How high is the signal to noise ratio that you expose yourself to every day? By signal to noise ration I mean the amount of useful information vs opinions, ads, memes and other material that most of us can get by without?
“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?” ― Isaac Asimov
Some of my best friends can be found on the printed page. Characters I’ve grown up with and have conversations with in my head. There are others who are newly discovered who speak to my heart. They keep on giving asking little in return except for my attention. They can occasionally remind me that I am not living up to the standards I have set for myself. Especially when the standards are based on their behaviour.
Books are also my teachers. There are so many authors from whom I have learned and I know I have a ways to go before I can match their understanding and knowledge. They not only have the gift of knowledge but the even greater (to me) gift of being able to impart that knowledge.
It’s been interesting putting these pages filled with my art for this past year. Some of the pictures I am quite happy with, others much less so. While sticking as close to chronological order as possible, I try to put at least one of the ones that I am totally happy with on each page. Usually I’ll put that one at the bottom so it will be the one featured when I post it on Facebook. Occasionally however I find myself torn as I’ll like and appreciate each of the three equally. I find myself with that quandary on this page.
“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.” ― René Magritte
Relationships are great when you’re in them. I refer not only to love and sexual partnership relationships here but to friendships, mentor / mentee and almost any other type of way that two beings can interact. I’ve learned a lot about myself by how I have been mirrored in the eyes / being of another. I’ve drawn strength from my relationships and given it as well and discovered that there are an infinite number of ways that people can interact.
I have also learned a lot from ending relationships that no longer work or having them ended for me. I have been attacked by those who claimed to love me and care about me (even more rarely done the attacking but that is another story). The most difficult thing I have had to learn is how to move on from relationships that have grown destructive.
Thanks at least partly to social media, two former lovers or former friends can put on quite a show. They attack each other viciously, verbally, snidely, magically and intensely, anything to keep the intensity of feeling going. It doesn’t matter that it has grown ugly and destructive, the point seems to be to keep it going. Too bad they fail to see the collateral damage. In ending one relationship, other relationships tend to fall by the wayside. After all, seeing how a person ends one relationship sheds light on how they will end one with you. Are they obsessive or proactively working to move on with their lives?
Are they using everything that was ever told in confidence against the other person or are they playing fair? Are they expecting friends to choose sides?
The fun in dysfunctional fades very quickly. I know that I would rather say “thanks for the gifts” and move on.
Some song lyrics to meditate on:
“Oz didn’t give nothing to the Tin Man
that he didn’t already have”
“We all need some reason to believe
(I don’t know about anyone but me)”
“I decided long ago
never to walk in anyone’s shadow
If I fail if I succeed
at least I lived as I believe”
It’s important to learn from as many other people as possible. As soon as you set someone up on a pedestal, their flaws become more apparent. If they climb on the pedestal, then they are acknowledging you are beneath them.
Definitely consult people who know more about a subject than you do. If you have medical questions, talk to the best doctor you know who has the training and experience and has become an expert.
If you want to learn a discipline, learn it from someone who has undergone the training and has experience in it. Give them the due respect for what they have learned. Yet know that that does not make them experts in all facets of even their lives, let alone yours. Everything that I have experienced in my life so far has led me to believe that I would not be a very good follower. It works better for me to seek and consult experts than it ever has for me to seek mentors.
I find that it is not only possible but necessary to hold several conflicting realities in my consciousness at any one time. Many would believe that this would be a path to cognitive dissonance. I don’t believe so. Dissonance tends to come in when you believe that two conflicting things “HAVE” to be true and that somehow there has to be resolution between them. I don’t live in an either-or reality preferring multiple choice. Somethings may indeed be black or white with no in-between but I find relatively few of those. Does that mean I live in a state of dissonance? Perhaps but if I do it seems to be a functional one.
Living Dead Tree by GAR
Within a Pattern He Tends to Business by GAR
Strange Mountain Boneyard with Faces by GAR
