Something funny happened to my lock jaw a couple of weeks back. It had steadily been getting worse, to the extent that I couldn’t eat things like apples that required wide mouth-opening.
Then, one morning, I woke up, and found that that side of my jaw was really painful, as if it had been through a very traumatic, perhaps violent incident. Since then, the pain has slowly faded, and now, it doesn’t really hurt at all. But, the odd thing is, I can’t ‘click’ it anymore. What I’m thinking is that that night the joint jumped back into place, or perhaps out of place, or something like that. I think it was a good thing.
It’s not back to normal though. Now, whilst it doesn’t hurt, it does make a noise like a creaky bed. A bit odd, but quite nice to be reminded of *Twinkle* every time I eat breakfast.
We talked today. That was nice. Been so busy this past week we’ve not been in touch so much. Hhhmmm. I feel very close to her.
I’ve been feeling a little disturbed this week by the extent to which we are robbed of our selves through the socialisation process. As children, we are not afraid to express ourselves, and we do not care about the opinions of others – and then look at us by the time we enter college! Is this a necessary evil? Yes, I think it is – but only to a certain extent. I think we take it waaay too far.
“Inside, we’re beautiful diamonds. Then, as we grow up, we bury ourselves in horse shit. Finally, in order that other people like us, we put a coat of nail varnish on top of the horse-shit, and live our lives with our true beauty hidden from the world, under a protective gloss coat and insulated by horse shit”.
I was thinking tonight that perhaps one outcome of a Steiner education is a slightly thinner layer of horse shit. I don’t know much about anthroposophy in education, but I do know that one aim of a Steiner education is to nurture the inner child, with less of a focus upon academic achievement. Perhaps it does encourage children to not feel so in need of horse shit.
I was also thinking tonight about the Daily Mumble’s role in my personal attempt to cast off the nail varnish and coat of manure. It’s been truly instrumental in helping me along the road towards abandoning attempts to look pretty in the eyes of others. I can vividly recall my reaction to negative comments received in late 2006 – it was positively painful to read that others (whom I respected) thought I was very mistaken, stupid even, and that they thought I was making a fool of myself. More recently however, I’ve been able to process those kinds of comments in a far less serious manner – these are just the opinions of others, and they have no more weight than my own words. To try and live up to the expectations of others is possibly one of the most miserable (unobtainable) fates one can choose for oneself.
Whilst the person I’m thinking about hasn’t commented for many months, I now feel that were they to re-appear, I would no longer spend hours mulling over what they said and feeling dark. Those who deliberately set out to un-constructively criticise or hurt aren’t worthy of such respect in the first place – why aspire to please someone who works out of fear and antagonism?! (I’d just like to assure Anon that I am not referring to you here either. You are my nice little fluffy devil’s advocate whom I love very much, and I know that secretly you are Louise Hay).
I was thinking though, if I picture my friends (all 2 of them), I can’t actually think of that many people who are overtly pessimistic and often advertise a severe lack of faith in their own abilities. Perhaps it’s a case of very good applications of nail varnish on top of the horse shit, or perhaps they never accumulated the social coat of manure in the first place.
Anyway, I can see I’ve chipped a bit off my right knee – best patch it up before I turn the light off.
The Internet is both a bad and good place to expose yourself and find personal growth. While it provides a wide and diverse audience with the capability to enlighten you, it is also, to some extent, populated by people who are bored, angry, and pessimistic. Even those who tend to be even-tempered tend not to say anything if they have something good to say and always say something if they have something bad to say or disagree.
I’m convinced after years of dealing with people both on the usenet and my blog now that part of the reason is that the most active participants in verbal battles are overwhelmingly male and there is a high sense of “competing” to be “right” and many sense they have accomplished something in how they disagree with you or argue. I’ve also found the most hostile and most likely people to toss up straw men arguments (essentially, arguing with what they extrapolate from what you say because it’s easier to attempt to make you look “wrong” by doing so, even if you never said what they are implying).
It’s good that you’re coping better with such people, but, frankly, I find it tiring after awhile as it’s really a reflection of various ego-based needs in many cases rather than a wish to make a counter-point.
Yes, I agree, I’ve noticed that tendency too. Not so much here, but more on forums and the such like, where what appears to be real aggression arises over trivial matters, resulting in great streams of back-and-forth posts as both participants have to get the final word in and be ‘right’.
And yes, a great deal of negativity too. I suppose that’s partly a reflection of the general tone of events that the media choose to report, which overwhelmingly, are ‘bad news’.