I could not have known or seen it save from the vantage point of experience and my later years but I have balanced my life and continue to balance my life, not by weighing my character or psychology in real time but by referring to the life chapters I have experienced and lived these last 6 decades.
Sure, I have idiosyncratic qualities, both good and bad, and these may define how others view or know me but running just below the surface is a variable that involves quite a different character development ebbing and flowing over the years.
For example, deep, deep down inside of me, I have uneasiness with being comfortable or content with my lot and, as a consequence of that self perception, I am a person who will end such pleasant but boring continuity by causing, forcing or encouraging myself to throw away such comforts just so that I may experience the adventure, the demands or the raw fear of starting over again.
Why do I do this? I think I pursue such an outlook so that I can test myself and learn more about the vehicle, the shell and the mind that I carry with me during this life. To feel the fizzing and popping of arcing thoughts creating new pathways inside the workings of my mind is an addictive intellectual stimulation
Recreation wise, I try seek to be briefed when tackling a fascinating challenge. This is because I like to address a problem from an entirely neutral (or first principles) position with few hints or clues offered me. I believe this allows me to experience a better learning memory when solving a problem. Sure, I’ll use a reference if needed but you don’t get to know about something properly merely by being told or by reading about it always. Sometimes you need to pull up your sleeves and dive into the guts of an issue first hand to truly learn anything about anything.
I’m not crazy though. I don’t throw away relationships, contracts or good things or kick away the bricks of my Maslow pyramid in some willy nilly fashion purely for the buzz or hit of having to start over. Nevertheless, though, I seem to enjoy having some, seemingly, insurmountable mountain to climb and that usually involves me reinventing myself somewhere along the line.
That’s the aspect I now recognise when reviewing the ‘me’ I have become today. Like all of us, I am a composite of the life experiences that has moulded al of us. Perhaps the only difference, if there is one, is the fact that I have driven that process rather than acknowledged the process passively with hindsight.
And the greatest trick, the greatest knack to learn these days, for me, is to face or do these things in a kind of calm, zen like fashion, without anxiety, without stress or frustration.
Surprisingly to some, who may view me as an effervescent or animated soul on the outside, I have actually developed a very calm and stable pragmatic view of life that, with some exceptions, enables me to bear considerable weight emotionally and psychologically when faced with, seemingly, impossible odds or challenges.
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