Sixty-Sixth Post
It’s been some time since I logged an entry here. Gee whiz, if only there’d been some recent interesting changes in my life, or the beginning of some major chapter, or some important obstacles successfully navigated (I wanted to list three things there, but I feel like that last one comes off as somewhat boastful – ah well). Nope, there hasn’t been any of that stuff in my life…
…OR HAS THERE??
It’s interesting; a year passes, and things certainly change, but mostly they’re same. My daily friends and surroundings have of course taken different forms, but my needs remain met. I have love, and I have shelter, and I have food, and I continue to learn. I’ve attempted to make an argument to my friends here: it ain’t so different from back home. I’ve realized, however, that the truth is simply that I ain’t so different.
And that makes me wonder about this process that I call my self. It turns out that I always feel pretty at home within my person, and for the most part I think that accounts for my general contentment. So how do I experience and conceive this self that is apparently so resilient? Am I okay regardless of environment because I’m some kind of super-adaptable guy? Or am I so static and unchangeable that environment doesn’t really affect me (as perhaps it should)? Or is it a strange combination of the two, whereby I’m unflappably malleable? (Yes Christian, we know – very meta of you, however redundant.)
It’s rock or it’s water, then. As I learn (while I continue to do so), do I become more same, or more varied? In other worlds: does my self grow more elaborate, or more dialectical – and how do I test in either direction? It’d be interesting to encounter that circumstance which would force my hand, revealing the nature of my most fundamental conditioning. After all, I’ve been through no true hardships, instead experiencing only those everyday disturbances that require nominal efforts to calm. I’m a white-American-male, which is essentially Life for Dummies manifest! God…is it really any wonder that white people love skydiving?
Oh my ephemeral thoughts – how I’ve missed writing you down! Summertime is writingtime.