Tuesday, October 28, 2003
i've been trying to take a break from email and the rest of the internet and such. i've stopped going to message boards because they are a giant waste of time.
i don't have much time these days. work work work...
i'm trying to pull away from things that i know will make me aggrivated or unhappy. i'm having trouble putting what i've been thinking about lately into words that other people will understand. i think the most important part is that i don't really care if other people understand, as long as i understand. this is kind of a new thing, i've always felt that it was important to have other people understand what i am thinking. something about me needed to know that i wasn't so different from anyone else, or that i indeed was different from everyone else. as a person, i'm no different from everyone else. we are all pretty similar. as an individual, i am different from everyone else, just like everyone is different from everyone else. i don't know why i could never make the distinction before, but i can now. i was always torn between the need to be the same as everyone else, and the need to be different from everyone else. i'm both. so, instead of trying to figure out the way everyone else is so i can give myself something to compare myself too, i've been concentrating on figuring myself out. i realize i've been doing this for a while now, but i've been trying to drive all need for comparisons out of my mind, because it limits the amount i can truely understand.
i've been focusing on what is important too me, instead of thinking about what could possibly be important to someone else. some people probably misunderstand this, and think that other people are unimportant to me. you know what, compared to me, everyone else is fairly unimportant to me. i don't see what is wrong with this. i don't see why my fate should be tied to everyone around me. the strongest tie i really have to anyone else is simple proximity. when you think about it, if you up and moved somewhere else, it wouldn't change the person you are. the people around me are mainly my friends due to the fact that they are close. i'm not saying there is nothing more to friendship than convenience, but i don't like the idea that other people should have the right or the ability to change who i am just because they are close enough to be able to talk to me.
this is not to say people have been doing this. i'm just trying to shift the focus of my thought towards me. i am, after all, the center of my universe at the moment. things would change if i was married or had kids, or even had a girlfriend. but right now, i don't see a reason to direct unnecessary amounts of attention towards other people, especially when i think about the type of people i could be directing my attention too. note to friends - this is not directed at you, so just stop worrying, i'm talking on a general scale.
other people are still important. this is not to say that everyone should just forget everyone else, because if you do you limit yourself even farther. it is possible to do things you want and not hurt other people in the process. i've been working towards some sort of balance though, in which other people won't have to worry about me, and i won't have to worry about other people. this isn't going to happen, because other people would have to be thinking the way i think, which they don't (at least i don't think). i figure at this point, as long as i'm not getting in other peoples way, its ok for me to start shifting some of the focus inward.
i guess i just realized what a chore talking to other people had become. every encounter was driven by a need to be polite for the sake of social expectations. now, i don't care so much. i'm just indifferent to most people, i guess because in all actuality, they have zero relevance on my life so it really shouldn't matter at all. some people feel the need to drag feelings into things when there is really no place for them. just because we have feelings doesn't mean we need to apply them to everything we encounter.
if you think this is unreasonable, i'll ask you a question. do you really care enough about me to demand that i care about you? if you do, think about what this sounds like, doesn't that pervert your reasoning a little? is it really me you care about at all, or just the power that my caring gives you over me. we are all struggling to control ourselves, do we really need that control over other people? i don't really care if the majority of people care about me. the people i do care about, i assume they do care about me because otherwise i probably wouldn't care about them. caring is such a trivial thing anyways. i care about something else every other second. why bother trying to direct my attention back towards you. why do people think that forcing people to think or act certain ways is somehow going to make their lives better? you can't force someone to change. all you can force people to do is resent you. the power of realization is not something the majority of people understand, i don't think. something that you figure out by yourself is going to make so much more sense an form a much more stable base to build yourself than something that someone else tells you.
which brings us back to the crux of my current hermitheadedness. how do you make someone else understand something without telling them? is it worth even trying to make other people understand? if its not worth trying, why would you even want to spend time around people you know you will never be able to make any sort of a mental connection with. right now, i'm trying to figure a few things out. i've been trying to stop explaining things to people unless they truely want to understand and ask me for an explaination. i'm finding it pretty amazing and actually kind of liberating. its amazing how many people aren't paying anough attention to you to actually pick ideas out of your words. its great, because if i find someone doing this to me, i really don't feel bad about any indifference i feed back towards them. it would be like trying to explain an idea you have to a block of wood. the block of wood obviously doesn't care, so why bug it? so i leave the wood alone, and actually respect the piece of wood than i would have if i were trying to needlessly explain things to it, only to get a blank wooden expression in return.
puns are fun and i like to run run run, its fun.
i don't have much time these days. work work work...
i'm trying to pull away from things that i know will make me aggrivated or unhappy. i'm having trouble putting what i've been thinking about lately into words that other people will understand. i think the most important part is that i don't really care if other people understand, as long as i understand. this is kind of a new thing, i've always felt that it was important to have other people understand what i am thinking. something about me needed to know that i wasn't so different from anyone else, or that i indeed was different from everyone else. as a person, i'm no different from everyone else. we are all pretty similar. as an individual, i am different from everyone else, just like everyone is different from everyone else. i don't know why i could never make the distinction before, but i can now. i was always torn between the need to be the same as everyone else, and the need to be different from everyone else. i'm both. so, instead of trying to figure out the way everyone else is so i can give myself something to compare myself too, i've been concentrating on figuring myself out. i realize i've been doing this for a while now, but i've been trying to drive all need for comparisons out of my mind, because it limits the amount i can truely understand.
i've been focusing on what is important too me, instead of thinking about what could possibly be important to someone else. some people probably misunderstand this, and think that other people are unimportant to me. you know what, compared to me, everyone else is fairly unimportant to me. i don't see what is wrong with this. i don't see why my fate should be tied to everyone around me. the strongest tie i really have to anyone else is simple proximity. when you think about it, if you up and moved somewhere else, it wouldn't change the person you are. the people around me are mainly my friends due to the fact that they are close. i'm not saying there is nothing more to friendship than convenience, but i don't like the idea that other people should have the right or the ability to change who i am just because they are close enough to be able to talk to me.
this is not to say people have been doing this. i'm just trying to shift the focus of my thought towards me. i am, after all, the center of my universe at the moment. things would change if i was married or had kids, or even had a girlfriend. but right now, i don't see a reason to direct unnecessary amounts of attention towards other people, especially when i think about the type of people i could be directing my attention too. note to friends - this is not directed at you, so just stop worrying, i'm talking on a general scale.
other people are still important. this is not to say that everyone should just forget everyone else, because if you do you limit yourself even farther. it is possible to do things you want and not hurt other people in the process. i've been working towards some sort of balance though, in which other people won't have to worry about me, and i won't have to worry about other people. this isn't going to happen, because other people would have to be thinking the way i think, which they don't (at least i don't think). i figure at this point, as long as i'm not getting in other peoples way, its ok for me to start shifting some of the focus inward.
i guess i just realized what a chore talking to other people had become. every encounter was driven by a need to be polite for the sake of social expectations. now, i don't care so much. i'm just indifferent to most people, i guess because in all actuality, they have zero relevance on my life so it really shouldn't matter at all. some people feel the need to drag feelings into things when there is really no place for them. just because we have feelings doesn't mean we need to apply them to everything we encounter.
if you think this is unreasonable, i'll ask you a question. do you really care enough about me to demand that i care about you? if you do, think about what this sounds like, doesn't that pervert your reasoning a little? is it really me you care about at all, or just the power that my caring gives you over me. we are all struggling to control ourselves, do we really need that control over other people? i don't really care if the majority of people care about me. the people i do care about, i assume they do care about me because otherwise i probably wouldn't care about them. caring is such a trivial thing anyways. i care about something else every other second. why bother trying to direct my attention back towards you. why do people think that forcing people to think or act certain ways is somehow going to make their lives better? you can't force someone to change. all you can force people to do is resent you. the power of realization is not something the majority of people understand, i don't think. something that you figure out by yourself is going to make so much more sense an form a much more stable base to build yourself than something that someone else tells you.
which brings us back to the crux of my current hermitheadedness. how do you make someone else understand something without telling them? is it worth even trying to make other people understand? if its not worth trying, why would you even want to spend time around people you know you will never be able to make any sort of a mental connection with. right now, i'm trying to figure a few things out. i've been trying to stop explaining things to people unless they truely want to understand and ask me for an explaination. i'm finding it pretty amazing and actually kind of liberating. its amazing how many people aren't paying anough attention to you to actually pick ideas out of your words. its great, because if i find someone doing this to me, i really don't feel bad about any indifference i feed back towards them. it would be like trying to explain an idea you have to a block of wood. the block of wood obviously doesn't care, so why bug it? so i leave the wood alone, and actually respect the piece of wood than i would have if i were trying to needlessly explain things to it, only to get a blank wooden expression in return.
puns are fun and i like to run run run, its fun.
