Short #1 Tangles
If I had to describe myself at my happiest I would say that it's when I'm dead in the middle of unravelling a tangle. I find so much satisfaction in being handed a hot mess of problem and cautiously while confidently unwinding the thread. A pull here, a tug there, loosen- go back, under, over. You can't pull too hard, it will break or become inoperable. You have to have patience. Then when I have the tangle untangled my endorphins reign.
They say that learning happens in the "zone of proximal development". This means that if you already know a thing you aren't learning it. And if you don't know it you haven't learned it yet. There is this very fine gap between the known and the unknown in which learning happens. The Zone of Proximal Development. And once the acquisition happens, according to the MRIs, the pleasure center of your brain lights up and you get a feel good hit of natural chemicals. Our brains are literally wired to be addicted to learning.
In this life of mine I often land, quite purposefully, right in the middle of a tangle. Currently I am in the middle of a professional tangle. Purposefully. I have to say I am loving the challenge of working out the knots. Friday was a pretty rough day. But I took the weekend, regrouped and bounced back stronger. I castled queen side. It is my observation that I loose battles often, I'm just tenacious. And I play to win. So I win.
I am learning this thing. I am learning this thing well. My brain is flooded with endorphins. It feels good. A natural high.
I love my brain.
-Dewb
Short #2 End at the Beginning
It was a very boring night about 3 years ago when I decided to kill time by Facebook stalking. I spent an impressive amount of time looking up various exes and following rabbit holes. At the end of the night my Blog was born. My original blog. You see, I'm not into social media. I don't snaptafacetaintstabookgramchat my life because my life plays like a movie. It's almost unbelievable. To advertise it on a social media site would invariably feel like either bragging or extreme exaggeration. And I am incredibly private.
When I had spent that night on Facebook I walked away sad. I was sad because I felt like people that I knew and had loved felt the need to represent themselves in a way that would make them appeal to the masses. When I take the time to date someone I generally like them not for who the world thinks that they should be but because they are unapologetically who they are. When I saw them on social media I could see where they had blurred their distinctive edges in order to fit in. As a result I started writing. It was my answer to them not being themselves in the same venue in which they were hiding. Cyberspace. I never imagined that I would like blogging. But I did. It became my echo. (All of this is covered in my original blog, which has since disappeared...) I blogged 21 blogs there. That is why all of these are numerically the b sections.
I found myself on Facebook again last night. Firstly I was surprised that the account I thought that I had deleted was still around. Maybe FB deletion is impossible. Good for Zuckerman. Yet again I found myself Facebook stalking. And as was the case last time I walked away dismayed. I had found myself in a rabbit hole that I wasn't expecting and I was unhappy with the results.
There is something to be said for a person being the orchestrator of their own story. Of mystery. Of seeing photographs in albums and hearing the narrative that goes with it. I was able to virtually walk the life of a person via social media. -Sigh- I was even more disappointed in the apparent popularity of the person. I mean, I get it. You're hot and you're smart and you're well put together. Great. Bully for you. But to see all of that displayed so blatantly felt like a guided tour of a person's ego. Yelch. (Btw- who Facebooks anymore??? Still played.)
I had the same reaction to it this time as I did last. A need to write it out. To clarify for myself why I was so disappointed. Maybe it has to do with the tangles. If there is nothing for me to unravel why would I purposefully grab the yarn? To be dragged?? No Thank You. Maybe it has to do with my disdain for all things wildly popular. My hubris has dictated that my high brow taste can't possibly like what everyone else does (unless it's a classic. Like a LBD). So seeing the apparent popularity of person put me off. Maybe it's that I feel like if you need to broadcast your life- you're possibly seeking approval in a way that I don't want to have to validate. Confidence is too sexy for all of that. Maybe it's that I find social media shallow. I tell my kids that, "If they were your real friends you wouldn't need to facetaintsabooksnapgramchat them because they would be in the pic with you." Perhaps that's what I dislike the most- this constant need for validation. It's thirsty. I still believe it has created a society that would rather skim the top than dive deeply. And did I mention that it's thirsty?
I suppose that is why it bothered me so much. I thought the person was better than that. What a judgment. What does that say about me? What a snob I am. I will think deeply about thinking about working on it. Annnddd probably decide not to. :) It's also kinda double talk. I mean, I do blog. My high brow wants to point out that I get mad when I find out that people read my blog. I even blogged about it. 6b- Blog Dilemma. My id says it's all really the same.
Okay, okay, okay- So then what? I guess now I have to decide if the person I google stalked is a person that I will continue to explore (Funny, I didn't actually expect to find him. Maybe I should just stop Google stalking. Obvi solu right?). Now I have to determine if my blog, having come full circle needs to evolve again or just drop the b. Now I can lay my Facebook rant to rest- again. Swear it off- again. Try to delete my profile- again. It's time to end this where it started. With Facebook.
That's real ironic.
-Dewb
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