I can't sleep, but that's okay because I'd have to get up at four anyway. I tried, for a little bit, before giving up and taking a shower. I am dressed and ready for traveling tomorrow (today). Yay for going on an airplane for the first time in... a long time? At least a year and a half. And yay for Payson, getting married and all that. I had the cutest little adoration-crush on him when I was younger (*tehe*), though by now I simply wish him much happiness. It was also soooooo predictable that he would get married next of all of Neil's close friends from VT. There are two more left, and I'm thinking Caleb will go before Jamal, but it's a little uncertain. Oh, and the nephew travels tomorrow, too, which is his first experience of such things and should be hugely interesting to watch. I'm going to do my damndest not to get stuck with him on the plane which should be fairly easy as mom and dad have already volunteered to be the grandparents-with-screaming-child.
There is something wonderful about having the house to myself without actually having the house to myself... I'm alone just now, but I am not lonely, because I know there are people nearby. There's something to be said for actually having the house to yourself, too, but just now I am happy with this silence.
Time has managed to burn out my obsession with going to Cork. I still want it, certainly, but I am uncertain that it is the best choice for me now. It helped to open my eyes to more possibilities, though, and to challenge some poorly defined assumptions that were inhibiting my choices of future directions.
I can't recall quite when I suddenly discovered that every day is full of choices. I realized that when I get up in the morning I can choose to go to class, I can choose to go back to sleep, I can choose to get in my car and drive to the ends of the earth. So every day you start with choices, and sometimes it's the same choices you made yesterday, and sometimes it's new choices, but at every point there are always multiple directions to go. If ever someone gives you just two choices, a this-or-that paradigm, just remember that it's patently false logic to think there are ever only two possibilities. Step back and remove assumptions, reconsider parameters, expectations, wants/needs.
But returning to the basic concept... when I got up in the morning, and 5:20, to leave the house at 5:50, to catch the 6:20 boat, to get to Evergreen before 8:30 (though more often it was shortly before eight), when I got up every day I chose with all my heart to do the difficult gauntlet of commuting in order to have the pleasure of learning more science. [Not that I have a point of comparison, but I think that learning must be better than sex because while one is very intense and fires all the happy-pleasure circuits, the other lasts forever, and for me it's the most wonderful sensation of stretching and indescribably growing in every direction at once. I hate being small; growth is glorious.] There was this one conversation I had with Kyle, shortly after I failed to go to several of my finals at UW, where he pointed out "yeah, but you chose not to pass" which I thought was overwhelmingly true, but that I hadn't even noticed I was making a decision. So when I curled up in a ball and failed to go to class, that was a choice (and I regret it, sometimes).
Mostly I think I have to design my life in such a way that getting up and being "normal" is always the choice I prefer. This means that I have to love what I do, whatever it ends up being, because if I don't then it won't seem worthwhile and I'll end up quitting (like usual). It's not that I'm unaware of the consequences of failing to attend the classes for which I am registered, it's just that they don't bother me anywhere near enough to make me force myself to do things that I find unpleasant, boring, and utterly wasteful of my time in every possible dimension of personal growth. Besides, if it's not important to me I'll just memorize, test, and flush, before washing my hands and moving on.
I'm rambling. I'm trying to justify myself to myself. Have you ever gone a day without a rationalization? Yeah, me either.
There is something wonderful about having the house to myself without actually having the house to myself... I'm alone just now, but I am not lonely, because I know there are people nearby. There's something to be said for actually having the house to yourself, too, but just now I am happy with this silence.
Time has managed to burn out my obsession with going to Cork. I still want it, certainly, but I am uncertain that it is the best choice for me now. It helped to open my eyes to more possibilities, though, and to challenge some poorly defined assumptions that were inhibiting my choices of future directions.
I can't recall quite when I suddenly discovered that every day is full of choices. I realized that when I get up in the morning I can choose to go to class, I can choose to go back to sleep, I can choose to get in my car and drive to the ends of the earth. So every day you start with choices, and sometimes it's the same choices you made yesterday, and sometimes it's new choices, but at every point there are always multiple directions to go. If ever someone gives you just two choices, a this-or-that paradigm, just remember that it's patently false logic to think there are ever only two possibilities. Step back and remove assumptions, reconsider parameters, expectations, wants/needs.
But returning to the basic concept... when I got up in the morning, and 5:20, to leave the house at 5:50, to catch the 6:20 boat, to get to Evergreen before 8:30 (though more often it was shortly before eight), when I got up every day I chose with all my heart to do the difficult gauntlet of commuting in order to have the pleasure of learning more science. [Not that I have a point of comparison, but I think that learning must be better than sex because while one is very intense and fires all the happy-pleasure circuits, the other lasts forever, and for me it's the most wonderful sensation of stretching and indescribably growing in every direction at once. I hate being small; growth is glorious.] There was this one conversation I had with Kyle, shortly after I failed to go to several of my finals at UW, where he pointed out "yeah, but you chose not to pass" which I thought was overwhelmingly true, but that I hadn't even noticed I was making a decision. So when I curled up in a ball and failed to go to class, that was a choice (and I regret it, sometimes).
Mostly I think I have to design my life in such a way that getting up and being "normal" is always the choice I prefer. This means that I have to love what I do, whatever it ends up being, because if I don't then it won't seem worthwhile and I'll end up quitting (like usual). It's not that I'm unaware of the consequences of failing to attend the classes for which I am registered, it's just that they don't bother me anywhere near enough to make me force myself to do things that I find unpleasant, boring, and utterly wasteful of my time in every possible dimension of personal growth. Besides, if it's not important to me I'll just memorize, test, and flush, before washing my hands and moving on.
I'm rambling. I'm trying to justify myself to myself. Have you ever gone a day without a rationalization? Yeah, me either.