No-Name Thread
 

Like little ol' Miss Reese Witherspoon, "I'm jus' tryin' ta matter!" (yeah, that makes me gag.)

I'm finding it difficult to matter. I look around and I see people with all sorts of confidence, plans, road maps, talent, brains, courage, heart, ambition, etc., and I wonder: do they have deep chasms of doubt? Canyons of terror? Do they ever peer into the Great Abyss and see themselves?

And, if they do, is it critical that they never, ever, ever tell? Is part of being 'together' to never admit to fear?

People don't usually want to hear complaints. Unless it is their own.


Can you give more examples? When you look around is it at real people or text? I ask because text is decieving. It is the equivalent to a talking brain in a bottle. The emotions, personality and appearance become secondary when in reality or in our daily lifes it is the first thing that touches us. The thing that binds one person to another.
It isn't the cold intellectual discourse behind shuttered eyelids we don't normally hear day to day.

So I was wondering which perspective you were referring?

it's interesting that you post this now, because i have been thinking about just the same thing a lot recently.

i've always had this secret suspicion that everyone else has this "game plan" that they're following to the letter that will lead them to ultimate success and happiness. no one ever seemed to truly doubt where they were going/what they were doing, and everything seems like sunshine and blue birds for them. thinking like that has the effect of magnifying your own self doubt and robbing you of your confidence. i've always had this feeling like i've just now discovered a new "right" way to live and that i'm always catching up to the crowd.

i've been thinking about things like this more now that i've just gotten out of a long term relationship, probably because of all the self examination that ensues after something like that. oddly enough, despite going through the break up - or maybe because of it - it feels like i'm getting over this line of thinking for the first time in my life. having the benefit of great friends who have opened up to me and taught me to open up to them has shown me that everyone suffers from these fears, whether they want to show it or not. and NOT showing it is a killer, i think. suppression of it, and other emotions, leads to a lot of worse things.

i think that, when applied in a healthy measure, doubt is a good thing. it leads to further introspection and growth, and managing to overcome it and make a decision strengthens the spirit, regardless of the outcome. just my two cents. :)

I liked that part the most :)



@Brianna
One night I looked into the abyss and saw my choice.
I can muddle along the best I can. Or not.


p.s. The abyss is swallowed up by light. Like a great worm hole of light into nothingness. I think I was dying. I almost didn't want to post that Brianna. No one would care or believe it. I just wanted you to know that I agree. Nothing yet everything matters.

Sorry, I've a bad habit of being too vague! I am referring to real people, the ones you see and interact with daily--maybe co-workers, or fellow students, other parents or neighbors, your supervisor(s). I've worked with some people who always acted like they were in on God's Great Plan for Mankind even when they did stupid, unspeakable, disasterous things. I see these kids in class at university-they are so sure of themselves. I feel ridiculous. I feel uneducable. I feel plain silly. Like, whatever it is that I do, it won't matter.

Bottom Line: am i just an unusually fearful quivering mass of green jell-o, or are others just a hell of a lot better at hiding their true feelings?

oh my god *tears *


I can only feel.

You are seeing things from multiple vantage points and I would say that they are either just hiding feelings of insecurity too or that they just plain have thick cow hide as skin.





Seeing things from this vantage point you have can feel vulnerable. Do not let your feeling dictate your self worth. You are more than your intellectual, spiritual awknowlegement.


My son. He sounds so much like you. I've had to teach him to not look in the faces of other people to find worth. To accept other people who maybe less intune or even stupid.

He is teaching himself the guitar. I am a wannabe poet. Something to funnel all that into and make it something beautiful.


When you focus on that instead you'll feel glad you are different?? On a different level that is. Prehaps artistically inclined. Are you an artist?

I wish I could say more but I have to go to work. Yes, there is alot of people who feel like you more often than not.

Maybe you are too young to appreciate Rush but their lyrics keep comming into my mind.

Limelight

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage.

Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact.

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem.
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation,
Get on with the fascination,
The real relation,
The underlying theme.

Living in a fisheye lens,
Caught in the camera eye.
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend.

All the world's indeed a stage
And we are merely players:
Performers and portrayers,
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage.




I feel lame at times too. Like now trying to help and feeling ineffectual.

There is no need to concern yourself with mattering. And its also ok not to have every freaking minute of your life mapped out fifteen years in advance. Believe me, there is a lot to be said for not locking yourself down inside a flow chart. Live your life however you want to - the only person you have to explain yourself to is you.

We all have moments -or even periods- where it feels like we missed the train. It'll pass. Don't fight it - accept it and let it run its course. Later, when your strength returns, use it as motivation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you that a shot of tequila won't fix.

Seriously, though - we've all pulled over at some point and had a look into the abyss hoping somebody or something would tell us where the hell we were or which way we were supposed to go while we scratching our head's looking at everyone else pass by who seem never to have had a doubt in their entire lives. Bullshit. Everyone has an appointment with the abyss sooner or later.

Better to stare into an abyss than out of one. You're just paying a toll, nothing more. See you on the highway soon - if you see me pulled over, toss me a beer.

I love Rush :) You've helped me, sky. Any time someone posts something heartfelt, it helps. thanks. I'm off to school where all the beautiful 20-somethings live and god, to be 20 again!

beestie--YOU seem especially like one with his shit together. I'll toss you a cold one anytime.

If you only knew, Brianna.

I think I understand your question, Brianna.

I'm the kind of person who just kind of goes with the flow in life. I've planned nothing. I got the job I'm in because I started temping here to make some cash, and then they offered me a job. Then I moved up through the ranks, totally going with the flow. When I think about my career's future, it scares the crap out of me, so I don't think about it much. Probably not the most mature thing to do, but I'm gainfully employed, so why not? It's comfortable here, even if I'm not on a rocket shooting up the ladder. Honestly, I'll probably be stuck in middle management for the rest of my life.

In my personal life, I met this really cool woman many years ago, and it was very easy to hang out with her. So I just kept doing that, and pretty soon we ended up married. One terrifying decision I had to make was when she wanted to have kids, and I was still unsure. But she slowly worked on me, and then I was finally ready. That's probably the hardest choice I made in my life. At the time, I actually made the comment to a friend that making the decision to have kids was kind of like building up the nerve to jump off a high diving board into a pool you know is cold. The reason I was afraid was that I knew the kids would change everything, but I didn't know what it would be like. Making that choice is exactly the kind of choice I hate to make. Of course, I now have to make the obligatory, but true, comment that I'm glad I did it.

My whole life is basically about not making any of those important life changing decisions. It's working out for me. Over my life, I've made a bunch of small incremental decisions that have led to where I am now, and I'm comfortable here. If I was at a point in life where I wasn't comfortable, I'd be forced to start making some real life changing decisions, and I wouldn't like it. But I would do it.

I'm not sure how this applies to you, but you have been making a lot of changes in your life lately, and the future is probably this big scary blank slate. Of course you are unsure.

Also, remember that a lot of those people with all the confidence really have no business being so confident. Think of George Bush. :)

It's excellent to have courage, heart and ambition. Anybody who has them all the time is either fronting or not paying attention.

As for plans, they're great to have...as long as they are achievable, don't have too far distant a planning horizon and are not set in concrete. As Von Motlke said, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." If circumstance requires you to modify your plans, you can't score that as a defeat. Or you'll feel defeated a lot...which is hard on the "courage, heart and ambition" department.

Having prioritized goals is more important than having detailed plans. Being willing to modify those priorities is important too.

Not having doubt would put one in that "not paying attention" category I mentioned above.

But to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, I would think that the only thing worse than peering into the Abyss and seeing yourself would be peering into it and not seeing yourself.

Yeah, I've been there.

Oh wait, no, I still am.

Ultimately you have to convince yourself that all the other turkeys are putting up fronts. If they aren't worried they're either stupid or not paying attention, like Maggie said.

The "front" is the thing, as Stevedallas said.
Keep your wits, and look past the facade your asshole coworkers play their drama with.
(i don't know why I'm posting here, I don't know you;
... but you're where all compassionate, compatible, and conscientious human beings should be regarding)

i agree. could you imagine going through your life being convinced that you had everything figured out 100% and then coming upon the realization that you don't (and no one does, i don't care who they are) at some point you consider "too late"? that's when you hear about people jumping off of bridges because they lose their jobs or shooting a cheating lover. there is nothing more dangerous than rigid thinking, and doubt is one of the things that keeps us flexible.

i'd go as far to say that keeping an open mind, being open to change and the idea that the way you're doing things is "wrong" is one of the things that leads us to ultimate happiness, because it keeps us searching. dunno. i hope my babbling helps. :)

There's a plan? Where was I when they passed out the plan? I've been working off of Vonnegut's philosophy "I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all..."