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brigdhYou know, it's funny how your perceptions of yourself changes.
I was reading back through the first few entries in this journal looking for something, and they're entirely recognizable as me. Which seems strange, because of course I wrote them, but that was four years ago; I didn't expect to see the exact same emotions and responses expressed. And though I like to think that I can write much better now, and therefore my entries now are more coherent and interesting, I still get annoyed at the same things, in the same way, I'm still amused by the same things. I even stumbled over this entry, which is so obviously the start of all the later entries I would come to write about rain and full moons and early morning light that it's startling.
But what I expected to see was someone else entirely. Lately, I've had this huge sense of change in myself; I feel like I changed dramatically in the last six months or year, though I don't know why or how and can't put my finger on exactly what might have changed. I keep thinking about it though, wondering in other contexts about how much a person can change, and how the way you define yourself affects the way you act, and how various people can perceive the same person differently.
I do, and always have, thought about myself as a nice person, but I don't mean quite the same thing by that as most people do. I just mean that, all other circumstances being equal, I'll do what I can to help other people. Not out of some sense of obligation or guilt or anything, but just because anything else is stupid. On the other hand, I was talking to my family the other day, because my brother was in trouble for having told a parent of one of the other kids on his baseball team to go fuck himself. And my dad was saying that they knew the guy must have really deserved it, because John was too nice to do that lightly. "Not like you," he added. "You're mean." Which was mostly a joke, but also is... kind of true. I'm never polite just for the sake of being polite; I'm too stubborn to do things I don't like. If someone does manage to make me angry, then yeah, I'm going to tell them. It's something I know about myself now, but it's not something I would have thought true a few years ago. But if my family is calling me on it, it must have always been there.
So maybe I haven't changed at all. I was depressed, severely, for a very long time, and I only started coming out of it about two years ago, in the fall of '04. I could just be finally settling in to who I am. Which is a strange thought, that I could have been hurt for so long that just to be normal feels new.
So... I don't know! What do you all think? Does the way you think about yourself change the way you actually are?
I was reading back through the first few entries in this journal looking for something, and they're entirely recognizable as me. Which seems strange, because of course I wrote them, but that was four years ago; I didn't expect to see the exact same emotions and responses expressed. And though I like to think that I can write much better now, and therefore my entries now are more coherent and interesting, I still get annoyed at the same things, in the same way, I'm still amused by the same things. I even stumbled over this entry, which is so obviously the start of all the later entries I would come to write about rain and full moons and early morning light that it's startling.
But what I expected to see was someone else entirely. Lately, I've had this huge sense of change in myself; I feel like I changed dramatically in the last six months or year, though I don't know why or how and can't put my finger on exactly what might have changed. I keep thinking about it though, wondering in other contexts about how much a person can change, and how the way you define yourself affects the way you act, and how various people can perceive the same person differently.
I do, and always have, thought about myself as a nice person, but I don't mean quite the same thing by that as most people do. I just mean that, all other circumstances being equal, I'll do what I can to help other people. Not out of some sense of obligation or guilt or anything, but just because anything else is stupid. On the other hand, I was talking to my family the other day, because my brother was in trouble for having told a parent of one of the other kids on his baseball team to go fuck himself. And my dad was saying that they knew the guy must have really deserved it, because John was too nice to do that lightly. "Not like you," he added. "You're mean." Which was mostly a joke, but also is... kind of true. I'm never polite just for the sake of being polite; I'm too stubborn to do things I don't like. If someone does manage to make me angry, then yeah, I'm going to tell them. It's something I know about myself now, but it's not something I would have thought true a few years ago. But if my family is calling me on it, it must have always been there.
So maybe I haven't changed at all. I was depressed, severely, for a very long time, and I only started coming out of it about two years ago, in the fall of '04. I could just be finally settling in to who I am. Which is a strange thought, that I could have been hurt for so long that just to be normal feels new.
So... I don't know! What do you all think? Does the way you think about yourself change the way you actually are?
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Date: 2006-04-12 05:34 am (UTC)Oh, interesting. I love to see how different people interpret the same idea, even when it's something like "growing up" which you'd think would be universal, at least within the same culture.
I suppose I've always thought of it simply as being mature, being able to make choices with the rationality and morals of an adult. Which sort of leads into the college/job/move out thing, because part of being mature is being independent and taking care of yourself, but those are more symptoms of a deeper cause rather than 'growing up' in and of themselves, if you know what I mean.
I totally agree with your second version, though. I don't understand why some people seem to equate growing up with becoming boring. There's no advantage, no reason at all, to want to find less joy in life! Why on earth do people ascribe value to that shutting off? I hate that idea. I can be fully intelligent and mature and independent and still enjoy flowers.