I write about very different stuff now than I used to, I guess. Lots more deep-ish thoughts now, as opposed to listing the events of my day or whatever...

Anyway! Assumptions! A very significant subject to me indeed. And I don't think most people really understand how significant it is. It's hard to explain to others the level of mental crisis I had when I tried to stop assuming things completely. The world falls apart! And I'm not being dramatic, it really fell apart for me. Living in constant terror and confusion... not knowing what was going to happen next... not knowing if something different would be there with each blink...

So I've let some assumptions back into my life. Nothing is perfect, and I still acknowledge the argument that you can't expect something to happen in the future just because of a pattern in the past (likelihood is there but there's not absolute certainty). It's surprising how much thinking about probability like that soothes me sometimes. All possibilities! No certainties!

And being constantly uncertain is kind of scary in its own ways, I guess, but I feel a lot more comfortable with it than I used to. All things are just more or less likely and pretty much everything in life is a betting game.

But where was I going with this... it's late and I'm pretty tired. Headache and difficulty focusing but I want to get my thoughts out so I don't forget. (It's nice to have somewhere to save all these things)

Oh yeah. Assumptions. Since I made the decision, back in high school, to try to be the best person I could be, I've been keeping up with that somewhat inconsistently. My drive to stick with it has never gone away completely, but sometimes I don't try as hard. It's a lot easier to be motivated when I run into problems in my life. Something to be fixed! And I don't like having problems but I like figuring out how to resolve them. Change environment, change self, interact differently with others... so on and so forth.

Lately I've been thinking that maybe I'm not as good a person as I used to be. But when I say that I really mean I've just been trying less. I'm not good or bad by nature. I decide what it means to be a good person and if I'm not keeping up with that I just need to try more... be more vigilant... It's easy to get too comfortable and forget to keep trying. I'm happy with my life now but that doesn't mean I should stop working on improving myself. If anything it means I should keep it up. Whatever I'm doing is probably effective!

I feel like it's basically the same as antidepressants. People take antidepressants and then they feel better, but then they think "oh, well I'm better now, I don't need these anymore!" and stop taking them. And then they get sad again. This is my antidepressant, I guess. Can't stop trying or I might fall back into the old depressive ways. That seems like it should be scary, but it's not. I know I can do this. I have been doing it for awhile (which, you know, doesn't say anything about the future, but at the very least I know I'm capable). Slipping up every once in awhile is okay, it doesn't hurt me in the long run.

Sometimes I want to talk about this stuff to people but I end up blogging about it instead. Trying to get people to understand how hugely important this is to me is really hard. I mean, that doesn't mean I shouldn't try, but it often feels like I'm just throwing words around and they don't mean anything to the other person. I don't really want to get a pat on the head and a thumbs up.

I keep thinking about how Fro said she thought I was a really strong person. Phrasing it that way makes it sound like strength is in my nature, and it's like... no. Strength is not something I am, it's something I practice. I am what I am because this is what's helping me survive and live up to my potential. Natural selection of behaviors and personality traits? Man, my thoughts are so jumbled right now.

Just thinking about what people say about me in general... Like my friend from Spain getting frustrated with me and saying I just think everyone is like me. I don't think that's necessarily true, but if I was acting in ways that made me appear that way then it's something I need to work on. Communication is tough! You never know if what you're saying and what you mean line up, or if the other person will receive things the way you intend them. Just gotta deal with it as best I can though.

Ugh this did not come out nearly as linear as I was planning. Being super tired messes things up.

Main thing I wanted to say: I feel like I've been assuming too much lately. It's starting to cause issues in some of my interactions. I should work on this. I think I am capable of resolving it. I just need to try. Effort is key. Nature does not figure prominently into this. I am flexible. I can change myself. Need to listen better and think more.

---

Have been thinking about Kant's Categorical Imperative recently because we're discussing it in Ethics. I learned about it before in a different class too but forgot about it. My prof this time around makes it so much more interesting. I think I like it, as an ethical approach. It's close-ish to what I think, even if it doesn't necessarily match up completely...

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I discussed a story I've been working on with one of my boyfriend's friend's friends tonight. Got some interesting feedback! He went really in depth analyzing it, which was cool. I didn't give him any explanation of my thoughts while writing it until he had finished his interpretation because I didn't want to spoil it.

I think getting this kind of interpretive feedback is very helpful to me, because it helps me see which parts of a story are coming through the way I want them to and which parts might not be. Often the kind of feedback I get is just "this was well written" or maybe grammar/wording issues. It's nice to get compliments, but a lot of the time I end up feeling like I'm not really getting anything that would help me grow as a writer. This piece I'm working on now is probably the most complicated thing I've ever written, at least as far as symbolism goes, haha. It's been such a pain to write, though. I think I'm already on my fourth or fifth incarnation of it... Hopefully I can refine it into something I'm more satisfied with eventually.

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"I Want You" by Summer Camp.


This song has kind of creepy lyrics but I like it.

An excerpt:
If I could I'd kiss your lips so hard your entire face would bruise
Write your name in blood on every wall, it would make the evening news
I'd chain our feet together so that you could never leave
I'd make you love me so much you'd have to ask permission to breathe!

Yikes.

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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This is basically how I feel right now:


Good, but so sleepy. Soooo sleepy.

I was feeling really energized and happy last night but then I ended up not going to sleep until maybe 3 AM and I had a midterm and a presentation today. I felt pretty good at school too though. Got home around half an hour ago and suddenly I just felt super sleepy.

Mayyyyyybe I will take a nap.

Oh also we got our midterms back from one of my classes today. It was a take home essay format midterm and when the prof was flipping through the stack to find mine, all the papers I saw said C or D on them, so I was kind of worried. I got an A+ though! 93 out of a possible 96 points. For one of the questions I just flat out forgot to finish answering it though, so I would have gotten 94 if not for that dumb mistake. >_> Couldn't really talk about my midterm much to anybody though, because I didn't want to make them feel bad and/or get dirty looks. I offered to help my friends for the final so they'll hopefully get better scores.

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I'm procrastinating by writing this entry... I have a paper to write and a midterm to study for, as well as a presentation to practice for. Yayyy.

Sometimes I think about my attitude towards my mental/emotional health and what it means in relation to others. I sort of have this "I have to take care of myself because nobody else will/can" view on it. I mean that in the sense that I don't think anybody can solve my problems for me. It's still nice to have support from friends and family, but they can't directly fix anything for the most part.

Anyway, I wonder if that's a healthy perspective to have or if it stems from a fundamental distrust of other people. I say distrust rather than mistrust because well... I haven't had that many successful experiences with other people's attempts to help me, I guess. Fro has given me some helpful suggestions before (e.g. recommending trying to think of one thing that made me happy every day) but I can't remember the last time I was in a really bad place and anybody actually made a difference to me.

I often find myself in a supportive position, but rarely a supported position. I guess I'm lucky that my life circumstances are such that I can manage that. When I ask the people close to me for support now, mostly what I want is some companionship while I figure things out for myself. It's just nice to not feel alone. I can still manage without that support, but it feels better to not have to.

Although I haven't been severely depressed in quite awhile, I think I'm constantly aware that the next episode could always be just around the corner. It's probably pretty unlikely, given all the buffers I have in my life now, but it's not impossible. The memory of what it's like to feel so heavy I can barely lift my fingers to type is still quite vivid for me, even though I haven't felt that way in... I guess five years.

Getting better at handling things has been a long process, though I think I've actually been doing it a lot faster than some people, maybe even faster than average? I know there are people who deal with heavy depression their whole lives. I'll never really be able to know if I just don't have the same "level" of depression as people like that or if I've just been able to handle it much better. (That ever-lingering question of "Is it easier now because I just don't have it that bad or because I'm stronger?")

I feel really, really lucky whenever I think about this. I mean, it's not like the whole process has just been one happy accident after the next, and there's been a lot of effort involved, but I think the tools I started out with were still a lot better than what many other people have. I know it doesn't necessarily sound like much to other people but this is probably one of the most significant aspects of my life to me.

---

I don't remember most of my dream, but it involved these ominous empty rooms called "Buddha Rooms" that I think were used as torture chambers... I never found out why they called them that.

---Edit---

I feel really happy right now!

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I like this song after the guy stops rapping in the first part.

You handle your own when you become a man
And become a man when you handle your own

---

I feel like, growing up, I was exposed to a lot of media that talked about "becoming a man"-- maturing, following some set of moral standards, being independent etc. I can't remember anything like that for "becoming a woman" though.

The sense I sort of got, I guess, was that you become a woman just by getting older, but you have to do something specific to become a man. The idea of being a woman was a lot more unfamiliar to me than the idea of being a man, since I just... never really encountered stuff explaining what one does to become a woman. Even though I'm not super masculine (in most domains at least) I feel like I sort of took the "how to become a man" framework as a more gender neutral guide to how to grow up. Maybe that makes sense. In the US at least, people usually associate a lot of the same traits with being a male and being a healthy adult. What you're supposed to be as a healthy adult female is kind of ambiguous because of this transitional culture we live in. We're not completely traditional in our gender roles but we're not completely egalitarian either, so there's a fair amount of uncertainty.

I don't think I've ever had a female role model, not really. And I don't think I've ever had the kind of teacher-student relationship that has inspired me to learn about something with another female. It's pretty much just been guys showing me things, getting me interested in new subjects. Most of what I understand about being female was stuff I had to figure out for myself by guessing at what other girls were doing, but a lot of the time I had disdain for what I saw. And my mom's never been much of a help as far as learning to be feminine goes... I think she stopped trying when I was in elementary school as far as that goes.

Anyway I have to go out now, but I wanted to get some of these thoughts out. Somehow I never really thought about this until I was looking at the lyrics for this song today.

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I want to keep this short since I'm trying to go to bed earlier.

Songs I liked from the radio today:
"Antonio Carlos Jobim" by Heatmiser.


"Shark Attack" by Freezepop.


"Don't Laugh" by The Wedding Present.


And this is not music obviously but it amuses me.

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