosing the wrong way in life, never being sure of what is really right and wrong, and what is important and what is not. Here it is:

I will live and act in a way that I would accept from my own children.

It’s not technically a new year’s resolution, since I have been breaking the thought in since mid-November, but I hope it stays in my consciousness for as long as it helps me. I’ve asked a few friends what they think and so far all of the surveyed have said that it sounds pretty grounded (which feels assuring!).

This past year I’ve wrestled mentally with a number of dilemmas of priority, both in work, family and all sorts of relationship matters, and it’s been ups and downs with some very cathartic downs. Especially re-evaluating whether my life principles and my familial faith match up has been a painful process, but finally this accept-of-my-children-thought fell into me and it was like… landing after a long fall. (Oof.) Suddenly I realized that I’ve always kept a double standard for myself and everyone else. Or more like a quadruple standard, depending on what I’ve expected myself, my friends, my family, my colleagues and people in general to live up to. (OH.)

So of late, focusing on what I would accept as good (or at least forgivable) as a parent responsible for someone else’s upbringing, has suddenly made it much less frightening to determine whether I am a good or bad (or forgivable) person, and more importantly to be responsible for deciding what I choose to be regardless of the multiple standpoints I am part of. I am the product of everything that has ever happened to me, so it’s only natural that I eventually have to make sense of it all myself. In the end, I want my children to be able to tap into the spiritual strength and comfort that a faith can bring, without being unconscious of where their actions, wants, needs and choices come from. Before I can teach them that, I have to go through it myself.

The extra time spent with family during the holidays gave me an opportunity to have an interesting conversation with my Mom, who with loving concern keeps an ever-skeptical eye on my doings. She said that for her, life came in very clear phases that meant that it was very easy to prioritize. Studies first, then lifelong relationships. She said that mixing the two stages distracts you from doing your utmost at the right stage. I’m not sure I agree that this is the whole answer, but I have a lot to gain by accepting her point because my life to date has been very much the opposite – as mixed as possible.

Be as it may, I feel comparatively more ready than ever, now that I can forgive myself a lot of past angsts and relieve myself of similar ones in the future.

So I would like to thank my future children for the peace of mind they’ve brought me, even if they turn out to be no more than a brainchild. (In which case I will forgive them wholeheartedly.)

Superiority complex

My professor in Theory of Science quoted one of his professors (Re: the learning process on the way to becoming a systems theory scientist) in one of our classes recently:

"A certain amount of knowledge can make you very lonely."

Mmm.

I'm pretty sure this applies to more professions or conditions than that of scientist. Once you get into the really deep stuff specific to your cup of tea, you (or, I, at least) eventually reach a point where it gets very difficult to convey to some of your loved ones exactly how and why the deepest depths are so frickin' amazing. When the knowledge rests on so much internalized preparation - education, training or personal growth - that it goes straight to your spine, soul or fingertips, you know you have achieved a position to act as a creative channel for that knowledge. Beautiful as this is, it has a potential to separate us from others, unless we make sure we bring people along with us on the journey.

I'm not only talking about in the sense of becoming an 'expert' at some kind of profession (although I'm feeling a strong connection between this post and this post under 'Voice'). In time, if all goes well, we learn to handle and approach people around us respectfully and without compromising ourselves. Hopefully. But sometimes we get pushed to work really hard on those maturity-related aspects of ourselves, leading to a very rapid series of insights and a lot of cycles of acceptance, realization, changing of patterns and moving on, and... Whoa, suddenly you realize that you've gone round a corner!... sometimes without anyone seeing you went there. And you wonder where everybody is, and why they're not here with you already. Since you've gotten so far you get annoyed that nobody else has kept in step. (**Cue undertone of the post title here, like a passing shadow in a horror movie corridor**). Go back and see where everyone else is? Come on, whyyyyyy would I want to do that? They'll catch up soon. They should. Soon. If they know what's good for them.
-.-.-.-.-.- Hmpf. What's taking them so long?

Because of two unexpected rejections that I've been through in the past two years, I've become gradually conscious/sensitive/obsessed of the concept of being 'mature'. ( I suppose that this is where the stage 'conscious incompetence' kicked in...) From losing one of my best friends of 13 years because we have 'grown apart', to handling a theoretically very non-eventful breakup that still hurt for quite a long time, I have moved from thinking of myself as completely insensitive and clueless and... (insert self-derogatory string of harsh adjectives here) to realizing that I wasn't the only one who caused or was affected the events. So I started taking steps. So far so good.

So, moving from conscious incompetence to conscious competence, as far as approaching and respectfully handling other people goes - you learn to fix the kinks in your past behaviour and what to accept or not, both from yourself and others.

And THIS is where the post title comes sneaking in. Knife raised and all.

The upside of consciously realizing that you've got a lot to work on to improve yourself is that you start recognizing when you've made progress, leading to better self-esteem. The downside of consciously seeking those kinks in yourself is that you might start finding kinks in others too. Usually, the more similar they are to your own, the less patience you have for them. If the problem is tangible enough and the time is right, you might tell that person to their face how you feel and get acceptance in return, making you both better.

But the devil is in the details, in this case the very very small kinks... Granted, I have a part in things - usually the scenario will be about a friend who I've known for long without commenting said kink-in-personality to their face, so of course the smaller the kink, the less reason to say anything... Until the 554th time it happens, I start expecting /dreading it of them, and start to boil about (it in anticipation!) before anything has happened, and explode at the drop of a hat.
(Most people would recognize this as a destructive tendency worthy of George Costanza. Not I.)


Cumulating impatience is the psyche's horror-film string section doing a crescendo before the anticipated kill.

And suddenly I turn around and realize that I have a superiority complex following in my tracks, because even if the realization has dawned upon me that I think I know better, my reasoning says I really think I do because recent experience says that I learned something last time and should know better. So why should I accept the thing that annoys me when I recognize it as compromising to me? I've gone round that corner, I won't go back.

EDIT: Just to clarify: I usually realize then and there, while those S.C. thoughts arise, that I'm getting dangerously close to throwing rocks in a glass house, which is the most classic stupid thing you can do, but there you are...

At the same time I remember that someone who thought she knew better than me grew impatient with me and killed our friendship because of it, without saying anything to warn me. There was no escape.

So there I stand, not wanting to be discovered with rock in hand, because I don't want to believe I could do that too... but the evidence is beginning to point towards me. Impatience chords are sounding.

I haven't realized it, but... Am I alone?

It's a psychological thriller, this growing up business.


EDIT 2: I'll admit to having been a bit edgy since I wrote this post. I just found out why. I have actually backed around this corner, and have now bumped into some people I know here (thanks F! ;) who've been here a while. I realize that the problem was that I was looking at who I left behind as I went round it...

A completely unfounded claim

I refuse to provide support for this (ha!), but I think the most important and effective way to achieving contentment in life on a day-to-day basis is to lower your expectations.

I might elaborate on that someday, but this spot of clarity prepares me mentally for the concept of probably not finishing Henry le Thesis or his stepdaughter Henriette today either. Instead, I'm just going to count how many words I managed to add at the end of the day, and consider it a blazing SUCCESS!

So in the words of Winnie the Pooh:

BISY BACKSON
:)


EDIT, 8 hours later: When you'r reading your 20th research article for the day and start to turn your head sideways to read tables, INSTEAD OF TURNING THE PAPER IN YOUR HAND, maybe it's a sign ou should take a break? I dunno...

Otherwise, today's highlight was finding a 'Confusion Matrix' in one of the articles. Damn straight that I need a confusion matrix. Feels nice that the authors were thoughtful enough to stucture the confusion in a nice little table for me!

Uh, yeah. Need break now, probably...