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.
Showing posts with label frustrating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frustrating. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2015
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Communication - Confusing
It would be laughable if it wasn't so frustrating.
Communication within my family is difficult precisely because of the imprecise assumptions about the flow of information around the house. It skips a few heads, we all nod and believe that we are on the same page, but are actually looking in different books.
Namely, there is the problem of my scheduling: I live my life in somewhat parallel to my family at this point. I only think to inform them of my tangentness in their plans when I expect them to intersect. Sometimes, I am surprised to discover that my participation in an activity is planned, but as my schedule is mostly free, (save the fixed points of college courses), it is usually amenable for me to be a part of those plans.
It is particularly ironic that given how available I am to communicating online, I appear to be the hardest to actually reach in the family. This paradox is not lost on my parents, and frustrates them when they do try to get in contact. I am not attempting to avoid their messages, but technology has lately failed me at key moments in the past week. They ask for solutions in which to better get through to me. I don't necessarily have better ideas, and if I make suggestions, I feel like they will ask me what I do with my time.
Time is a curious thing. I am not good at putting an accurate measurable valuation on it, but have no wish to waste others' use of it. The ways I choose to spend my time are sometimes frivolous and impulsive, but my madness keeps me sane for other, more important, moments. Truth is, that asking me whether something is worth my time or "of value" confuses me. Somehow, somewhere, somebody else can offer a price tag on my time. Those who do put a price tag on their time are subject to the judgment of others as to whether they would choose to pay for that person's attention to their problem.
But thoughts about how to begin down that path of evaluating my own value for services is a separate post for a separate time. When it comes down to details, it is difficult for me to justify me doing any individual action with financial or philosophical logic that it was the best choice available at the time.
(Well, except for the existential salvation that doing something creates meaning, which is absent from the choice of non-action, which is still something, but harder to quantify. Though often, there are moments in which I do wistfully wish to do nothing. It is a break and pause in which starting points in other directions can be taken. Staring into the abyss of doing nothing is enough to frighten somebody into leaving. Having to deal with pondering yourself and your life choices is akin to someone looking into the shadow they cast and trying to run faster, away from it into focusing on something else as a distraction.)
The above is why opening any philosophical door is dangerous. Once open, many unexpected guests wander through the portal and start to party in my head. It is not as easy to shut the door, be a buzzkill and tell them to shuffle off to the back of my brain until a better time comes. Perhaps in the middle of the night when I am helpless to affect anything on that cosmic scale.
Back to communication. That was the original spur to this post. Now you might have an idea of how frustrating it can be to get anything through to me. I cannot even write a blog post to my original point, get to the heart of the matter, and bow out with dignity. However, I do feel that this illustrates MY position much clearer than if I had taken the previous sentence's advice.
In the end, I want to be more conscientious about my intentions when concerning my family. I cannot assume that they know what is in my head, nor that something that I told one member of my family had been passed on to the rest. I have to pay careful heed that the people are aware of me as I am of them. To think of others rather than absently thinking that things will work out if everybody serves their own best interests. It may work in Adam Smith's idealized economic system at large, but in detail, the economics of human interaction are rife with complications and are delicately balanced.
Communication within my family is difficult precisely because of the imprecise assumptions about the flow of information around the house. It skips a few heads, we all nod and believe that we are on the same page, but are actually looking in different books.
Namely, there is the problem of my scheduling: I live my life in somewhat parallel to my family at this point. I only think to inform them of my tangentness in their plans when I expect them to intersect. Sometimes, I am surprised to discover that my participation in an activity is planned, but as my schedule is mostly free, (save the fixed points of college courses), it is usually amenable for me to be a part of those plans.
It is particularly ironic that given how available I am to communicating online, I appear to be the hardest to actually reach in the family. This paradox is not lost on my parents, and frustrates them when they do try to get in contact. I am not attempting to avoid their messages, but technology has lately failed me at key moments in the past week. They ask for solutions in which to better get through to me. I don't necessarily have better ideas, and if I make suggestions, I feel like they will ask me what I do with my time.
Time is a curious thing. I am not good at putting an accurate measurable valuation on it, but have no wish to waste others' use of it. The ways I choose to spend my time are sometimes frivolous and impulsive, but my madness keeps me sane for other, more important, moments. Truth is, that asking me whether something is worth my time or "of value" confuses me. Somehow, somewhere, somebody else can offer a price tag on my time. Those who do put a price tag on their time are subject to the judgment of others as to whether they would choose to pay for that person's attention to their problem.
But thoughts about how to begin down that path of evaluating my own value for services is a separate post for a separate time. When it comes down to details, it is difficult for me to justify me doing any individual action with financial or philosophical logic that it was the best choice available at the time.
(Well, except for the existential salvation that doing something creates meaning, which is absent from the choice of non-action, which is still something, but harder to quantify. Though often, there are moments in which I do wistfully wish to do nothing. It is a break and pause in which starting points in other directions can be taken. Staring into the abyss of doing nothing is enough to frighten somebody into leaving. Having to deal with pondering yourself and your life choices is akin to someone looking into the shadow they cast and trying to run faster, away from it into focusing on something else as a distraction.)
The above is why opening any philosophical door is dangerous. Once open, many unexpected guests wander through the portal and start to party in my head. It is not as easy to shut the door, be a buzzkill and tell them to shuffle off to the back of my brain until a better time comes. Perhaps in the middle of the night when I am helpless to affect anything on that cosmic scale.
Back to communication. That was the original spur to this post. Now you might have an idea of how frustrating it can be to get anything through to me. I cannot even write a blog post to my original point, get to the heart of the matter, and bow out with dignity. However, I do feel that this illustrates MY position much clearer than if I had taken the previous sentence's advice.
In the end, I want to be more conscientious about my intentions when concerning my family. I cannot assume that they know what is in my head, nor that something that I told one member of my family had been passed on to the rest. I have to pay careful heed that the people are aware of me as I am of them. To think of others rather than absently thinking that things will work out if everybody serves their own best interests. It may work in Adam Smith's idealized economic system at large, but in detail, the economics of human interaction are rife with complications and are delicately balanced.
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