July 7, 2007

• Percolating Ideas

  I was never much good at just coming up with things, out of thin air. It’s not that I don’t like spontaneity, it’s more the case that a lot of things simply don’t occur to me on the spur of the moment. I noodle stuff. Sometimes endlessly. I think back on something that happened from days out in the future, and suddenly it occurs to me that “such and such a change” would have made the experience much better. I rarely have such ideas while the experience is taking place.

  There’s a paradox there, however, in that the pieces I have spent weeks or months noodling around, tend to fall into place suddenly and spontaneously. I don’t just start working on a puzzle, building it one piece at a time… I sit and plan it and ponder it for an eternity… and then the final picture spontaneously “appears” and I can build it in record time, from that point onwards… as if I “know” every step that must be taken to get to the complete picture, even through I have never walked the path there.

  When I was a kid, my mom would occasionally tell people that “Peter seems to ‘practice’ life before her gets into it.” I guess there’s a truth there… although the only thing I distinctly remember “practicing” was the conversation I was going to have, before making a phone call. No, I’m not kidding. Where other teens were spending hours and hours yakking on the phone, I always tried to find ways to “just drop by” to talk to people, rather than calling them.

  I really suck at “just jumping in and starting somewhere.” One of the things I have made peace with in recent years is “being OK” with my process. And I think that’s really important, as a way of helping us find the lives we really want. I watch a lot of people around me get “trapped” in a game of trying to fit a process that doesn’t work for them to their efforts to get to whatever place they want to go.

  So how is it that we end up spinning our wheels, stuck in the “process,” rather than trying to figure out how to get to the actual “outcome” in a way that makes sense to us? You know, the metaphorical “am I painting the house properly,” rather than “Is the house looking the way I wanted it to?”

  I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a bad case of “People Pleasing,” but often we give an awful lot of weight to “what other people think” about the way we’re doing things. OK, maybe that makes sense on some level… there are many ways to put a square peg into a round hole… and then there are those who’ll insist such a thing is “not possible.” Shutting down all the “voices” and leaving only the power of our own convictions can be difficult… but it strikes me as essential that when we pursue our dreams, we have to act “self-ishly.” Trying to live someone else’s “version” of what we want is never quite going to feel right.

  Now, I’m not advocating that we shouldn’t listen to suggestions… it is just that they are not necessarily “better” because someone else came up with them… someone, perhaps, who has experience in whatever area we’re pursuing. Remember, just because it worked for them, doesn’t mean it is right for us.

  In other news, it is “one of those dates” today: 7/7/7.

  I have long been fascinated by numbers, their meaning, and coincidences and synchronicities. 11:11 is one of my favorite times, and it often seems to show up, just when I happen to be wondering what time it is.

  I feel “scattered.” People are disappearing on me… and when that happens, it often makes me ponder who I have “disappeared on.” Because, of course, that does happen. Maybe it’s just the nature of friendships and relationships that they sometimes run a bit “bi-polar.” Hot and cold. Or maybe that’s the result of my being an “explorer” and “seeker” for much of my adult life. It actually strikes many people I know as a slightly odd thing about me… I am very much an introvert, and quite a private person… but I have always feelt driven to “meet a lot of people.” Maybe it’s because I have spent so many years in search of my “tribe.” You can’t expect to find your tribe if you just sit on your lillywhite arse and “wish” for them to exist… you have to go out and actively seek and find.

  As a result, I know a lot of people. Or “have known.” Because it seems like we often disappear on each other.

  I have learned not to pay too much attention to society’s “Forever Myth.” Sure, it’s a nice ideal that when we make a connection, it is going to last “forever.” And maybe some connections DO. But I believe there are also many wonderful relationships to be had, that never had the nature and intent to last more than a few months, or years… certain lessons get learned, you run out of things to say… and they should just naturally end. And yet… we cling to them, long after they have actually “ended.”

  Maybe it’s a matter of differing perspectives. One of the last persons to comment to me that I seemed to “know so many people” was also someone who had surprised me… in an earlier conversation… by “guessing” that she’d slept with “about 30 people.” I couldn’t even begin to imagine, and yet she couldn’t imagine how readily and easily I seemed open to finding and befriending new people.

  As I frequently say, “Life is weird.”

   

  • 3:15 am
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