Compare - Aware

Another long day at work. Mondays are getting that way for me. Some practices are still new to me, and I wish I could have applied them retroactively. But until someone tells me, I just stick to the parameters of which I am aware. Slightly frustrating for me not to excel at things.

I engage in a consistent series of comparing and contrasting against others around me. Not competitively, but observing how others perform tasks and create systems throughout their lives. My friends have greater discipline & dedication in certain areas and I admire their handiwork. I wonder often if I could adapt to these systems if given enough time.

But time is a resource and if I spend it in study of other people, then I have little to show for it besides for theories as to how things are accomplished. I have to start with small steps on an incremental level, adding complexity as I can handle it. I get frustrated with myself more than with other people. I can directly affect my behavior, and try to be patient and excuse other people for theirs.

The girl in Eleanor Estes' book Ginger Pye had this habit of making elaborate excuses for other people's behavior. That book had a strange effect on me looking back on my course through childhood. I don't really understand how there is an overarching plot in that award winning novel, but there are memorable character traits. The other influence I had from that book was the vertical swimmer, who was not exceptional at speed, but could hold his breath underwater for an impressive period of time to the other kids. I was quite inspired by that logic, but alas, am rather landlocked and so have not pursued a career as a deep sea diver.

The fact remains that I must improve in many areas, and have the same patience with myself that I want to extend towards others when I am feeling inconvenienced. I am bothered by the notion that I am often dissatisfied with my own level of competency. But then I remember that otherwise, I am likely to grow comfortable in mediocrity & my drive to progress is through a spur applied by this aforesaid defense mechanism.

Also, I need to get better at owning the things at which I actually am pretty decent. But I don't want to be conceited, so I much prefer it when someone else arrives at the idea that I am. Thank you for your short attention to this & you're welcome for whatever you like about it.

There will probably be better content next week, but I am tired at the moment. An earlier draft of a blog post was written last week, but was a stew made of resentment & frustration, so I have decided to see if it will be better served after being put on ice another week.

Role - Transitive

What power I wield as a creator & actor in a role playing environment!
It is similar to reality, only on a scale of shameless fiat.
I can do things everyday, but am limited by my physical dexterity. In role playing, the act of speaking something is so is taken at face value.
The trouble is that I, as a human, cannot keep them exclusive.
While I am composed of a mishmash of ideas & possibilities, I am one being & can only endure so much contradiction before splitting into breakdowns of emotion. Whether I laugh it off or cry over it, I cannot deny it affects me.

This is slightly troubling. I try on a different skin or mindset, but beneath the glamour, I remain distinctly myself. Thinking & acting like the character leads to a part of me becoming invested in that vein. But veins can bleed & life leaks out. What to do about the mess? It is an experiment, & while I have an idea of how I might like things to end, there are other scientists involved.

This is chemistry, combining character's lines & edges to interact with & react to each other. This is the exciting bit where the product could spin on a dime. Whether to rein back from confrontations or to let loose into the flow, it is tricky to maintain the right balance.
Perhaps there is no true balance that satisfies everyone involved. Which leads to the next point: fellow scientists & even observers can become invested in my character's outcome as well! I have to assume a certain amount of responsibility for my avatar's actions & their consequences. As if real life isn't complicated enough by them, consequences leak into this world as well.
Emotions & tensions rise, leading to moments of euphoric accomplishment, as well as guiltiness when things spiral outside my boundaries of comfort. How much of myself is given to the perusal of everyone else? Why should they mind however I choose to elevate or annihilate my characters? They are mine to do as I please.

Though, if God had this mindset, our deterministic lives might not carry any lasting joy. I know mine would not. Who are we to question God? How great is He to listen to our sentiments? Humor is truly a Divine gift... We who are finite try to judge the infinite. How delighted He must be when we catch a glimpse of the eternal. Like a child grasping the significance of a vexing math problem. But I digress...
It is the spark of free will - of risk that everything can go wrong - which makes the maintenance of the everyday equilibrium into an exciting endeavor. What curious power we lend to authors, actors, & audiences when we allow them to dictate how something should be portrayed.
The first has absolute ideas of how it should be; the second for how to demonstrate/communicate this into reality; the last group decides whether they liked, understood, supported, believed, & so many other things.
There cannot be any lasting hope of pleasing everyone for any significant length of time in this three way tug of war, but it is indeed a spectacle to see when, for one moment, they agree that there is a greater reality for this having come to pass.
Communication through art is beautiful. Maybe even "One of the most fascinating phenomena of the human experience." We play so that we might experiment & understand our work & purpose while we draw breath. Thank God for giving us this spark of the divine creativity to enlighten the hearts & minds of humanity.