Today celebrates the Three Week Anniversary of my blog!! According to GMM, three weeks is the length of time it takes to develop a habit, so I can officially say I've cultivated a writing habit (if their "science" is correct)!
In celebration of this, I wanted to write a post that looked back on my blog and the goal(s) I set out to achieve. My goals were pretty simple:
Primary Goal: To practice being more disciplined about writing every day, and to test the waters to see if I want to be a writer
Secondary Goal: To capture the weeks leading up to and first months of living in New York
The secondary goal has definitely been achieved. I still haven't moved, and the weeks leading up to it have been a strange mix of boring, stressful, exciting, nerve-wracking, busy, and empty all in turns (and most of the time an odd mixture of all at once). However, having a project like this blog has been a great outlet to channel a lot of my excess thoughts, feelings, etc. when I don't have a readily available ear to talk off.
The primary goal has also been (partially) achieved. I've learned that practice indeed makes "perfect" - or at least "better". No matter how busy I am, forcing myself to make time to write has been invaluable. It's been a space for me to be creative and clear my head despite being "busy" or "tired" with other things in life. It's a chance for me to remember that I am not the sum total of whatever I dealt with throughout the day (I'm not just an employee, I'm not just a customer service rep, etc.) And it's a time for me to do some soul searching and "discover more about myself".
Which brings me to the point I want to talk about today: "Discovering Yourself"
Articles would have you believe this is a "millennial" thing, but to be honest, I have a suspicion it's a "twenty-something-year-old-thing". After all, Bowie had a great song called "Can't Help Thinking About Me" with some great lyrics like, "Oh, I'm on my own/I've got a long long way to go/I hope I make it on my own/I can't help thinking about me", which he released in 1965 (when he was just nineteen years old and just starting out in his career).
"Discovering Yourself" is a popular topic both online and off. Whenever I'm with young people I find that we usually start drifting off to talk about "finding ourselves" or "discovering who we are". I even find myself guilty of doing this when I'm with people older or younger than me - and right now, that kind of makes sense. I "Can't Help Thinking About Me", and right now what I'm going through is trying to "find myself". And this blog has been an invaluable outlet that has helped me do so in numerous ways. One of them being that it has allowed me to take time to ruminate on what I mean when I say "discovering myself" or in other words, to "attempt to understand the true nature - desires, hopes, fears, dreams, identity/essence, etc. - of myself
Now, I admit a slight "snob" when it comes to mainstream culture, and one thing I can not stand are social media posts with trite sayings - particularly anything related to "finding oneself". I want to stress here that I think trite sayings are not the same things as cliches.
Cliches hold valuable life lessons/general wisdom (for instance, I would categorize the book of Proverbs as a bit "cliche"). As Bowie once said, "I love a good cliché...", "All cliches are true. The years really do speed by. Life really is as short as they tell you it is." [x] Trite sayings are things like "Live Laugh Love" or other overused sayings that are now meaningless (that you usually find as local wall art at Target). However, I also want to say that I'm including in my category of "trite sayings" expressions which our post-philosophical society holds close to their hearts. Here, I'm using the term "post-philosophical" in the way Bowie expressed it in this interview:
I get it. Part of discovering who you are in today's society includes making mistakes, trying to find love, and above all "loving yourself" - ie valuing yourself and your own needs above others'. But what do you really "mean" by all of these vague sayings that use words so broadly defined that they can be interpreted to mean just about anything.
Not only that, but this self-centered quest for discovery seems counter-intuitive - a Catch-22 (I need to "learn to love myself" in order to "find myself", but by "finding myself" I will "learn to love myself"). For instance, an expression of this can be found in the idea that you should practice "self-care before caring about others". This seems right on the face of it, but what do you mean when you say "self-care"- or even the word "caring"? When you say "self-care", are you referring to, on your own, tackling the problem of mental illness that you struggle with? Physical ailments you have? Personal problems you wrestle with? All of the above? And what about the possibility that if you are truly "caring" for another outside of yourself, you are in turn correctly caring for yourself? (Note here that I'm purposefully leaving the term "care" vague so that my challenge to the statement about self-care may be interpreted "according to your perspective", which allows me a loophole to never be wrong.)
Of course, here I show my hand. In order to truly "discover oneself", or in other words, "understand the true nature - desires, hopes, fears, dreams, identity/essence, etc. - of oneself", as a Christian I believe this means that you must know Christ. What I believe this means is that if you invest time in a relationship with God, you make time to learn more about Him (what He delights in, is angered by, is overjoyed with, etc.), and you open up to Him about your own desires, dreams, etc. (in short, "allow" Him to get to "know" you), then in return you will come closer to the goal of "finding yourself".
Dr. Wright reminded me of this a few weeks ago when I talked with him about how I felt conflicted about praying for "what I desire" vs "what God desires". He helpfully reminded me that God knows us - our innermost, truest desires of our hearts - better than we could ever hope to understand (we humans are pretty much rubbish at "knowing ourselves"). As such, He is in a much better place to know what it is we really want when we ask Him for anything and everything. Moreover, as we are made in His Image, and we are Known to Him, this means that the more we come to Know God, the more we come to Know ourselves. In short, in my quest to "Find God", I come to "Find Myself". And in the middle of my flurry of "business" with moving, working, etc. I forgot this "simple" truth (which is ironic since my blog title actually reveals the truth of what I should've remembered all along).
Bowie himself talked a lot about how he was trying to "find himself" as a young man, and as he got older that quest didn't seem as "important" in the same way (ie trying to find an "I AM ___" or "I AM NOT _____" statement versus exploring questions related to God/spirituality/religion [and other topics] in order to discover more about one's true nature). And this seems like an excellent example to follow. Instead of focusing on statements like "I AM a filmmaker, American, artist, etc.", by focusing on questions related to coming to Know God I will, in turn, be closer to "finding myself" in ways that trite sayings, cliches, and even Bowie will never allow me to do.
So here's to celebrating my "new habit" of "Finding God".
The secondary goal has definitely been achieved. I still haven't moved, and the weeks leading up to it have been a strange mix of boring, stressful, exciting, nerve-wracking, busy, and empty all in turns (and most of the time an odd mixture of all at once). However, having a project like this blog has been a great outlet to channel a lot of my excess thoughts, feelings, etc. when I don't have a readily available ear to talk off.
The primary goal has also been (partially) achieved. I've learned that practice indeed makes "perfect" - or at least "better". No matter how busy I am, forcing myself to make time to write has been invaluable. It's been a space for me to be creative and clear my head despite being "busy" or "tired" with other things in life. It's a chance for me to remember that I am not the sum total of whatever I dealt with throughout the day (I'm not just an employee, I'm not just a customer service rep, etc.) And it's a time for me to do some soul searching and "discover more about myself".
Which brings me to the point I want to talk about today: "Discovering Yourself"
Articles would have you believe this is a "millennial" thing, but to be honest, I have a suspicion it's a "twenty-something-year-old-thing". After all, Bowie had a great song called "Can't Help Thinking About Me" with some great lyrics like, "Oh, I'm on my own/I've got a long long way to go/I hope I make it on my own/I can't help thinking about me", which he released in 1965 (when he was just nineteen years old and just starting out in his career).
"Discovering Yourself" is a popular topic both online and off. Whenever I'm with young people I find that we usually start drifting off to talk about "finding ourselves" or "discovering who we are". I even find myself guilty of doing this when I'm with people older or younger than me - and right now, that kind of makes sense. I "Can't Help Thinking About Me", and right now what I'm going through is trying to "find myself". And this blog has been an invaluable outlet that has helped me do so in numerous ways. One of them being that it has allowed me to take time to ruminate on what I mean when I say "discovering myself" or in other words, to "attempt to understand the true nature - desires, hopes, fears, dreams, identity/essence, etc. - of myself
Now, I admit a slight "snob" when it comes to mainstream culture, and one thing I can not stand are social media posts with trite sayings - particularly anything related to "finding oneself". I want to stress here that I think trite sayings are not the same things as cliches.
Cliches hold valuable life lessons/general wisdom (for instance, I would categorize the book of Proverbs as a bit "cliche"). As Bowie once said, "I love a good cliché...", "All cliches are true. The years really do speed by. Life really is as short as they tell you it is." [x] Trite sayings are things like "Live Laugh Love" or other overused sayings that are now meaningless (that you usually find as local wall art at Target). However, I also want to say that I'm including in my category of "trite sayings" expressions which our post-philosophical society holds close to their hearts. Here, I'm using the term "post-philosophical" in the way Bowie expressed it in this interview:
I feel that reality has become an abstract for so many people over the last twenty years. Things that they regarded as truths seem to have just melted away, and it’s almost as if we’re thinking post-philosophically now. There’s nothing to rely on any more. No knowledge, only interpretation of those facts that we seem to be inundated with on a daily basis. Knowledge seems to have been left behind and there’s a sense that we are adrift at sea. There’s nothing more to hold onto, and of course political circumstances just push that boat further out. (Pegg, 2016)Thus, I'm thinking here about bloggers, trendsetters, those annoying "inspirational Facebook posts", etc. that all try to come up with short expressions or "philosophical" paragraphs which sound "deep" or "meaningful" on the face of it, but in reality, mean nothing. I think this is partly due to what Bowie is discussing (we live in a society where all Truth is relative [ie the classic example of if I choose to believe in God and you choose not to believe in God, society now collectively agrees that we can both be "right" in "our own way" instead of one of us being objectively right or wrong ie either there objectively is or is not a God]). And also what this article points out when it says:
This isn’t, therefore, a question of...needing to “talk in simple language”; it’s about talking in clear language, meaning language where what the author means by each word is conveyed very precisely and in a way that doesn’t admit of misinterpretation. [....] Vagueness allows an escape from responsibility. I can never be “wrong” about anything, because I can always claim to have been misinterpreted.Let me use a few examples that I've seen online:
"Discovering who I am. How to love myself, and how to express the inner writings of my messy mind."
"Don't live your life trying to please others."
"Working to replace all of the negative, traumatic feelings and experiences from my past in relation to sex/love/romance with positive new feelings and experiences that are pure and honest and different because I respect myself now because I love myself more than the feeling of waking up next to someone."
"I do not want to have you to fill the empty parts of me. I want to be full on my own. I want to be so complete I could light a whole city"
I get it. Part of discovering who you are in today's society includes making mistakes, trying to find love, and above all "loving yourself" - ie valuing yourself and your own needs above others'. But what do you really "mean" by all of these vague sayings that use words so broadly defined that they can be interpreted to mean just about anything.
Not only that, but this self-centered quest for discovery seems counter-intuitive - a Catch-22 (I need to "learn to love myself" in order to "find myself", but by "finding myself" I will "learn to love myself"). For instance, an expression of this can be found in the idea that you should practice "self-care before caring about others". This seems right on the face of it, but what do you mean when you say "self-care"- or even the word "caring"? When you say "self-care", are you referring to, on your own, tackling the problem of mental illness that you struggle with? Physical ailments you have? Personal problems you wrestle with? All of the above? And what about the possibility that if you are truly "caring" for another outside of yourself, you are in turn correctly caring for yourself? (Note here that I'm purposefully leaving the term "care" vague so that my challenge to the statement about self-care may be interpreted "according to your perspective", which allows me a loophole to never be wrong.)
Of course, here I show my hand. In order to truly "discover oneself", or in other words, "understand the true nature - desires, hopes, fears, dreams, identity/essence, etc. - of oneself", as a Christian I believe this means that you must know Christ. What I believe this means is that if you invest time in a relationship with God, you make time to learn more about Him (what He delights in, is angered by, is overjoyed with, etc.), and you open up to Him about your own desires, dreams, etc. (in short, "allow" Him to get to "know" you), then in return you will come closer to the goal of "finding yourself".
Dr. Wright reminded me of this a few weeks ago when I talked with him about how I felt conflicted about praying for "what I desire" vs "what God desires". He helpfully reminded me that God knows us - our innermost, truest desires of our hearts - better than we could ever hope to understand (we humans are pretty much rubbish at "knowing ourselves"). As such, He is in a much better place to know what it is we really want when we ask Him for anything and everything. Moreover, as we are made in His Image, and we are Known to Him, this means that the more we come to Know God, the more we come to Know ourselves. In short, in my quest to "Find God", I come to "Find Myself". And in the middle of my flurry of "business" with moving, working, etc. I forgot this "simple" truth (which is ironic since my blog title actually reveals the truth of what I should've remembered all along).
Bowie himself talked a lot about how he was trying to "find himself" as a young man, and as he got older that quest didn't seem as "important" in the same way (ie trying to find an "I AM ___" or "I AM NOT _____" statement versus exploring questions related to God/spirituality/religion [and other topics] in order to discover more about one's true nature). And this seems like an excellent example to follow. Instead of focusing on statements like "I AM a filmmaker, American, artist, etc.", by focusing on questions related to coming to Know God I will, in turn, be closer to "finding myself" in ways that trite sayings, cliches, and even Bowie will never allow me to do.
So here's to celebrating my "new habit" of "Finding God".
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