Holy crap. I went back to read changing tides to see what I last wrote of consequence… weeks since I posted. Wrist is still broken, I expect months for it to be healed still. It’s bizarre, because I’ve thought so very much since then. The majority of it has been in the form of conversations with people though.

I’ve made many references lately to when I dropped out of high school. It was a pretty hard, radically life changing period from me. I went from following what I belived was the prescribed course of life to coming to terms with simply living.

I’m going through that again, but rather with relationships. I’ve worried where things are going, and how I’m going to know when I get there too much. It’s taken me a lot of hurt to come to start realizing that I need to let myself live in this department as well and let life take it’s course. It’s much harder I think, because I feel so strongly. The cost of the choices feels more painful.

I’m pretty independant, and in high school I had less concern about what others thought and felt about my situation. I wonder if I would feel differently now. Would I worry about my parents feelings? Their worry, or concern, more? Somehow I don’t think so. So it’s tough to evaluate why I’m more apt to feel dismay in the matters of relationships.

The lessons I learned from life about being patient and thoughtful now have to be applied to relationships, and my feelings. I feel like this is a significantly more difficult struggle and likely one with no destination… just a path.

A friend of mine describes herself as an existenialist. Those be fancy fightin’ words Pa?

Existentialism is a term that has been been applied to the work of a group of late-nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual.

I’m reminded of saying recently that relationships aren’t something that can be captured solely by a formula.

[the starting point], a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.

Sartre defines angst and despair as the emotions people feel once they come to realize that they are responsible for all of their actions.

There is no pre-stablished morality

This sounds a lot like things I’ve had to say. On Saturday I wrote:

As I find my lack of having made choices steering me in and out of uncertain seas, I have to remind myself that I can hold no fault against any other than my self for the course. You risk getting down on yourself in this realization.

Who knew they’d write a whole bunch of books about what I think and start teaching it to college kids.

While reading some more about Apatheism, I came across an interview with Jonathan Rauch. I identified with it a lot, and followed up with reading Caring for Your Introvert. Which is required reading for humanity.

I would be interested to see the results of this questionnaire. Prerequisites: having taken a Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, and having an OKCupid account [in Seattle] (because that’s what made me realize how widespread poly people are).

1. Are you an introvert, or an extrovert?
2. Are you polygamous or monogamous?

Let’s ignore the “relationships are complicated” and more the “I can only deal with one woman at a time” banter. I was thinking while reading a remark about introverts wanting human contact and company, but not necessarily interaction. Maybe I was reading in to that too much because that’s what I feel. To tie back into what I was thinking about last night; I desire companionship, and while many things affect that there is a strong feeling that it’s more about what is unsaid than what is said.

Today is a day of reading, thinking, watching movies. Some unwinding is needed, because a many things are wound up inside me at the moment. The article speaks of friends falsy assuming something is wrong if you are quiet. When you stack on top of that the idea that with me, nothing is ever wrong, but something is always wrong, I’ve found a way to respond to that question to people’s satisfaction. That is, there are always things on my mind, but they’re not usually the reason I’m quiet. Sometimes I’m just quiet.

It’s been some time since I sat down and thought. Therein lies some of my troubles. What have I been up to? Working and learning, shooting guns with Ry, wandering about the penninsula, there was the awful shark halloween, playing about on farms. Lots of wandering around and staying busy. Distracted? I’m not sure. Spending time with people, doing things, living, but not thinking. It sounds good and all, this living, but some bits have slidden. The wrist is still broken, in a couple weeks we’ll get another xray, after halloween. Mom is settled, with a job managing a recovery house in Tacoma. I’m unsettled. What do I want to be unsettled? Someone asked me recently what I want….

I want to live, to experience. I don’t want to get too caught up in money or capitalism. I want my medical/school/etc debt paid off, to save money to not worry about it, but to keep living fairly inexpensively. I want that to facilitate travel outside of “vacations”, where I’m not on a cruise or a tour, and instead can wander about in leisure. I want to learn to be more comfortable with
more people, to learn of other cultures. I want to keep learning new things, have my jobs be continually more challenging as I continue to get them figured out. I want independence and to continue to not rely on the government or other subsidies to support me, and other services
to take care of my, like fixing my own car. I want laughter, and friends, and random trips to random new places where we don’t come back the same way we left. And the hard part, I want to share all of this with someone by my side.

I forget who I was talking to recently, but I recall discussing where the compromise laid between finding someone who has a similar personality and similar interests. The best, and of course reasonable, answer was a balance of both.  Such a complex thing as relationships can not be widdled down into formulas. Although reading Parkinson’s law gave me an interesting side trip down a comitology/sociology. And fresh lessons? Balance in direction.

As life goes on, I see more and more value in the ingenuity of love getting us through these trials. I try to live life in this band between challenge and peace. There are no problems of men that we cannot solve as we created them. This truth is a reminder that the complexities we face are choices.  Like not making a choice is a choice, we aren’t the victims of troubles but rather the sculptures of them.

Which is a difficult path too. As I find my lack of having made choices steering me in and out of uncertain seas, I have to remind myself that I can hold no fault against any other than my self for the course. You risk getting down on yourself in this realization. It takes me a bit of time letting these bits swirl around to come to terms with them. With a past full of blame, and the slow realization that society completely fails at teaching us the lesson that there is no right and wrong, answers I can settle on take their time to resonate. The blame for that? Relgion? No, well, the source is fear. If there was one lesson that everyone learning that could change the world, I believe it is this one.

Recent events have questioned my intentions. Or at least made me ask myself head-on if I have any idea what they are. I’d like to believe that I’m not wandering aimlessly. I think I have believed that my determination at the core of previous success was somehow going to continue to guide me. In the right light, it’s obvious it’s a choice to make no choices.

Friends laught about Shatner’s album, but I’m reminded of a line from Has Been:

What are you afraid of?
Failure?
So am I

And there it is. As I wonder where others are going I realize there’s no certainty in where I’m headed. Certainty comes not from the economy, the job market, or my retirement savings. Perhaps from the knowledge of who I am? I don’t think I’m particularly lacking there. The missing line is probably in what I intend to do with it, and when I’m going to get around to announcing as much.