This is how I will NOT be decorating my future bathroom when I move out of my ancestral home.
http://whatnottocrochet.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/crochet-vs-installation/
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Art of Comparison
Like most people, I struggle with comparing myself to others. Facebook can be both a blessing and a curse in that respect. (And in other respects, too.)
On the one hand, you can find inspiration in what others are saying or doing. You might be inclined to pick up a book that one of your best friends lists as a favorite, for example. Surfing FB also gives you the chance to appreciate the vastly diverse personalities, interests, and ideas that your friends and "friends" reflect.
But en el otro mano, it's easy to fall into the trap of comparing your profile with other people's - both on the shallow level ("Her profile is so cute and funny, and mine is so horribly boring") and on the more meaningful level ("That person sounds so interesting and deep, and my interests don't matter as much as his do").
It's this deeper one that hit me today. Looking at the spiritually, intellectually rich books that one of my friends likes made me wonder about my own tastes in reading, and my own tastes in life activities. I have the tendency to mentally transplant the interests, passions, and views (particularly political, but also spiritual) of other people into my own life; to expend much emotional energy wondering if my fellow humans are more "right" than I myself am, and to agonize over the value of my own passions in comparison with theirs.
This weakness is one of the reasons I love the following passage from Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers. The two speakers are Miss de Vine, an Oxford tutor, and Harriet Vane, an Oxford alum who has returned to her college for a class reunion (known as a "gaudy").
Here goes:
"'Detachment is a rare virtue...If you ever find a person who likes you in spite of it - still more, because of it - that liking has very great value, because it is perfectly sincere and because, with that person, you will never need to be anything but sincere yourself...I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel. It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.'
'Yes,' said Harriet, 'but I am one of them. I disconcert myself very much. I never know what I do feel.'
'I don't think that matters, provided one doesn't try to persuade one's self into appropriate feelings.'
'But one has to make some sort of choice,' said Harriet. 'And between one desire and another, how is one to know which things are really of overmastering importance?'
'We can only know that,' said Miss de Vine, 'when they have overmastered us.'"
-Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
So what has overmastered me? That is the question of the day. Rather, of the life. At least my life right now.
On the one hand, you can find inspiration in what others are saying or doing. You might be inclined to pick up a book that one of your best friends lists as a favorite, for example. Surfing FB also gives you the chance to appreciate the vastly diverse personalities, interests, and ideas that your friends and "friends" reflect.
But en el otro mano, it's easy to fall into the trap of comparing your profile with other people's - both on the shallow level ("Her profile is so cute and funny, and mine is so horribly boring") and on the more meaningful level ("That person sounds so interesting and deep, and my interests don't matter as much as his do").
It's this deeper one that hit me today. Looking at the spiritually, intellectually rich books that one of my friends likes made me wonder about my own tastes in reading, and my own tastes in life activities. I have the tendency to mentally transplant the interests, passions, and views (particularly political, but also spiritual) of other people into my own life; to expend much emotional energy wondering if my fellow humans are more "right" than I myself am, and to agonize over the value of my own passions in comparison with theirs.
This weakness is one of the reasons I love the following passage from Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers. The two speakers are Miss de Vine, an Oxford tutor, and Harriet Vane, an Oxford alum who has returned to her college for a class reunion (known as a "gaudy").
Here goes:
"'Detachment is a rare virtue...If you ever find a person who likes you in spite of it - still more, because of it - that liking has very great value, because it is perfectly sincere and because, with that person, you will never need to be anything but sincere yourself...I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel. It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.'
'Yes,' said Harriet, 'but I am one of them. I disconcert myself very much. I never know what I do feel.'
'I don't think that matters, provided one doesn't try to persuade one's self into appropriate feelings.'
'But one has to make some sort of choice,' said Harriet. 'And between one desire and another, how is one to know which things are really of overmastering importance?'
'We can only know that,' said Miss de Vine, 'when they have overmastered us.'"
-Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
So what has overmastered me? That is the question of the day. Rather, of the life. At least my life right now.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The future?
It's been a long time.
Soul searching has taken place.
Inner anguish has resulted.
Questions have ensued.
"What is the fate of my blog?" I ponder as I talk to my friend, crochet, and periodically watch little bits of Keeping Up Appearances.
Sadly, I do not have a clear answer. I have had ideas about what to do with this blog-thing, but for some reason I have trouble bringing to fruition the ideas that I entertain. Certainly when it comes to writing, I chicken and laze out, although I'm trying to do better at following through with ideas in other areas of my life.
Soul searching has taken place.
Inner anguish has resulted.
Questions have ensued.
"What is the fate of my blog?" I ponder as I talk to my friend, crochet, and periodically watch little bits of Keeping Up Appearances.
Sadly, I do not have a clear answer. I have had ideas about what to do with this blog-thing, but for some reason I have trouble bringing to fruition the ideas that I entertain. Certainly when it comes to writing, I chicken and laze out, although I'm trying to do better at following through with ideas in other areas of my life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
