So there I was contemplating continuing my blog but not publishing what I write. For what purpose? Well, it would go back to the original purpose of being a journal. I get to keep writing and putting my thoughts down. Here’s how my decision went down and it’s ok if it doesn’t seem to make sense…
It starts with a woman. Not just any woman but someone I just recently met. The more I thought about her the more I realized that so many of the things I think I want in someone happen to be in this one person. Of course things aren’t exactly like I’d want them to be and while I thought there was a strong mutual connection, like the ideas for my musings, it seems it was only in my head. That’s not a bad thing really. If everyone could just have a relationship work that easy, for the most part we’d all be with someone. She had asked me about a favorite book and while it did come down to a top 3 (or was it 4), the #1 book was still in a strong #1 spot. I’ll come back to this.
She also has me writing in my private thought journal again. Not as a push to do so but I had something to write down and remembered that I had this private journal I hadn’t used in a while. Quite a while it seems from the last entry. It felt good putting an innermost idea down. Looking back through a few pages I was reminded of the pensieve of albus dumbledore as a way to look back at thoughts I might want to mull over again. I even found some ideas/thoughts that I did want to look over but had forgotten to. I also opened a random page and came across something that was well placed. It was an untimed entry about thoughts on relationships in general. A reminder that I had wanted to consider placing that heart on my sleeve into my chest. Perhaps that would keep it protected better from being hurt. A short entry but what an explosion in my mind it set off. I forced myself to reevaluate a good many things in fact. No conclusions but at least I’m thinking about them again.
Adaptation. For my use, the process by which I may change to fit into a situation. It is not inherently good or bad by its nature. It simply is. Sometimes it is good to be flexible/malleable/adaptive/etc to fit into a new or renewed situation to survive it. It is bad when the change is made INSTEAD of choosing to stay as you are. Perhaps a harder struggle or even a failure but those should be more acceptable than to become something I don’t want to be. Do you suck up to a boss or at a meeting to curry favor for advancement even at the risk of snide looks from coworkers or do you stick up for a belief at the risk of your job? Is advancement that important compared to your personal honor? The almighty dollar can speak heavily. Maybe it’s not money. Maybe it’s the desire to be notice or accepted. A debate over right and wrong will stay as it is, a debate. Hindsight and subjective stance might ‘prove’ the rightness of a choice but we don’t have that luxury once we’re past the decision point.
So. Here I am sitting and writing and thinking and pondering. Why do I read too much into some things and not enough into others? Why do I bother writing things down on paper or electronically? It’s not like I go back and read them very often. That led to, why bother publishing what I even decided to write about.
My #1 book. It is what it is because of what I chose to take from it. The book did nothing to me. At the time and place I read it, it resonated to something inside me. With a subsequent fundamental change to my core for sure. But what if it had been hours, days or weeks at a different time? Would I have chosen to change? I think it was a positive change and one I don’t regret at all. What if 10 years from now, one sentence I write today resonates with someone and they have an explosion in their mind and a subjective positive fundamental change in their life. Absolutely beyond the normal level of my perceived ego but in that moment, I adapted to a new idea. I felt improved after reading today something I had written previously as well as the #1 book. If for no other reason than the possibility of being a voice of empathy for someone else, I guess I keep publishing what I write.
And while I may have adapted, perhaps wrongly, to my current level of life complacency, I can thank that new person for helping me to see the need to stretch those mental boundaries again. Gotta keep them flexible and mobile.
Maybe I’ll need to adapt again sometime soon.
Stick a pitchfork in me, I’m done.
-SFA