Driving behind someone
In part I look for a message of hope.
I woke this morning and felt unavoidably me. Wishing I could control who I am better. My stepmom told me yesterday that no one can control who they are.
I walked to Starbucks and then home again. Felt so childlike like I wanted to reach out and be consoled in my sense of powerlessness as if 'the other who I called' had a better sense of reality. I know in some moments we can get derailed and in fact need a compatriot to help remind us of the stabilizing things.I thought about how each of us, men or women can lose a sense of our personal power and so seek the consolation of philosophy or religion or each other, seeking a sense of hope.
I see in myself a bravado at times, of passion or ego, and yet know I have to be humble, in order to respect who I am and my true abilities (not blinded to them) to survive and also respect the others in my life, my relationships. To an extent I know we're all fallible. My metaphor that I'm thinking about is like when we're driving. There's a speed limit and we consciously have to adhere to it even if we are alone on the road. We may feel super liberated and disregarding of the limit because we are alone. And then when we're driving behind someone it's much easier to adhere to the speed limit as they are setting the pace and so unavoidably we have to adhere to the limit and the other. That dynamic is what I am seeing for myself in my life.
I need to find something to pour my energy into and yet also know I've got realities, responsibilities and obligations.
Replies
Beautifully written Mark, you have such a skill. Have a good weekend.
Thanks Rich!
well said, indeed, markus questionarius. bravo bravo! ! !
just how much can i actually control? so far, no amount of wishing or cosmetic makeovers has allowed me to wake up a different person. no amount of badgering seems to change my loved ones into who i think they ought to be. people (myself included) keep on doing vicious things to one another, no matter how many tech enhancements i put on my soap boxes.
what's a know-it-all to do? ? ?
i, too, use the driving visualizations for meditations on my control issues. i don't worry about legalities in my own analogies. i worry only about arriving safely without hurting the world around me. 60 mph in crowded parking lots is ill-advised. ditto for attempting to speed up the slowpoke ahead of me by nudging vehicles by the bumper. triple so for jamming my brakes to a sudden stop for getting the tailgater behind me out of my tail pipe. i'll bet you dollars to wishes that the moron in the car that cut me off didn't hear a word of my colorful driving lessons. etcetera, etceteri. my efforts to control the other cars on the road don't seem to do much more than distract me from driving safely. THAT i CAN control.
Thanks Arfie!!
just thinking about stuff. I think for anyone it would be a challenge to spend so much time alone.
It's not that something is wrong with me that I feel so despondent and lonely - it's that I have to fill my
day up with good things to do! :)
Love the amazing “driving” analogy! Enjoy the rest of your day!
i do bear that in mind when i envy your alone time, markus. when i have had as much alone time as you are currently getting, the isolation was, indeed, a challenge. two axioms come to mind when i envy your problem of being alone too much with unhealthy amounts of unoccupied time on my hands.
1) the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. for what it's worth, my donkeys know the grass really is, literally, greener on the ungrazed side of the fence, but. . . note to self. . . don't go literal with axioms.
2) balance in all things. methinks that one speaks for itself.
Thanks
I fed like calling my therapist. I sense that I may have become too dependent on her. I find myself watching tv and thinking the folks on the shows know ‘what’s right’ when in fact that is what they want you to believe . And so I realized that indeed I want to call my therapist because I think she will set me straight about what’s right. Cue self reliance and flexibility light bulb!