If I only knew who in fact I am, I should cease to behave as what I think I am; and if I stopped behaving as what I think I am, I should know who I am.
- The Notes on What's What
I think about this a lot, obviously, as someone so influenced by Huxley's thinking. I've been contemplating this idea for almost a decade now, and while I never consistently meet the demands of his karuna (Here and Now), I aim to reach for it constantly. I don't know that it is something I can ever consistently maintain but must -- like the philosopher king of Plato's cave -- constantly reach back out to it only to fall back in every succeeding moment. I don't really find this a bad thing, though.
1. How would you describe yourself?
Like anyone else, a fill a variety of individual (sometimes overlapping, sometimes isolated) roles: wife, daughter, friend, teacher, student, voting citizen, internet persona (ah! soon-to-be mother, yikes!), and the list goes on for every interaction I have with various individuals. I honestly, intellectually and philosophically, hate that I have to look/feel so personally divided, and that I have to fill roles or at least be relegated to the limitations of a single definition of a role in different circumstances. As an only child, I've probably come off as self-absorbed to at least someone out there in the world, which is maybe not something I can fully control, but a lot of that is also a product of the introversion inherent to my personality. I wonder it might even be genetic -- my dad's side of the family is incredibly conservative (in personality, not politics, though probably also in politics...) and my dad was about as Stoic as anyone. I don't always like to express my opinions especially my feelings, and I generally downplay things because of the anxiety of having to talk about it -- I'd rather just deal with it internally and not burden others, and I just generally don't like attention. But ideas, I'll talk about those all day, my own or others. I like to think of myself as an intellectual, or at least a scholar. I have a semi-photographic memory, so typically if I read it once, I'm good to go, but even still things don't necessarily come easily to me, I work pretty hard and tend to put in my full effort to things. I'm also somewhat of an addictive-personality. Generally when I get involved in an interest or an activity, I run with it like crazy -- I buy up all the stuff, read up all the articles, immerse myself in it. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing (my obsessions have been pretty healthy, at least, so that's a good thing), but its certainly a part of who I am. I am nerdy as hell -- I love books and reading, I love science fiction and fantasy, I play nerdy games, video games, and have a nerdy husband. I'm not sorry for who I am, mostly, but I am self-conscious a lot of the time and worry about others perceptions of me to some extent, though I know I can't always control that. I want like hell to just be one person, the same person, in all those roles I fill, and hope I don't get lost of pigeonholed by any of them.
2. What are the most important things in your life?
Since this says 'things' and not 'people' I'll leave the discussion of influential individuals for later, and go to the objects in my life. While I'm generally stoic as well -- like my dad -- I can admit that there are material objects of value in my life. I remember a few years ago when I was still living at home (pre-marriage years), we had a short-scare where our chimney lit on fire in the winter. Luckily it was a small incident, but my mom freaked out and came screaming into my bedroom to get out of the house. I grabbed a bag, and started packing it with things I cared about. First thing in the bag? My important books (Huxley and Plato and a few others of my philosophy texts, along with Hamlet, and a couple of my first-edition copies of things), my computer, my birthstone ring (a gift to me for my high school graduation), and a stuffed animal my grandmother gave me when I was two: Shadow, a stuffed black cat that was similar to the real cat she had as a pet (I loved that crazy animal). I ran outside with my bag and stood in the driveway, and it started to sprinkle. Luckily, the fire snuffed itself out, and the fire department responded quick enough to make sure there wasn't any damage. So I guess, in that moment, at that time, I new what was important to me. There aren't too many changes I would make to that list now, other than to add my wedding rings (which I wear), and my dad's wedding ring (which I also where -- mom gave it to me after dad died, and so it's important to me of course). Otherwise, stuff doesn't really have much hold on me. I'm not a pack-rat, I'm not a hoarder, I don't really want anything for my birthday or Christmas, and I have no problems throwing things away. What is important to me, is quality time with people I care about -- including myself (does that sound selfish? I do so love my alone-time).
3. Do you love yourself? Could you love yourself more and what would that mean?
This question has been answered differently by me at different times in my life. As a child, I was bullied on occasion for various stupid things, probably because I was an easy target -- quiet kid, somewhat meek, generally overly emotional (I used to cry silently to myself all the time... what a loser lol), and self-conscious. I wanted people to like me. I wanted everyone to like me. I don't know if any of that was ever true of my public perception, but I find it less important now, as an adult -- though I will say that it took me a long time to get to that point (and really, only just within the past two years). And, when people didn't like me, I didn't like myself. Like Lord Edward in his April 18 revelation story in chapter III of Point Counter Point, I generally looked back at myself as the mistake instead of blaming others, and as a result of that, I was incredibly critical of myself which led to me having issues with 'loving myself.' This issue constantly perpetuated throughout my school years, and into college.
I had a really rough year (I'd even call it a bottoming-out) the year I moved back home after being away to college. I had just spent my first semester without a boyfriend in 5 years (my high school boyfriend and I ended our relationship for distance and difference-of-life-direction reasons), a major set of complicated arguments with my best friend (who is now my husband... but it didn't start easily), I came home to friends who weren't the same people I'd left them as, and tried really hard to maintain adulthood living in my childhood bedroom. I struggled to fit back in despite being a different person than when I left, I got involved with people I probably should've not been involved with, and I struggled to build myself up in a way that I liked. I hated myself that entire summer, and struggled with self-love and worth for a while after that. It was not fun.
On top of all that, I've struggled with weight for a while as well -- maybe from senior year of high school onward -- and so that has pulled me down in various intervals over the last 10-11 years too. While completing my masters at LMU, and teaching here at Costa, and driving back and forth between the two, and writing 20-page papers for each class I took, there was little time to take care of myself. I'm not really sure how I functioned, to be honest. It was fun, and I love the intellectual challenge more than anything, but at the end of it, it was hard to get myself back into any kind of shape. I'm still not there, and I'm still struggling with it; and now, being pregnant and round as ever, I often obsess about how I look and how much weight I'm gaining. It's a never-ending cycle.
So to answer the question in a round-about way, (TL;DR) -- I love aspects of myself. I still struggle to love the whole of myself. Yes, that's contradictory as hell, I get it, especially with my rant in the previous question about wanting to be a whole person without the relegated and divisive roles. I'm a work in progress, I guess. To love myself more, would mean me accepting the parts of me I can't control -- the perception of others, and suppressing the need to be liked by everyone which I can't obviously have -- as well as loving me despite the way I look and what the scale says when I inadvertently step on it (I try to avoid it... especially now).
4. What's your ideal self? What does it mean to be your 'highest self'?
I agree with Aristotle (who I rarely agree with these days) that we can never truly measure the success of ourselves and our lives until we reach the end of it -- we are always potential moving toward actual without every reaching it. I guess the reason I believe this is because Plato echoes it as well (who I'm much more inclined to agree with these days) in my interpretation of his Allegory of the Cave -- I want to be the philosopher king, who lives outside of the bounds of the limitations of perception. I want to be the person who can look at the sun, who can see the Good, and understand the way in which it allows all other experience. But more accurately, as a Perennialist, I want to be the kind of person who is never fearful of contradiction, since I really do think (though I can think it and maybe not actually believe it, or properly live it, which is the part that keeps me from being my 'ideal') that the world is inherently contradictory and that those contradictions are not a bad thing; they just simply are. For example, I don't think that religion and science need to be mutually exclusive. I don't think that religions have to be mutually exclusive either. You can be a buddhist Catholic. You can find truth in the words of Mohammed and in Christ and in Vishnu and Krishna and pagan theologies. I think the world is unfolding its many possibilities constantly, and why shouldn't those possibilities be able to contradict? The sum total of all experience has to be able to account for opposites. Consistency is a huge farce; there are too many different people with different lives in different places and different circumstances. THAT is the thrill of it all. So to be my highest self? That would be not just recognizing and thinking that these things are true, but living in such a way that my actions, thoughts, behaviors, and all of that show that I believe that to be true. It's hard to get there. I believe there is an underlying oneness to all of reality, and our views are just templates placed on top of it that -- while they block out part of it -- allows us to see the truth of it in some limited way. Learn enough, and add enough templates, the idea then would be that you could get a clearer picture of reality. My highest self is the one always pushing to add just one more template of knowledge to clear up my view of the underlying reality, and this takes a constant thirst for knowledge and awareness in ALL experience, even knowing I'll never really arrive, as Aristotle and Plato both claim.
5. If I had one month to live, what would you do?
This is tough, especially at this juncture in my life. One month from now, I'd still be two months away from full-term delivery of this baby, and that brings up all kinds of ethical scenarios (luckily, fetus is viable, and could survive outside of me with heavy medical care, so it MIGHT be a possibility -- I was a full five weeks early myself when I was born, and my baby would be right about the same in this scenario, so that decision could easily be made). So for the sake of argument, let me assume away the pregnancy, and go with the question.
It's a hard decision. There are so many things in life I'd love to do and want to experience and haven't yet, and a month is so short to do it all. Obviously from a financial standpoint, I'd be leaving behind my husband (and in reality, a child) that would need financial care and all of that. When you become an adult, things get massively complicated in that regard, and since I don't like to think of myself as a selfish person, I would spend considerable effort and anxiety on ensuring that things would be fine for him once I was gone.
From a purely selfish standpoint, I'd want to do a couple of things personally very quickly -- I'd want to go the Globe theatre in London and see Hamlet on stage. I'd want to see the Monaco Grand Prix (though unfortunately, it's in May and outside my one-month limit) in Monte Carlo from the expensive all-inclusive suites. I'd want to spend the day studying in the Library of Congress in D.C. in isolation with just the books. I'd want to sit in on a Philosophy lecture at Oxford University, for the sake of just being there and feeling the learning. I'd want to have my poem, "The Road One Travels" be published in something like the New Yorker, and leave an actual impression on the world. I'd love to lecture to the entire school population on the things that are important to me. And lastly, I'd want to spend time at home with my family and friends, throw a giant party, cook an incredible meal, play some Cards Against Humanity, and laugh really hard.
[EDIT: I'd probably want to try an experiment along the lines of Huxley's Doors of Perception as well -- I'm already dying, what would I have to lose? I'd want it to be equally as controlled though, so that's something. It's not something I'd do just to do though. It would be a last-experience thing where I'm at the end of life and at the end of experience looking for a way to get at that last opening of consciousness. I'm more content now to do what Huxley says to really do in his Perennial Philosophy, which is to use learning and contemplation to get beyond my own limitations of consciousness -- I find this a more satisfying and noble way of life at this point.]
6. What advice would you give yourself of three years ago?
The one thing about adulthood, is that once you get past important milestones, there are less crazy differences one year to the next, so I don't think I'm drastically in a different place personally now than I was three years ago. This is a great question for student-aged people because a lot changes in quick succession from the beginning of high school to the end, from high school to college, from college to the workforce, from living at home to being on your own, to getting married, etc. Eventually those rapid physical changes become more stable and consistent.
Which leaves the ability for emotional and intellectual changes to take a more prominent place, but that is only really if you let it; there are plenty of people that start to file in to some kind of auto-pilot, drone-like habitual existence and then all of a sudden life passes you by. I really hope not to be that person. I know it happens though -- there are plenty of days that go by and weeks that go by and I turn around and look back and think, "where did they go?!" My goal is to make those fewer and farther between, because what it means is that I'm not appreciating the moments, and in essence wasting my awareness of the experience -- something I really don't want to do.
Three years ago would've been December of 2012. My dad was healthy. It would be another year before his cancer came back and ravaged his liver and lungs. I was two years into marriage. I was still living in Downey and commuting to Costa -- still one year away from our move to Torrance (which happened in February of 2014). I had just wrapped up a semester of classes at LMU -- Hegel and Hermeneutics -- and was a semester from my MA in Philosophy. I was in room 33, my first full year in my very own classroom (the previous year I stood in for Mrs. Everett, the year before I spent a year standing in for Mr. Zakour at Downey High). We would have just finished Huck Finn (I taught nothing but English 11 that year, and SAS) and done our persuasive speeches (my schedule was just slightly different in my 11CP class that year).
Personally, I would've told myself to appreciate the time a bit more when my dad was healthy. I lived a little bit in denial for the last few years of his life, wanting desperately to cling to the belief that he'd be just fine and that the bad part was over -- even as he was spiraling back into sickness, I believed they'd figure out how to make him last a little bit longer, and then when there wasn't hope of that, I was just hoping that his last days would be comfortable, conscious ones. And after he was gone, it took a while for me to come to terms with it, and I put on his stoic face and held myself up to hold my mom up and be strong like he would never have said he would have wanted, but I knew he would have wanted. I would now, tell myself of that three years ago, to really enjoy the moments -- not argue and scream about the Angels/Dodgers rivalry (though to be honest, those arguments were masochistically fun to some degree), to take him to more dinners, to spend more time with him, to know that it doesn't last forever and it's okay to come to terms with that. His cellphone contact info is still in my phone. I can't bring myself to delete it.
Academically, I'd tell myself of three years ago to spend more time with all of my professors. At that point, I was only going into the school on days I had to be there from class, which was after my school work day and was there from 4-10, in class. I had about half an hour at the beginning and in between sessions, and I spent most of those with Dr. Treanor who was my favorite, and by far the most relatable of all my professors (speaking of which, ugh I need to email that man). I know other students in my program constantly talked to professors, and got a much better feel for what the professor wanted in terms of a paper, or what we were reading, and in turn often got better grades by tailoring their responses to what they wanted to see. While I wasn't interested in this approach to my learning (it was the first time in my academic career where I consciously went in NOT thinking about grades, but only about my own personal learning and growth), I think it would've helped me avoid the weird feeling of misrepresentation I had when I got my Gadamer/Hermeneutics paper back. I still think I'm right in what I argued, especially from the literary-analytic perspective I took to it, but I think I'd tell myself of three years ago to spend more time talking to Dr. Cameron about it beforehand, to avoid that awkward feeling, and at least get to feel personally justified in how I felt about it. This one still bothers me -- I need to reread Truth and Method.
And lastly, professionally, I would definitely tell myself of three years ago to chill the hell out on the need to be liked by everyone. I was very much concerned with all of my students loving me, and reaching everyone, and being perceived as amazing. OBVIOUSLY I failed at that -- not everyone loved me, or even liked me, I didn't reach everyone, and I left work sometimes so upset by the things people did that I took personally. Totally not worth it. I think a lot of that stems from my own lack of confidence and need for perfection. I'm not perfect, but I am much more confident these days. I think I would tell myself of three years ago, that it's okay to mess up once in a while, to take ownership for it, and to be confident in knowing that the work I do is important, valuable, and good work, and that the rest will eventually follow. I feel so much more comfortable now in what I'm doing, and I've learned to enjoy it for myself and not sweat the perceptions of others (I don't try to please everyone else all the time, or look myself up on rating websites which always make me feel like crap), and I feel a whole knew level of happiness and self worth and comfort. It's nice. Me of three years ago desperately needed this feeling. People probably would've liked me a whole lot more if I'd felt that way, and really it wouldn't even matter as it doesn't know [ASIDE: obviously, I love you guys and I hope you like me, but my world doesn't shatter anymore when you criticize me; can't please everyone right? :) <3]
7. How can you make your life more meaningful, starting today?
I've touched on this throughout a bit. For me it's about being fluid in my personal beliefs, which is openness to the oneness of existence, and the solidarity of the world (maybe not solidarity as Lord Edward discusses it in Point Counter Point, I'm not really concerned about sharing atoms or energy with Mozart or anything like that, transubstantively). I want to be able to live "Here and Now," and squeeze the greatest out of my experience in each and every experience -- good/bad, easy/difficult, all of the above. Everything has something to offer my learning and perspective. I want the most out of it. I fail at this most of the time, but know that I need to be consciously aware at all moments. So in order to make my life more meaningful, I need to actively search for the meaning each and every second of my existence -- it really doesn't matter too much to me to discuss whether it's meaning I give it, or meaning it inherently has; really, I think both of those are inextricably linked. (I am part of the inherent substance of reality, and any meaning I give reality is substantively connected to that inherent substance as well -- again, I don't care about contradiction! It doesn't bother me!)
So to answer the question in a round-about way, (TL;DR) -- I love aspects of myself. I still struggle to love the whole of myself. Yes, that's contradictory as hell, I get it, especially with my rant in the previous question about wanting to be a whole person without the relegated and divisive roles. I'm a work in progress, I guess. To love myself more, would mean me accepting the parts of me I can't control -- the perception of others, and suppressing the need to be liked by everyone which I can't obviously have -- as well as loving me despite the way I look and what the scale says when I inadvertently step on it (I try to avoid it... especially now).
4. What's your ideal self? What does it mean to be your 'highest self'?
I agree with Aristotle (who I rarely agree with these days) that we can never truly measure the success of ourselves and our lives until we reach the end of it -- we are always potential moving toward actual without every reaching it. I guess the reason I believe this is because Plato echoes it as well (who I'm much more inclined to agree with these days) in my interpretation of his Allegory of the Cave -- I want to be the philosopher king, who lives outside of the bounds of the limitations of perception. I want to be the person who can look at the sun, who can see the Good, and understand the way in which it allows all other experience. But more accurately, as a Perennialist, I want to be the kind of person who is never fearful of contradiction, since I really do think (though I can think it and maybe not actually believe it, or properly live it, which is the part that keeps me from being my 'ideal') that the world is inherently contradictory and that those contradictions are not a bad thing; they just simply are. For example, I don't think that religion and science need to be mutually exclusive. I don't think that religions have to be mutually exclusive either. You can be a buddhist Catholic. You can find truth in the words of Mohammed and in Christ and in Vishnu and Krishna and pagan theologies. I think the world is unfolding its many possibilities constantly, and why shouldn't those possibilities be able to contradict? The sum total of all experience has to be able to account for opposites. Consistency is a huge farce; there are too many different people with different lives in different places and different circumstances. THAT is the thrill of it all. So to be my highest self? That would be not just recognizing and thinking that these things are true, but living in such a way that my actions, thoughts, behaviors, and all of that show that I believe that to be true. It's hard to get there. I believe there is an underlying oneness to all of reality, and our views are just templates placed on top of it that -- while they block out part of it -- allows us to see the truth of it in some limited way. Learn enough, and add enough templates, the idea then would be that you could get a clearer picture of reality. My highest self is the one always pushing to add just one more template of knowledge to clear up my view of the underlying reality, and this takes a constant thirst for knowledge and awareness in ALL experience, even knowing I'll never really arrive, as Aristotle and Plato both claim.
5. If I had one month to live, what would you do?
This is tough, especially at this juncture in my life. One month from now, I'd still be two months away from full-term delivery of this baby, and that brings up all kinds of ethical scenarios (luckily, fetus is viable, and could survive outside of me with heavy medical care, so it MIGHT be a possibility -- I was a full five weeks early myself when I was born, and my baby would be right about the same in this scenario, so that decision could easily be made). So for the sake of argument, let me assume away the pregnancy, and go with the question.
It's a hard decision. There are so many things in life I'd love to do and want to experience and haven't yet, and a month is so short to do it all. Obviously from a financial standpoint, I'd be leaving behind my husband (and in reality, a child) that would need financial care and all of that. When you become an adult, things get massively complicated in that regard, and since I don't like to think of myself as a selfish person, I would spend considerable effort and anxiety on ensuring that things would be fine for him once I was gone.
From a purely selfish standpoint, I'd want to do a couple of things personally very quickly -- I'd want to go the Globe theatre in London and see Hamlet on stage. I'd want to see the Monaco Grand Prix (though unfortunately, it's in May and outside my one-month limit) in Monte Carlo from the expensive all-inclusive suites. I'd want to spend the day studying in the Library of Congress in D.C. in isolation with just the books. I'd want to sit in on a Philosophy lecture at Oxford University, for the sake of just being there and feeling the learning. I'd want to have my poem, "The Road One Travels" be published in something like the New Yorker, and leave an actual impression on the world. I'd love to lecture to the entire school population on the things that are important to me. And lastly, I'd want to spend time at home with my family and friends, throw a giant party, cook an incredible meal, play some Cards Against Humanity, and laugh really hard.
[EDIT: I'd probably want to try an experiment along the lines of Huxley's Doors of Perception as well -- I'm already dying, what would I have to lose? I'd want it to be equally as controlled though, so that's something. It's not something I'd do just to do though. It would be a last-experience thing where I'm at the end of life and at the end of experience looking for a way to get at that last opening of consciousness. I'm more content now to do what Huxley says to really do in his Perennial Philosophy, which is to use learning and contemplation to get beyond my own limitations of consciousness -- I find this a more satisfying and noble way of life at this point.]
6. What advice would you give yourself of three years ago?
The one thing about adulthood, is that once you get past important milestones, there are less crazy differences one year to the next, so I don't think I'm drastically in a different place personally now than I was three years ago. This is a great question for student-aged people because a lot changes in quick succession from the beginning of high school to the end, from high school to college, from college to the workforce, from living at home to being on your own, to getting married, etc. Eventually those rapid physical changes become more stable and consistent.
Which leaves the ability for emotional and intellectual changes to take a more prominent place, but that is only really if you let it; there are plenty of people that start to file in to some kind of auto-pilot, drone-like habitual existence and then all of a sudden life passes you by. I really hope not to be that person. I know it happens though -- there are plenty of days that go by and weeks that go by and I turn around and look back and think, "where did they go?!" My goal is to make those fewer and farther between, because what it means is that I'm not appreciating the moments, and in essence wasting my awareness of the experience -- something I really don't want to do.
Three years ago would've been December of 2012. My dad was healthy. It would be another year before his cancer came back and ravaged his liver and lungs. I was two years into marriage. I was still living in Downey and commuting to Costa -- still one year away from our move to Torrance (which happened in February of 2014). I had just wrapped up a semester of classes at LMU -- Hegel and Hermeneutics -- and was a semester from my MA in Philosophy. I was in room 33, my first full year in my very own classroom (the previous year I stood in for Mrs. Everett, the year before I spent a year standing in for Mr. Zakour at Downey High). We would have just finished Huck Finn (I taught nothing but English 11 that year, and SAS) and done our persuasive speeches (my schedule was just slightly different in my 11CP class that year).
Personally, I would've told myself to appreciate the time a bit more when my dad was healthy. I lived a little bit in denial for the last few years of his life, wanting desperately to cling to the belief that he'd be just fine and that the bad part was over -- even as he was spiraling back into sickness, I believed they'd figure out how to make him last a little bit longer, and then when there wasn't hope of that, I was just hoping that his last days would be comfortable, conscious ones. And after he was gone, it took a while for me to come to terms with it, and I put on his stoic face and held myself up to hold my mom up and be strong like he would never have said he would have wanted, but I knew he would have wanted. I would now, tell myself of that three years ago, to really enjoy the moments -- not argue and scream about the Angels/Dodgers rivalry (though to be honest, those arguments were masochistically fun to some degree), to take him to more dinners, to spend more time with him, to know that it doesn't last forever and it's okay to come to terms with that. His cellphone contact info is still in my phone. I can't bring myself to delete it.
Academically, I'd tell myself of three years ago to spend more time with all of my professors. At that point, I was only going into the school on days I had to be there from class, which was after my school work day and was there from 4-10, in class. I had about half an hour at the beginning and in between sessions, and I spent most of those with Dr. Treanor who was my favorite, and by far the most relatable of all my professors (speaking of which, ugh I need to email that man). I know other students in my program constantly talked to professors, and got a much better feel for what the professor wanted in terms of a paper, or what we were reading, and in turn often got better grades by tailoring their responses to what they wanted to see. While I wasn't interested in this approach to my learning (it was the first time in my academic career where I consciously went in NOT thinking about grades, but only about my own personal learning and growth), I think it would've helped me avoid the weird feeling of misrepresentation I had when I got my Gadamer/Hermeneutics paper back. I still think I'm right in what I argued, especially from the literary-analytic perspective I took to it, but I think I'd tell myself of three years ago to spend more time talking to Dr. Cameron about it beforehand, to avoid that awkward feeling, and at least get to feel personally justified in how I felt about it. This one still bothers me -- I need to reread Truth and Method.
And lastly, professionally, I would definitely tell myself of three years ago to chill the hell out on the need to be liked by everyone. I was very much concerned with all of my students loving me, and reaching everyone, and being perceived as amazing. OBVIOUSLY I failed at that -- not everyone loved me, or even liked me, I didn't reach everyone, and I left work sometimes so upset by the things people did that I took personally. Totally not worth it. I think a lot of that stems from my own lack of confidence and need for perfection. I'm not perfect, but I am much more confident these days. I think I would tell myself of three years ago, that it's okay to mess up once in a while, to take ownership for it, and to be confident in knowing that the work I do is important, valuable, and good work, and that the rest will eventually follow. I feel so much more comfortable now in what I'm doing, and I've learned to enjoy it for myself and not sweat the perceptions of others (I don't try to please everyone else all the time, or look myself up on rating websites which always make me feel like crap), and I feel a whole knew level of happiness and self worth and comfort. It's nice. Me of three years ago desperately needed this feeling. People probably would've liked me a whole lot more if I'd felt that way, and really it wouldn't even matter as it doesn't know [ASIDE: obviously, I love you guys and I hope you like me, but my world doesn't shatter anymore when you criticize me; can't please everyone right? :) <3]
7. How can you make your life more meaningful, starting today?
I've touched on this throughout a bit. For me it's about being fluid in my personal beliefs, which is openness to the oneness of existence, and the solidarity of the world (maybe not solidarity as Lord Edward discusses it in Point Counter Point, I'm not really concerned about sharing atoms or energy with Mozart or anything like that, transubstantively). I want to be able to live "Here and Now," and squeeze the greatest out of my experience in each and every experience -- good/bad, easy/difficult, all of the above. Everything has something to offer my learning and perspective. I want the most out of it. I fail at this most of the time, but know that I need to be consciously aware at all moments. So in order to make my life more meaningful, I need to actively search for the meaning each and every second of my existence -- it really doesn't matter too much to me to discuss whether it's meaning I give it, or meaning it inherently has; really, I think both of those are inextricably linked. (I am part of the inherent substance of reality, and any meaning I give reality is substantively connected to that inherent substance as well -- again, I don't care about contradiction! It doesn't bother me!)
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