The more I live the more I realize that a great majority of life, especially when it comes to immeasurable or non-concrete things, is approximated. Like the following.
Perfectionism - As a self-diagnosed perfectionist, I’m constantly trying to do things perfectly, or be 100% prepared for every single thing, or not make any mistakes. As if that’s even possible. With sky-high standards and a fear of mistakes, I find myself being unrealistically high-achieving, then falling short, then beating myself up about it, which makes zero sense. Because what is perfection anyway? Isn’t it just something you can aim for, but never achieve? Not only is it an impossible standard, it’s also subjective and abstract, because how do you measure perfection? It’s just constantly trying to do your best, and performing iteration upon iteration of a thing until the result is close to perfection, but there’s no benchmark to say that hi, yes, you’ve achieved perfection, congratulations and here’s your medal. No one says that. It’s all one big scam of an approximation. I keep feeling like I’m climbing up a mountain, whose pinnacle is perfection, and the higher I get, the further the fall, and the more scared I am to let go and fall. And it’s like an exponential curve where the closer you get to the “top”, the more effort it seems to take to keep moving up. I’m starting to think that the journey to “perfection”, or let's say "self-improvement", is less of an upward slope and more of a horizontal road. Because there’s no end. There shouldn’t be.
Understanding people - I’m starting to realize just how hard it is to be in any kind of relationship: friendship, sibling-hood, family, romantic, classmate, work-related, or otherwise. Each person has their own entire life, of which you’re only a tiny portion. Yet here we are, trying to inhabit the same space, and understand each other, and it’s a wonder we even get anywhere considering the great many factors that threaten understanding: the differences in our background, preferences, past experience, mood, personality, traits, coping mechanisms, perceptions…that’s just a few.
How many times have you assumed that because someone’s in a less-than-cheerful mood, it’s because they’re upset with you specifically? You start to run through reasons in your head for why they might be pissed at you, when in fact, it’s nothing to do with you, and it’s just a combination of things, like their crappy day, that’s making them upset. You can take a guess at why they might be upset, and while you might be correct, it’s all nothing but approximation because you may never truly know.
Sometimes I think it's disheartening to realize that no one person can really, truly 100% get you. I used to think that's what a "best friend" or "soul mate" was supposed to be, but that's not realistic. I suppose this should come as a relief; firstly, it's nice to know that we're all so beautifully complicated that there are parts of us that are
Social interactions - Have you ever tried to figure out the meanings of social interactions? Don’t, I don’t recommend it. It's exhausting, and doesn't really get you anywhere. Because at the end of the day we can’t get inside each other’s heads; all we can come up with is our own interpretation of someone else’s actions based on our limited interactions with them. We can only approximate meaning when it comes to other people, so what’s the point trying to “figure it all out”? Ideally, we can ask each other about intentions if we’re confused, but that’s easier said than done. When there are personal things at stake, who wants to look vulnerable and ask questions?
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| elusive balance |
Balancing life - The million dollar question remains: How to balance school work with exercise and sleeping enough and being social and taking care of yourself and extracurriculars and a job and spirituality and eating healthy and everything else...? How to balance the vast combination of things that you value in your life? I have no idea. I’m 3 years into college and I still haven’t found that balance. I’ve found some type of balance that works for some quarters, but then things change on a whim and I have to re-calibrate everything. This quarter, I’ve managed to secure a light course-load, but then there’s a struggle of balancing alone time with getting things done, because I’ve become way too "in my head" and started having a hard time getting out (hence this blog post being bottled up for so long). I am not overwhelmed academically, yet I find myself rushing down assignments the morning they’re due. And wondering why why why do I do this to myself, and how did I get here? Five weeks into the quarter, I was finally able to complete and print the weekly assignment for my health class the night before instead of rushing it down the morning of. It took me halfway through the quarter to accomplish that simple task. It’s like I’m slowly figuring out what works, but there never really comes a point when everything is in perfect balance and I can say that I’ve “found” what works. It’s a constantly shifting equilibrium, and maybe, for a brief moment, I feel okay and balanced, but it doesn’t last, and something will always come along to push me in one direction or another. Again, I can only come close to the balance I hope to achieve - it’s all a game of approximation.
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| tree o' questions |
Research - like I noted in my Summer Research reflections, the more you know, the more you don't know. The more you search, learn or discover, the more there is to search, learn and discover. Answering one question only leads to hundreds more. So when it comes to research, or any kind of scientific study, it makes sense that they say you can’t “prove” a hypothesis - you can only find evidence to support it. You can disprove it by finding evidence that goes against it, but as long as it hasn’t been disproven, there’s not much you can do to “prove” it’s true. This all just makes me realize that even science is just a series of approximations - that is, trying to come as close as possible to guessing at how things really work, because who knows what the true “answer” is.
Writing, creativity & art in general - You know how you can have a great idea in your head, then when you try to express it (through writing, or words, or painting, or acting, or building, or whatever your means), it never really comes out exactly as you’d hoped, planned or envisioned? Something about that transition from being in your head to not being in your head warps the idea, and turns it into something that you’re not 100% happy with.
It’s what keeps me from writing sometimes. Because the minute I put pen to paper, or finger to keypad, the self-critic turns on and starts disapproving of whatever is coming out on the page/screen. I can only approximate the ideas in my head, and hope that my writing comes as close to my intended meaning as possible. Luckily for me, my “Beginning Improv” class (10 out of 10 would recommend an improv class to EVERYONE) is teaching me a few things about accepting ideas and being okay with what's “average” or “obvious”, because sometimes those are the very things that capture and hold people’s interest. More on that later. The point is, writing and art are only approximations of what’s in our heads.
Sometimes I wish things were more clear-cut, but that would take the nuance, beauty, excitement and unpredictability out of life, wouldn’t it?
Photo credits:
Rotten banana: https://www.wheat-free.org/assets/images/ripe-bananas-food-fact.jpg, Ripe banana: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwivscWdyMzXAhUBFWMKHUWxDf4QjBwIBA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpng.pngtree.com%2Felement_pic%2F16%2F12%2F14%2F1f6bc55b95748ab90c6157f125ca70ce.jpg&psig=AOvVaw1HMWjllEf7Oq1GRxZqfNPl&ust=1511247078734363, loose leaf paper: https://image.freepik.com/free-vector/loose-leaf-paper_17-325183319.jpg
