From Under the Night Sky
Dear Constant Readers,
I just realized that my Facebook seems to be importing my posts again, so I'll stop copying and pasting, as it has been leading for a long time to double-posting.
I find it curious that I often write when I am in a slump, as I have been for the past few days. I don't know what is causing it, but I have some ideas. I quit my job on Friday to get ready to move home again. From there, I'll spend a month and a half with my parents before I leave for Peru to begin my next job in mid-September. I guess that can be a cause of stress in life. Positive stress, called eurstress or something like that, but it can also be the source of anxiety. But I've been through anxiety before, and I know I will make it through this. I said in my prayers the other day, in a form of gratitude, that I look forward to the challenges in life, to being tried and growing, somehow like a fresh breeze that blasts away dead skin that is just weighing you down and so you can continue on with life with a revitalization about you. But that process is not always an easy one, and sometimes I find myself in melancholy for a week or so.
To be honest, I am an optimist, even though I may not always sound like it. But I think it is a quiet and reflective optimism. I am scared about going to Peru...The "freaking out" stage hasn't set in...no no, that's not for a few weeks yet...but I am apprehensive....will I like my job?...will I hate it and fall into a pit of depression and isolation?...and what will I do later?
Yet above all this, I realize this: I will have trials, I have trials everyday, just like you, but I can't live in fear of them? I might really struggle in Peru. At the very least it will be challenging, even if I decide to totally go native. But I have to go. I have to go to Peru. Were it another situation it might be like I have to go to grad school. I have to apply for that job (or quit that job). I have to make that move in a relationship. We all have optional obligations we have the free will of being obligated to do.
If there is one thing I can say about being kind of emotionally down, it's that I am more reflective in it. But the danger is also that I can be too self-absorbed, to fixated on the "what if's" that we are all prone to. My thing is that I think I have just as much figured out as most people, which isn't a heck of a lot...but everyone else acts like they have things figured out better and so therefore I feel helpless and wonder why I'm not "getting it."
We all put on different faces. A long time ago I had a discussion about masks people wear throughout their life. A different mask for a different situation. At the time, I was extremely disturbed because I felt like it was being deceived. But ultimately we all have to handle ourselves in this imperfect world, and we have to play different roles. I don't know how I feel about masks, but maybe when a person is wearing a mask, they aren't necessarily trying to deceive you at all, but instead just trying to play the role that is appropriate.
Anyways, being reflective all the time can be a bit like wallowing. For me, I wish I could pull out of these slumps more easily. When I'm in them, it's hard to be as energetic as I'd like to be, but I guess it's how I'm wired, and I am trying to weave that into my life or handle it in some other way that is constructive, but not stew and become a sad philosopher. Life is too beautiful to do that crap. And it is beautiful. I'm reading a book now that is challenging the way I think about a few things, and one of the things I am discovering is that I believe in a universal Truth, upon which all truths are based on. I haven't thought the ramifications to their logical ends, nor do I exactly follow or agree with everything the author puts forth, but I believe there is a solid thing that is under our figurative feet. (Besides, even if you don't believe in a universal truth, and that everyone has their own "That is true for you, but the opposite is true for me, so let's agree to disagree" then the foundation of this philosophy, this table that the marbles roll around on, seems to me to be a basis of some universal truth of acknowledgment of some kind).
The book has suggested that a fulfilled, good life comes from giving rather than seeking out happiness or power. Our material world counters this, and I have nothing against material things, but they can be distracting. I realized this purpose a long time ago, and wrote about it in my blog, when I said that people were meant to help one another, that they have built in capabilities to heal just by touching someone who is suffering from a pain or anxiety. I've never heard of a culture where the people, even the notorious ones, weren't capable of affection to at least someone.
Anyway, that's enough for tonight. I'll try to write more regularly, and I always appreciate comments back. Thank you all for reading, and to my close friends that I've spoken with, when I've said I love you, believe me, I do mean it, and I wish the best for you.
Hope all is well,
Tristan
I just realized that my Facebook seems to be importing my posts again, so I'll stop copying and pasting, as it has been leading for a long time to double-posting.
I find it curious that I often write when I am in a slump, as I have been for the past few days. I don't know what is causing it, but I have some ideas. I quit my job on Friday to get ready to move home again. From there, I'll spend a month and a half with my parents before I leave for Peru to begin my next job in mid-September. I guess that can be a cause of stress in life. Positive stress, called eurstress or something like that, but it can also be the source of anxiety. But I've been through anxiety before, and I know I will make it through this. I said in my prayers the other day, in a form of gratitude, that I look forward to the challenges in life, to being tried and growing, somehow like a fresh breeze that blasts away dead skin that is just weighing you down and so you can continue on with life with a revitalization about you. But that process is not always an easy one, and sometimes I find myself in melancholy for a week or so.
To be honest, I am an optimist, even though I may not always sound like it. But I think it is a quiet and reflective optimism. I am scared about going to Peru...The "freaking out" stage hasn't set in...no no, that's not for a few weeks yet...but I am apprehensive....will I like my job?...will I hate it and fall into a pit of depression and isolation?...and what will I do later?
Yet above all this, I realize this: I will have trials, I have trials everyday, just like you, but I can't live in fear of them? I might really struggle in Peru. At the very least it will be challenging, even if I decide to totally go native. But I have to go. I have to go to Peru. Were it another situation it might be like I have to go to grad school. I have to apply for that job (or quit that job). I have to make that move in a relationship. We all have optional obligations we have the free will of being obligated to do.
If there is one thing I can say about being kind of emotionally down, it's that I am more reflective in it. But the danger is also that I can be too self-absorbed, to fixated on the "what if's" that we are all prone to. My thing is that I think I have just as much figured out as most people, which isn't a heck of a lot...but everyone else acts like they have things figured out better and so therefore I feel helpless and wonder why I'm not "getting it."
We all put on different faces. A long time ago I had a discussion about masks people wear throughout their life. A different mask for a different situation. At the time, I was extremely disturbed because I felt like it was being deceived. But ultimately we all have to handle ourselves in this imperfect world, and we have to play different roles. I don't know how I feel about masks, but maybe when a person is wearing a mask, they aren't necessarily trying to deceive you at all, but instead just trying to play the role that is appropriate.
Anyways, being reflective all the time can be a bit like wallowing. For me, I wish I could pull out of these slumps more easily. When I'm in them, it's hard to be as energetic as I'd like to be, but I guess it's how I'm wired, and I am trying to weave that into my life or handle it in some other way that is constructive, but not stew and become a sad philosopher. Life is too beautiful to do that crap. And it is beautiful. I'm reading a book now that is challenging the way I think about a few things, and one of the things I am discovering is that I believe in a universal Truth, upon which all truths are based on. I haven't thought the ramifications to their logical ends, nor do I exactly follow or agree with everything the author puts forth, but I believe there is a solid thing that is under our figurative feet. (Besides, even if you don't believe in a universal truth, and that everyone has their own "That is true for you, but the opposite is true for me, so let's agree to disagree" then the foundation of this philosophy, this table that the marbles roll around on, seems to me to be a basis of some universal truth of acknowledgment of some kind).
The book has suggested that a fulfilled, good life comes from giving rather than seeking out happiness or power. Our material world counters this, and I have nothing against material things, but they can be distracting. I realized this purpose a long time ago, and wrote about it in my blog, when I said that people were meant to help one another, that they have built in capabilities to heal just by touching someone who is suffering from a pain or anxiety. I've never heard of a culture where the people, even the notorious ones, weren't capable of affection to at least someone.
Anyway, that's enough for tonight. I'll try to write more regularly, and I always appreciate comments back. Thank you all for reading, and to my close friends that I've spoken with, when I've said I love you, believe me, I do mean it, and I wish the best for you.
Hope all is well,
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 7:42 PM
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