in such a world art | veg | academia | geekery

Three thoughts, three vacation days left, and a cold/confusing night.

1.  I just saw the movie Juno, and it was fantastic.  I have a soft spot for movies with well-written dialogue and complex characters … I find that usually those movies are based on books, since hollywood is sometimes short on creativity in the plot/character/writing department.  I noticed lots of smaller things in Juno that other people may not have, but I will spare the details since all of you should see it.  The point is, someone with abundant creative intelligence wrote this movie - and that is always refreshing.

2.  Ever since J and I set up the dresser in the bedroom (really all part of the same room since we live in an open concept bachelor apartment), I have been obsessed with redesigning the living room.  Every other piece of furniture just looks shabby next to the beautiful shiny-ness that is my clothes storage unit.  For the first time, I am having constructive ideas about what very specifically to do with the living room.  I want this rug in this exact colour and style from Flor, an IKEA  Kolsvik coffee table, a TV armoire/storage system MALM from IKEA to cover up the television that is ugly and which we never use, and a dining table like this that is compact and beautiful yet can expand to hold many more guests.  Keep dreaming, huh?  I still live as a student (and will soon be one again), but I like having specific and fanciful dreams.  I’m not even sure how long I will be in this snug space anyway, so for now I will have to be happy with my pretty dresser.

3.  I am often scared.  Of myself, of the future.  I never feel like a grown-up; I never feel like I really know what I’m doing.  I am always learning new things about myself that surprise me.  I feel like I often believe I know who I am but am really deluded - the most unusual and exciting things come out of me when I act intuitively… my subconscious knows many things I do not.  All I want is to become the person I am meant to be, and to be the best that I can at being who I am.  But how can I do that if I have no clue which direction I am headed in?  I keep falling into new paths backwards and upside-down.

Hi there! I found your blog awhile back by finding one of your photographs, and I was intrigued by your ponderances on life… and saw a similarity between you and me. So I subscribed, and I keep on getting reminded that it was a good choice!

This post was a really neat snapshot of your state of mind. I really feel the need to comment on #3, because I myself have recently been working on overcoming my confusion about my path/direction. What I realized is that I didn’t have any goals, and was thus just floating along through grad school in a direction that I wasn’t sure I wanted to go but I didn’t know any other possibilities that would work for me.

Until I really started to really actively think about it, that is. I made myself a mind-map with the center bubble asking, “What do I WANT?” and then out from there I drew up all kinds of things that make me feel happy, peaceful, and useful. And that was just the beginning!! I started looking at everything I was doing as a sort of precursor to what I was going to become, and how to keep it all in line with what I want to be, do, and experience. Things are still coming together, and I’ve barely scratched the surface in describing it in my blog(s), but I want to assure you that you too can figure out (or better still, DECIDE) where your path will take you.

Steve Pavlina’s blog can be helpful too, just search for “purpose” within its pages and there’s plenty of intriguing advice.