An interesting thing happens when a group of people comes together to work. A dynamic must be formed. You can't escape it. It happens between co-workers, classmates, friends. The dynamic has to happen. I've questioned over the last two months whether or not this was the right idea. I am a pretty private person. I should rephrase that in to saying that I enjoy my personal time. I recharge better that way. There was a very real understanding that my world was going to be shaken up and that I would have to face some things about myself that I may not be accustomed to realizing in my every day life, but there's been this growing practice that I've proportionately growing a resentment towards: people who have some unrecognizable need to give there opinions, unbidden, to fix other people.
Speaking on my own behalf, for there is no other behalf to really speak on in the realm of personal experience, I feel like I've been on the receiving end of this lately. Now I realize that I am far from a prefect person; I'm a generally contented one, but I know and recognize my flaws and embrace them like they were my strengths.
During the course of the past few weeks within the class there's a lot of talk like, "Hey guys, let's not be late; let's be prepared; 'we' need to do this to be be respected; 'we' need to change".
In my life, outside of class, it's been happening quite a bit as well, "You have jaw tension; you blog too much; you're ridden with insecurities... etc." Unbidden. It's one thing for me to receive an opinion that I don't agree with from a peer when I ask for it, but to get them for free is another thing entirely. It makes me quite cross.
I don't know if it's because everyone is on a highly stressful environment where they are examining themselves and they feel the need to correct others. I don't know if art schools attract petty, quibbling assholes. It might be six of one...
I have my own opinions of how people operate, how they might improve themselves, but I usually keep them to myself unless asked (and even then I am reticent to share, because most of the time I don't want to get into some protracted debate about someone's state of being).
I stand somewhere in the realm of not giving a shit and knowing that I, at the end of the day, cannot control anything outside of my own skin. In fact, I can hardly control anything inside my own skin. Biology usually wins out there. What I can control is how I respond to situations that occur and make the best of how to work with people that have different outlooks and modes of operation. God knows there are people who intellectually outshine me on a second-to-second basis, I suppose I assume they are the quiet ones. It might be a remnant of a childhood lesson that the amount volume of an idea perfectly blanches out the lack of thought used to generate it.
There have been plenty of times in my life when I really thought that I had my shit figured out. Coinciding with those times, now and then, were periods where I felt obligated to assist everyone around me to find their way to my high road of awesomeness. As I got older I realized that I don't know. I probably never will. I'm just as lost as the other six billion people on the planet, and I'm totally fine because, like them, I'm finding my own way; it may not be the perfect way, it may not be the way that others approve of, but it's mine. You don't have to like it; you're not obligated to agree. We can still be friends.
Reading e-mails and being part of the conversation, I feel the need to scream out that one person's just doing what they do in the best way that they know how to do it. We're all on the same journey, but maybe not on the same path, and it's not my job to mind other people. I've got enough on my plate minding me.
"To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him."
- Buddha
Everything is fair game.
-Nix
Speaking on my own behalf, for there is no other behalf to really speak on in the realm of personal experience, I feel like I've been on the receiving end of this lately. Now I realize that I am far from a prefect person; I'm a generally contented one, but I know and recognize my flaws and embrace them like they were my strengths.
During the course of the past few weeks within the class there's a lot of talk like, "Hey guys, let's not be late; let's be prepared; 'we' need to do this to be be respected; 'we' need to change".
In my life, outside of class, it's been happening quite a bit as well, "You have jaw tension; you blog too much; you're ridden with insecurities... etc." Unbidden. It's one thing for me to receive an opinion that I don't agree with from a peer when I ask for it, but to get them for free is another thing entirely. It makes me quite cross.
I don't know if it's because everyone is on a highly stressful environment where they are examining themselves and they feel the need to correct others. I don't know if art schools attract petty, quibbling assholes. It might be six of one...
I have my own opinions of how people operate, how they might improve themselves, but I usually keep them to myself unless asked (and even then I am reticent to share, because most of the time I don't want to get into some protracted debate about someone's state of being).
I stand somewhere in the realm of not giving a shit and knowing that I, at the end of the day, cannot control anything outside of my own skin. In fact, I can hardly control anything inside my own skin. Biology usually wins out there. What I can control is how I respond to situations that occur and make the best of how to work with people that have different outlooks and modes of operation. God knows there are people who intellectually outshine me on a second-to-second basis, I suppose I assume they are the quiet ones. It might be a remnant of a childhood lesson that the amount volume of an idea perfectly blanches out the lack of thought used to generate it.
There have been plenty of times in my life when I really thought that I had my shit figured out. Coinciding with those times, now and then, were periods where I felt obligated to assist everyone around me to find their way to my high road of awesomeness. As I got older I realized that I don't know. I probably never will. I'm just as lost as the other six billion people on the planet, and I'm totally fine because, like them, I'm finding my own way; it may not be the perfect way, it may not be the way that others approve of, but it's mine. You don't have to like it; you're not obligated to agree. We can still be friends.
Reading e-mails and being part of the conversation, I feel the need to scream out that one person's just doing what they do in the best way that they know how to do it. We're all on the same journey, but maybe not on the same path, and it's not my job to mind other people. I've got enough on my plate minding me.
"To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him."
- Buddha
Everything is fair game.
-Nix
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