what a week. late shift, lot of hard work and immovable deadlines...do or die. i have done better this time around than ever before. my intensity level is not what it should be, but my involvement and temperament along with making the most of the time i had with the family and friends made it just about as good as it could have been.
someone once told me that i need not worry to much about the quality of my work when at a particular job site. i was fussing over some imperfections and being my meticulous self. he just went and said it. " man, its a turd. you know what? you can clean it, polish it, you can do just about anything you want to it.... but when your done its still gonna be a turd"
i really dont agree with that advice. not most of the time. i feel like someone should always make the most of what they have. but in some cases i feel like i can relate. even if your nature is to make the most of the turd. its probably a healthy perspective to at least call it what it is. i mean reality is sobering sometimes. and when your feeling down, and your doing everything you can and still its not enough, it helps to take a step back and look at it for what it is. and maybe.... just maybe, you will see that its ok that you cant do more. maybe you just cant because your doing what you can with what you have and your expectations are just unrealistic considering the circumstances.
this week was a turd. i made the most of it. i wish it was better. but its all i had to work with. in the end, i am just ecstatic to look back and see what a great week it was despite any hardships.
now im ready to crash. watching the steelers game and chillin with the missus. hoping im recuperated by the morning in time for work.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Mattitude!
so i pulled into the "24 hour" steak and shake. i was greeted by a clerk who informed me they had just closed... its 2:45 and i want a shake and your a 24 hour store thats only open till three and your lights on the highway sign and your closed?
"uh, yeah..."
k, thanks for nothin.
so i go to taco bell and get what i didnt want and paid more than i wanted for it. on my return trip i noticed the now fully closed steak and shake where the employee who greeted me before was standing in front of his open hood and shaking his head. i parked my work van in the adjacent lot where i was working and he shouted over, "got any jumper cables?"
"OH! im sorry.... i do have some but they like just closed dude. slow night."
happy trails sucka:)
Monday, September 28, 2009
my attempt at stripping...comic stripping :-)
so its rough, but im trying it on for size. i am really fond of the name and i think i can do a lot with it unless someone has already claimed it of course... should probably check into that. but any who, i am going to work on some character modification and maybe try to develop a few common places in which they may appear. havent decided yet but im thinkin no dialogue. so with out further adieu i give you My Sentiments Exactly
apparently if you click on the images you will see an enlarged photo. as i do not have a scanner, digital photo will be the means of publishing for now. the basic idea is a family with common family drama and or classic candid moments that simply have no barriers. most families should be able to relate in some way but im guessing most could say...my sentiments exactly. we'll see. maybe look forward to one every two weeks or so. as time permits. this was just something i thought of this afternoon. and conveniently i was home from work.
until next time.
mattitude
apparently if you click on the images you will see an enlarged photo. as i do not have a scanner, digital photo will be the means of publishing for now. the basic idea is a family with common family drama and or classic candid moments that simply have no barriers. most families should be able to relate in some way but im guessing most could say...my sentiments exactly. we'll see. maybe look forward to one every two weeks or so. as time permits. this was just something i thought of this afternoon. and conveniently i was home from work.
until next time.
mattitude
Saturday, September 26, 2009
unconscious consciousness
the title is my current and perhaps mostest favoritest google status yet. periodically it changes. either because a fellow gmailer has posted something witty which demands an attempt at an equally clever response, or i simply am tired of the old one. this one fits.
i was thinking this morning, as i lay in bed reflecting on my dreams from the night, that during the day i almost feel like im dreaming despite my obviously alert state. i intelligently interact with the world around me (most of the time), i use dangerous equipment and drive vehicles, and care for little people. i accomplish just all sorts of things that require movement of my person and even more so appropriately responding when encountering the environment surrounding me.
while i make a good show of my mental presence, i can assure you that i am more often than not in some other place doing something totally obscure. for example, when my wife frequently relays to me things she finds interesting or important she tends to do it in very long periods of time. i find that when she begins her tales i am very much with her. however, much later in the conversation or even at the end i find that im still back at the beginning where we started. i call it a conversation because she talks, i talk (respond appropriately) and so on until its all over. then when i realize that i just missed everything but the first minute of dialogue i confess to her my absence and we have the conversation all over again. and theres no garuantee that i stick around for the second go at it either.
then there are times when she will say to me something and i will think in my head what i want to say. and even think that i said it. unfortunately i dont realize that i have not responded until she has already begun to talk to her self and left me in the dust. " look, see what i did for you? isnt it nice?" she says. "yes thanks very nice" i think. "yes dear, oh i love it! you did this just for me? oh you are so great honey!" she says to her self. "well i thought you would like it." she says. " oh, i do very much, im just so impressed by your hard work and motivation." she says again to herself.....then im back. "What?" i cant help but wonder who shes talking to cause i know it aint me. so she informs me, "well i asked if youd notice what i did and you didnt say anything so i just started talking to myself." " i told you yes and i thought it was nice! what more do you want?" i defend myself. "no you didnt you just sat there." she claims...
so you see, while i am awake more than any other person i know, and perform various complicated and skillful tasks on a daily basis, while also being responsible for the well being of multiply children at any given time, i tend to be a little spacey.
the funniest part to me is the type of things i wander to. its seemingly random, but usually has some sort of ties to something going on around me. if not the conversation i am not aware of then something in my environment that sparked a chain of thoughts that lead to something i could hold on to. for instance, chris is talking about some beans in a soup shes never heard of and she might like to try to make sometime, that makes me think of the beans that the kids planted from the beans they picked off of the beans i planted this spring and how amazed i was that they actually grew, then i began thinking of my silly little garden and the summer we had and how well it did despite the weather, which made me think wow, what a mild summer it was, and then i felt a little smug about all the global warming crap, and then finally i remembered a little portion of a video i recently previewed which explain the relation of the moon to the circulation of the earths water, and the earths water plays a major role in regulating the our surface temperature by absorbing heat from the sun. isnt it funny that the scientist are putting so much concern into the fact that ice is melting in the polar regions (supposedly). if there is that much ice up there that its melting would cause global flooding. and the earths temperature is rising due to rising temperature from the suns "sun spot activity" then wouldnt it only make sense that the earth melt some ice create more water and control the rise in temp. (this would mean that despite the rise in the suns temperature and our ice melting the surface temperature of the earth would only tend to vary slightly in effect) also if the sun did slow in sun spot activity (which it seems to be doing according to the latest reports) then it would only make sense that the resulting even cooler temperatures would then cause ice making in the polar regions and therefore more ice and less water........MATT! ....huh?....." i said what are you thinking about" chris says again when she finally breaks through.
so then im left to explain. usually i just say something like, oh you dont wanna know, but that doesnt usually fly either, so then how do i explain how i am thinking about the sun and scientists and non man made global warming and cooling cycles and my uneducated opinion of them?
speaking of dreams.. i was speaking of dreams earlier wasnt i? my dreams dont have a lot of meaning from what i can tell. most of the time i can even give a logical explanation for their content. but sometimes i cant. sometimes its just random bits of stuff that dont make sense and i chalk up to dreams. interestingly though, seemingly random and inexplicable dreams revisit me in my consciousness further down the line. surely you have had dejavu. i think everyone has experienced it at one time or another. you visit someplace you've never been but its familiar, or you do something you know youve never done but when your doing it you remember something like youve done it.
i have experienced times when i thought i was having dejavu only to then remember that it wasnt something i thought i had done or someplace i had been, but something i had dreamt. ready to be really weirded out. after realizing something seemed familiar from a dream, and realizing i wasnt having dejavu, the dream now seemed very clear and present and i just sat and watched happen what i knew would happen as it was happening because i had dreamt it before and was remembering it now and watching it in amazement as it was happening.... just to be clear this isnt a case of observing the recalling then reasoning. this is observing, recalling, waiting and expecting a specific outcome and watching it take place exactly as i expected it would. when the dream to my recollection stops, so does the seeing of the future stuff, and its over. nothing tragic or significant has ever happened during these instances, and i cant explain it any better nor do i know which dreams it will be or when it might happen. i am just so curious about why this happens and what causes it. if i hadnt experienced it i might have said it was impossible... or at least been skeptical as to why it would even happen if werent at all significant. i dont suppose there is any reasonable explanation. but i hope to find others with similar experiences who might share some input. perhaps it is more common than i think, or maybe there are far weirder experiences than mine. i must say that while it draws the fullest of my interest i realize it is a topic that has the potential of drawing the fullest of weirdos out there and so i dont often talk about it to strangers. in this case there are only a handful of people who actually read my blog and im not concerned about your leaving my high and dry or you telling me that aliens give you dreams about the future so i feel relatively safe.
maybe i should give it a rest now. perhaps next time i will have a cartoon to offer. the latest and greatest in floyd toonage. later
i was thinking this morning, as i lay in bed reflecting on my dreams from the night, that during the day i almost feel like im dreaming despite my obviously alert state. i intelligently interact with the world around me (most of the time), i use dangerous equipment and drive vehicles, and care for little people. i accomplish just all sorts of things that require movement of my person and even more so appropriately responding when encountering the environment surrounding me.
while i make a good show of my mental presence, i can assure you that i am more often than not in some other place doing something totally obscure. for example, when my wife frequently relays to me things she finds interesting or important she tends to do it in very long periods of time. i find that when she begins her tales i am very much with her. however, much later in the conversation or even at the end i find that im still back at the beginning where we started. i call it a conversation because she talks, i talk (respond appropriately) and so on until its all over. then when i realize that i just missed everything but the first minute of dialogue i confess to her my absence and we have the conversation all over again. and theres no garuantee that i stick around for the second go at it either.
then there are times when she will say to me something and i will think in my head what i want to say. and even think that i said it. unfortunately i dont realize that i have not responded until she has already begun to talk to her self and left me in the dust. " look, see what i did for you? isnt it nice?" she says. "yes thanks very nice" i think. "yes dear, oh i love it! you did this just for me? oh you are so great honey!" she says to her self. "well i thought you would like it." she says. " oh, i do very much, im just so impressed by your hard work and motivation." she says again to herself.....then im back. "What?" i cant help but wonder who shes talking to cause i know it aint me. so she informs me, "well i asked if youd notice what i did and you didnt say anything so i just started talking to myself." " i told you yes and i thought it was nice! what more do you want?" i defend myself. "no you didnt you just sat there." she claims...
so you see, while i am awake more than any other person i know, and perform various complicated and skillful tasks on a daily basis, while also being responsible for the well being of multiply children at any given time, i tend to be a little spacey.
the funniest part to me is the type of things i wander to. its seemingly random, but usually has some sort of ties to something going on around me. if not the conversation i am not aware of then something in my environment that sparked a chain of thoughts that lead to something i could hold on to. for instance, chris is talking about some beans in a soup shes never heard of and she might like to try to make sometime, that makes me think of the beans that the kids planted from the beans they picked off of the beans i planted this spring and how amazed i was that they actually grew, then i began thinking of my silly little garden and the summer we had and how well it did despite the weather, which made me think wow, what a mild summer it was, and then i felt a little smug about all the global warming crap, and then finally i remembered a little portion of a video i recently previewed which explain the relation of the moon to the circulation of the earths water, and the earths water plays a major role in regulating the our surface temperature by absorbing heat from the sun. isnt it funny that the scientist are putting so much concern into the fact that ice is melting in the polar regions (supposedly). if there is that much ice up there that its melting would cause global flooding. and the earths temperature is rising due to rising temperature from the suns "sun spot activity" then wouldnt it only make sense that the earth melt some ice create more water and control the rise in temp. (this would mean that despite the rise in the suns temperature and our ice melting the surface temperature of the earth would only tend to vary slightly in effect) also if the sun did slow in sun spot activity (which it seems to be doing according to the latest reports) then it would only make sense that the resulting even cooler temperatures would then cause ice making in the polar regions and therefore more ice and less water........MATT! ....huh?....." i said what are you thinking about" chris says again when she finally breaks through.
so then im left to explain. usually i just say something like, oh you dont wanna know, but that doesnt usually fly either, so then how do i explain how i am thinking about the sun and scientists and non man made global warming and cooling cycles and my uneducated opinion of them?
speaking of dreams.. i was speaking of dreams earlier wasnt i? my dreams dont have a lot of meaning from what i can tell. most of the time i can even give a logical explanation for their content. but sometimes i cant. sometimes its just random bits of stuff that dont make sense and i chalk up to dreams. interestingly though, seemingly random and inexplicable dreams revisit me in my consciousness further down the line. surely you have had dejavu. i think everyone has experienced it at one time or another. you visit someplace you've never been but its familiar, or you do something you know youve never done but when your doing it you remember something like youve done it.
i have experienced times when i thought i was having dejavu only to then remember that it wasnt something i thought i had done or someplace i had been, but something i had dreamt. ready to be really weirded out. after realizing something seemed familiar from a dream, and realizing i wasnt having dejavu, the dream now seemed very clear and present and i just sat and watched happen what i knew would happen as it was happening because i had dreamt it before and was remembering it now and watching it in amazement as it was happening.... just to be clear this isnt a case of observing the recalling then reasoning. this is observing, recalling, waiting and expecting a specific outcome and watching it take place exactly as i expected it would. when the dream to my recollection stops, so does the seeing of the future stuff, and its over. nothing tragic or significant has ever happened during these instances, and i cant explain it any better nor do i know which dreams it will be or when it might happen. i am just so curious about why this happens and what causes it. if i hadnt experienced it i might have said it was impossible... or at least been skeptical as to why it would even happen if werent at all significant. i dont suppose there is any reasonable explanation. but i hope to find others with similar experiences who might share some input. perhaps it is more common than i think, or maybe there are far weirder experiences than mine. i must say that while it draws the fullest of my interest i realize it is a topic that has the potential of drawing the fullest of weirdos out there and so i dont often talk about it to strangers. in this case there are only a handful of people who actually read my blog and im not concerned about your leaving my high and dry or you telling me that aliens give you dreams about the future so i feel relatively safe.
maybe i should give it a rest now. perhaps next time i will have a cartoon to offer. the latest and greatest in floyd toonage. later
Monday, September 21, 2009
antique roadshow
its 230 a.m. and i am not tired. i worked a good amount today. not too much not too little. i piddled in the yard and played at the park with my younguns and our friends. put the kids to bed and already posted a blog. and here i am, everyone has been asleep for hours. i settled into my space on the couch and flipped through the channels and totally expected to turn in for the night. but my eyes just wont stay closed.
so while i seem to have had a full day and anticipate a 14 to 16 hour day tomorrow i cant tell you how concerned i am that i am not sleeping. i typically dont sleep well. but i do sleep. and when i dont sleep i start to act sort of funny. not funny haha but funny wacko. my already short attention span is exaggerated and im easily distracted. i think about the usual stuff but in greater detail. its like having the radio on and blaring out to your favorite songs, you hear people talking but you cant hear what they are sayin. even better is when i find myself amusing. so amusing that i laugh out loud. and then laugh harder because i laughed out loud and then i cant stop laughing and then by the time its over i am laying on the floor drooling and still nobody has a clue whats happening. i tried once to explain what was so funny, and it wasnt so funny. you know how good it feels when someone who shares your sense of humor encourages you to just keep going but everyone else is like " its not that funny" its kinda like that but you are the one telling the jokes and laughing and no one else gets it.
wow that was just random and i have no idea where i was going with that.
right i get distracted easily. funny. k.
its nice when you forget how you got somewhere to just look back and find the path you took.
its just charming the convenient products they advertise on late night television. are people who view late night television just stupid or are they so tired that they are dooped into buying this crazy stuff. its like hey we have one dollar bills for sale here, AND THEY ARE GREEN! but hurry act now because supplies are limited. if you hurry we will send you two of these fabulous dollar bills for just two easy payments of 14.99. how about the religious people. they sing you a song and ask you if you need more money. then someone comes and gives a testimonial..." i needed four hundred dollars to pay my house rent and i didnt have it. but i saw benni prayin on the tv and he said if i just sent him five hundred dollars that jesus would provided for my needs. and so i sent him my five hundred. i had to sell my car and my blood to get it but i planted a seed and i have faith that somehow some way i will have the four hundred dollars i need to pay my rent so i dont have to make my kids sleep under a bridge.
so basically you have got antiques and poker. the roadshow is awesome but also a little offensive. your wondering how you night be able to save up the money for that new ...... you saw and would make your life a lot easier. then some kid comes in a goes hey i found this in the garage and they are like hey "thats worth a million dollars" but wait" that shirt you are wearing, its from 875b.c. and its worth five trillion dollars" just not right.
i must say this post will fall into the category of like worst blog ever. but it entertained me during my sleepless late night tv watching and i rather enjoyed just spilling out what ever came to mind. so now at 344 i am going to grab a snack and sit here and ponder a bit before trying again to sleep for at least a couple of hours.
if i think of anything profound i will be sure and notify you asap. until next time....
so while i seem to have had a full day and anticipate a 14 to 16 hour day tomorrow i cant tell you how concerned i am that i am not sleeping. i typically dont sleep well. but i do sleep. and when i dont sleep i start to act sort of funny. not funny haha but funny wacko. my already short attention span is exaggerated and im easily distracted. i think about the usual stuff but in greater detail. its like having the radio on and blaring out to your favorite songs, you hear people talking but you cant hear what they are sayin. even better is when i find myself amusing. so amusing that i laugh out loud. and then laugh harder because i laughed out loud and then i cant stop laughing and then by the time its over i am laying on the floor drooling and still nobody has a clue whats happening. i tried once to explain what was so funny, and it wasnt so funny. you know how good it feels when someone who shares your sense of humor encourages you to just keep going but everyone else is like " its not that funny" its kinda like that but you are the one telling the jokes and laughing and no one else gets it.
wow that was just random and i have no idea where i was going with that.
right i get distracted easily. funny. k.
its nice when you forget how you got somewhere to just look back and find the path you took.
its just charming the convenient products they advertise on late night television. are people who view late night television just stupid or are they so tired that they are dooped into buying this crazy stuff. its like hey we have one dollar bills for sale here, AND THEY ARE GREEN! but hurry act now because supplies are limited. if you hurry we will send you two of these fabulous dollar bills for just two easy payments of 14.99. how about the religious people. they sing you a song and ask you if you need more money. then someone comes and gives a testimonial..." i needed four hundred dollars to pay my house rent and i didnt have it. but i saw benni prayin on the tv and he said if i just sent him five hundred dollars that jesus would provided for my needs. and so i sent him my five hundred. i had to sell my car and my blood to get it but i planted a seed and i have faith that somehow some way i will have the four hundred dollars i need to pay my rent so i dont have to make my kids sleep under a bridge.
so basically you have got antiques and poker. the roadshow is awesome but also a little offensive. your wondering how you night be able to save up the money for that new ...... you saw and would make your life a lot easier. then some kid comes in a goes hey i found this in the garage and they are like hey "thats worth a million dollars" but wait" that shirt you are wearing, its from 875b.c. and its worth five trillion dollars" just not right.
i must say this post will fall into the category of like worst blog ever. but it entertained me during my sleepless late night tv watching and i rather enjoyed just spilling out what ever came to mind. so now at 344 i am going to grab a snack and sit here and ponder a bit before trying again to sleep for at least a couple of hours.
if i think of anything profound i will be sure and notify you asap. until next time....
reckoning
i have always heard it said, "a day of reckoning". in my particular case i will have to say it has been more on the order of months.
i have noticed a trend in my life. its called having children. the mrs. and i are quite good at this particular feat. even more than the actual having of children i have noticed that after each child reaches a certain age, about one, i begin to want more children. this has not been a problem until recently when we decided that perhaps we would not have more children. its not definite. and theres always the unplanned pregnancy ( that i can secretly hope for, except that i realize this is a blog and therefore not a means for keeping secrets even if they are in parentheses) but despite our wants, we have issues like money and housing and health and miscarriage and blah blah blah that we face and kinda sorta lead us to try to be responsible thinking adults when making a decision like having more children.
at times i wonder if i am crazy, times like now when my children all fight the inevitable bedtime and sleep. screaming and crying and fighting to squeeze just a few more minutes out of the day. i know that when they scream incessantly and every fiber in my being cringes and i stare numbly into a wall and wait for silence or go into to shock and fall unconscious... which ever comes first, that i must actually be crazy to desire any more of this chaos. i wake up the next morning hoping against my wifes wishes that just a couple of the kids will wake and visit me before i trek off to work for the day. and then while at work thinking of all im missing and how the youngest is just so old already at one yr and that we do surely need just one more.
each child is just so awesomely perfect and completely unique and make my life just that much more full of joy. and while i understand the reasoning for not having 50 children i cant help but feel like im missing out on so much.
well back to this reckoning. basically my story goes like this. bad guy meets girl, gets saved then married then starts having children. thats what i have been doing the last seven years. the big problem i am struggling with is not the possibility of no more little ones, but what in the world to do now that i am probably done having babies. after all thats what i do. we have babies, raise them to little children and have more babies.
but now theres no more babies and a whole lot of uncertain and untraveled territory ahead me.
my latest assessment of my current status in life is this. i am a kid in my mind, only an adult by age and only driven to be responsible by my intensely passionate need to be everything i can to my family. failure is not an option. i am immature and easily draw by temptation and daily struggling to keep it in between the lines. by every measurement i am where i ought to be, doing what i ought to do. but not because its who i am but its what i have to do. and therein lies the completely vulnerable and bare naked center of me. thats not who i am. i have said many times over i dont know who i am. i know who i should be because the bible tells me. and because other godly men are examples for me. but as for who i am. well let me tell you i have not a d@mn clue and it scares the living daylights out of me...(what is that supposed to me anyway? living daylights, thats just stupid. )
if anyone could tell you who i am and do it fairly accurately it would be my wife. she knows me like any spouse knows the person they live with everyday of their lives. but, when i complain about my self she only encourages me and tells me about the good things i should be focusing on... i know what a stick in the mud huh? yeah so i guess i cant complain there but what im trying to say is despite the fact she knows me probably better than myself she refrains from mentioning anything critical or reproachful, which undoubtedly helps my very low self esteem but in turn gives me a very inaccurate picture of myself due to her biased and filtered feedback.
so in my months of reckoning (i promise not to use that word again) i have have come to some conclusions. while that is not to say i havent more analyzing and searching to do, i have in fact rested upon a few things.
1. i do not know what is immediately ahead of me, but i do know what is ahead of me.
2. i do not know how i will get there, but i do know how i will find my way there.
3. i am not mature, but i am learning discipline, which is essential to maturity.
4. i am not the best husband, but i am a good husband and desire be more.
5. i am not the best father, but i am a good father and i desire to be more.
6. i am not the best christian, but i love God , have redemption through His Son, and recognize him as the source for these little nuggets of wisdom.
in conclusion i find that whereas my seemingly endless introspection gives me more questions than answers, and i am left with the determination that i know next to nothing about me or life, there is one who knows me entirely and can reveal to me knowledge and understanding if and when it is necessary.
it may not seem like a lot, but it gives me hope in this time of uncertainty. if there is one thing i have learned its that what you know and what you feel do in every respect stand alone. KNOWING that God is in control and that he loves you despite knowing every flaw about you is still hard to rest on when you FEEL fear and guilt and hopelessness. reminding myself its ok to be uncertain and assuring myself of why its ok to be uncertain will be necessary to my forward progress into the unkown.
i have noticed a trend in my life. its called having children. the mrs. and i are quite good at this particular feat. even more than the actual having of children i have noticed that after each child reaches a certain age, about one, i begin to want more children. this has not been a problem until recently when we decided that perhaps we would not have more children. its not definite. and theres always the unplanned pregnancy ( that i can secretly hope for, except that i realize this is a blog and therefore not a means for keeping secrets even if they are in parentheses) but despite our wants, we have issues like money and housing and health and miscarriage and blah blah blah that we face and kinda sorta lead us to try to be responsible thinking adults when making a decision like having more children.
at times i wonder if i am crazy, times like now when my children all fight the inevitable bedtime and sleep. screaming and crying and fighting to squeeze just a few more minutes out of the day. i know that when they scream incessantly and every fiber in my being cringes and i stare numbly into a wall and wait for silence or go into to shock and fall unconscious... which ever comes first, that i must actually be crazy to desire any more of this chaos. i wake up the next morning hoping against my wifes wishes that just a couple of the kids will wake and visit me before i trek off to work for the day. and then while at work thinking of all im missing and how the youngest is just so old already at one yr and that we do surely need just one more.
each child is just so awesomely perfect and completely unique and make my life just that much more full of joy. and while i understand the reasoning for not having 50 children i cant help but feel like im missing out on so much.
well back to this reckoning. basically my story goes like this. bad guy meets girl, gets saved then married then starts having children. thats what i have been doing the last seven years. the big problem i am struggling with is not the possibility of no more little ones, but what in the world to do now that i am probably done having babies. after all thats what i do. we have babies, raise them to little children and have more babies.
but now theres no more babies and a whole lot of uncertain and untraveled territory ahead me.
my latest assessment of my current status in life is this. i am a kid in my mind, only an adult by age and only driven to be responsible by my intensely passionate need to be everything i can to my family. failure is not an option. i am immature and easily draw by temptation and daily struggling to keep it in between the lines. by every measurement i am where i ought to be, doing what i ought to do. but not because its who i am but its what i have to do. and therein lies the completely vulnerable and bare naked center of me. thats not who i am. i have said many times over i dont know who i am. i know who i should be because the bible tells me. and because other godly men are examples for me. but as for who i am. well let me tell you i have not a d@mn clue and it scares the living daylights out of me...(what is that supposed to me anyway? living daylights, thats just stupid. )
if anyone could tell you who i am and do it fairly accurately it would be my wife. she knows me like any spouse knows the person they live with everyday of their lives. but, when i complain about my self she only encourages me and tells me about the good things i should be focusing on... i know what a stick in the mud huh? yeah so i guess i cant complain there but what im trying to say is despite the fact she knows me probably better than myself she refrains from mentioning anything critical or reproachful, which undoubtedly helps my very low self esteem but in turn gives me a very inaccurate picture of myself due to her biased and filtered feedback.
so in my months of reckoning (i promise not to use that word again) i have have come to some conclusions. while that is not to say i havent more analyzing and searching to do, i have in fact rested upon a few things.
1. i do not know what is immediately ahead of me, but i do know what is ahead of me.
2. i do not know how i will get there, but i do know how i will find my way there.
3. i am not mature, but i am learning discipline, which is essential to maturity.
4. i am not the best husband, but i am a good husband and desire be more.
5. i am not the best father, but i am a good father and i desire to be more.
6. i am not the best christian, but i love God , have redemption through His Son, and recognize him as the source for these little nuggets of wisdom.
in conclusion i find that whereas my seemingly endless introspection gives me more questions than answers, and i am left with the determination that i know next to nothing about me or life, there is one who knows me entirely and can reveal to me knowledge and understanding if and when it is necessary.
it may not seem like a lot, but it gives me hope in this time of uncertainty. if there is one thing i have learned its that what you know and what you feel do in every respect stand alone. KNOWING that God is in control and that he loves you despite knowing every flaw about you is still hard to rest on when you FEEL fear and guilt and hopelessness. reminding myself its ok to be uncertain and assuring myself of why its ok to be uncertain will be necessary to my forward progress into the unkown.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
breaking things
i was doing some reading and there was presented a question that begged my attention. i have long thought on this topic previously but to no end. basically what draws us, with our differences, together?
i cant speak for everyone nor do i believe it to be universal truth. but in my own investigations i have concluded:
1. while people with similar personalities obviously have similar interests in common, they also have similar flaws in common.
2. people with incongruent personalities, despite their difference in expression or analyzation, tend to compliment one another in areas where flaws exist.
i believe the scope is larger than just personality. it is the person at their base.
basically i give you two categories, things that fit together and things that go together.
on the level of personalities, you have a picture of like personalities "going" together, and unlike personalities "fitting" together.
in the first case the two appear exactly the same. each being particularly strong in the same areas a through f. the lettering representing desirable attributes of a person.
in the second the two are polar opposites. seemingly incongruent.
however when comparing the two sets as a pair rather than individually in comparison to each other you find that the results are reverse.
the before incongruent set when aligned in their respective categorical results make up more of a complete and well rounded set where as the other are even more disproportionately staggered.
alone, each person shows categories in which they excel and those which they fall well short. none are well balanced.
furthermore in the case of persons in relation to one another the "go" together category is even more strong in those areas with common traits while falling even shorter in their weaknesses.
there is the saying "opposites attract". and i believe there is some truth to this thinking. while you may be more likely to enjoy someone for the things you have in common than the things you dont. it is the person opposite from yourself who is going to be stronger and more experienced in your areas of weakness.therefore complimenting you.
as for the persons at their base, i will suggest to you that regardless of the labels we give ourselves, we are each complicated and intense reactive individuals. each with an entirely unique perspective that no one on this earth shares or can comprehend. and while we all show certain tendencies, our potential is not finite. God can and will use us to what ever effect necessary as he sees fit. and you will surely find in godly relationships, marriage to be sure, fruitful gains regardless of personality. but he created some to be feet and some to be hands. and we all will work together as one.
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