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Ronin's Randomness - 2/27/2009 6:23:41 PM

MasquedRonin

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I think that no matter what path one takes in life - whether it's to be married or single or to be a dominant or submissive - all the choices we make thinking they are correct will inevitably lead us to the Great Mirror of Ourselves where we stare into our souls wondering just how foolish we very well may be.

The line between distraction and fulfillment is thinner than most people realize; sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference, which I guess is part of what leads us to question ourselves. Is this who I am? Is this what I want? Am I doing the right thing - making the right moves?

In the end, I think I question more than most; I think I think more than most. Sometimes it's nice while other times it's...frustrating. Does thinking even hold any benefit, considering the cycle of mental meandering just seems to constantly continue? That's one answer I seem far from answering, maybe because it's hard to see a system from within. Maybe that's the hardest part about understanding ourselves.

< Message edited by MasquedRonin -- 2/27/2009 6:27:11 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/27/2009 7:06:00 PM

kiwisub12

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See - thats why i like quilting - at the end of it, i have a quilt in my hands. Physical evidence that i actually accomplished something.

(in reply to MasquedRonin)

Post #: 2

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/27/2009 7:28:36 PM

YoursMistress

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May I have a quilt too please? I have nothing in my hands and I'm afraid of what I might do if left idle and empty. Thanks.

yours

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As a rule, I don't like to make general statements.

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Post #: 3

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/27/2009 9:50:28 PM

Jeptha

Posts: 780
Joined: 9/18/2008
From: Portland, Oregon
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quote:

ORIGINAL: MasquedRonin
...all the choices we make thinking they are correct will inevitably lead us to the Great Mirror of Ourselves where we stare into our souls wondering just how foolish we very well may be...

I think my only foolish choices were when I did something that was destructive to others, or to a relationship.
But then, I'm not self destructive, so I don't have that particular problem.
I've mis-stepped a lot, but mostly because I was clueless moreso than foolish.
Not much I could have done about that at the time.
Experience was the teacher in those cases.

I may otherwise be foolish, but as long as it doesn't harm others, what's wrong with that?

My most foolish tendency is perhaps to waste time.

Of course; I *could* always resolve to get off my ass and do something about it.

And - it's easy to choose something that isn't so foolish: to help others, for example, is a very simple choice, and is not foolish.

And if I try and spend at least a little time being even marginally thoughtful...just calling mom, say...then I have some psychic capital accumulated that I can then spend frittering away the hours doing purely selfish pleasures, like beachcombing or staring at the clouds.
(And I don't know if those would be "purely selfish" pursuits; they harm no one, after all.)

Anyhoo, maybe the point is; why might one decide that one was particularly foolish, more or less or apart from any other person?

(in reply to MasquedRonin)

Post #: 4

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 1:47:38 AM

DeviantlyD

Posts: 4382
Joined: 5/26/2007
From: Canada
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasquedRonin

I think that no matter what path one takes in life - whether it's to be married or single or to be a dominant or submissive - all the choices we make thinking they are correct will inevitably lead us to the Great Mirror of Ourselves where we stare into our souls wondering just how foolish we very well may be.

The line between distraction and fulfillment is thinner than most people realize; sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference, which I guess is part of what leads us to question ourselves. Is this who I am? Is this what I want? Am I doing the right thing - making the right moves?

In the end, I think I question more than most; I think I think more than most. Sometimes it's nice while other times it's...frustrating. Does thinking even hold any benefit, considering the cycle of mental meandering just seems to constantly continue? That's one answer I seem far from answering, maybe because it's hard to see a system from within. Maybe that's the hardest part about understanding ourselves.

I'm with you in the thinking and questioning too much boat. I've found that I spend far too much time inside my head and not enough time outside of it just experiencing life and other people. I'm trying to do the latter more, but I've grown so accustomed to the former that it takes a conscientious effort to join the rest of the world. Of course, the one aspect of it all, questioning, is with me regardless of what sphere I'm present in. I have an insatiable curiosity and I can't see it ever ending. To be able to say to myself "okay, all my questions have been answered" is just not going to happen, because how could all my questions in life be answered? (Another question.)

To answer your particular question, I'm not sure the "mental meandering", as you put it (nice alliteration by the way ;) can be productive if it is consuming a big chunk of your time and taking you away from real life. The questions, on the other hand, I feel are more productive because to find the answers you actually have to get out in the world to find them. Sitting at home Googling doesn't always provide good or accurate answers.

I'm not sure I've responded adequately to your post, but it's late, I'm tired and I have to work tomorrow. Ah the dichotomy of being employed...on the one hand, I am grateful to be working and supporting myself...on the other, it's really interferring with living life! Especially the fun parts. ;)

(in reply to MasquedRonin)

Post #: 5

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 3:31:19 AM

InTonguesslave

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hindsight is 20:20 as they say.

teetering on the edge of 'shall i shant i - will i end up regretting this or enjoying this' is a necessary process - what will push you over the edge into doing something is the genuine desire to do it.

you can overthink something, yes. sometimes you have to get youre feet wet before you can honestly say, 'yep thats for me' or 'no it isnt'.

i could have talked myself out of loads of things in my life that seemed a bit crazy or downright stupid - but i was curious, i went for it and by and large it worked out, im still alive, im still ok.

at 20 something i told myself that i didnt want any regrets when i die - ok, a bit unreaslistic - but i have taken every opportunity that has come my way for that reason. i dont ever want to look back and wonder if id denied myself something just because it pushed me out of my present comfort zone.

sometimes i just switch off that little voice and jump in - sometimes you just have to. and i dont mean jump into a fish pond full of sharks - i mean, measure it up, yes. think it through, yes. and if it still feels like something youll benefit from, grow from or just enjoy on a very basic level or settle some level of curiosity in you, then go for it.

i read an authors quote sometime ago, forget who - who said, if i think a book through too much then i lose the desire to write it. i think thats true in life generally too.

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RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 5:32:30 AM

DesFIP

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It can be very helpful, if you're stuck in circular thinking, to have a professional guide you in the process. They ask the tough questions at the right time. Perhaps you ought to consider it.

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Post #: 7

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 10:22:53 AM

MasquedRonin

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I'm twenty-six years old and have done things people go their whole lives dreaming of doing; the last year of my life has been spent living in Taiwan. Before that I was almost married to a woman I thought was "it" only to have my heart crushed so bad that even two years later the idea of a relationship still makes me sick. My first job was as a professional reporter when I was only fourteen, the same year I started my first profitable entrepreneurial adventure and got into BDSM. When I was sixteen I fully restored a sailboat from the middle of last century. I once created a trader's guild for the black market in the city I was living in. Two degrees, countless career possibilities, a baker's dozen of moves in two decades...I've seen forty-five states and seventeen nations, if you count colonies. But I spend too much time on-line and watching TV. Too much time being lazy. The highlights of anyone's life can sound exciting and grand to the outside observer, but to the one living it, it's just life.

For me, focusing on the great stuff is the key, and most of that is everyday stuff. Enjoying riding my motorcycle, not thinking about the fact that the reason I'm riding more is because I don't have a job. Ever been unemployed in a country where you don't speak the language? If you think working in a country where you don't speak the language is exciting...hahaha In the last month I've been to both the city of Hong Kong and the beaches of the Philippines; my life could be a lot worse. It's important to love what you do, just being here, right? Cooking good food and watching people enjoy it - having a good conversation after not talking to anyone in almost a month - the feeling when something happens exactly the way you saw it in your mind. It's those little things we think are so trivial that turn out to be the best stuff in life. You wonder if you knew it was the last time you would see them smile, if you'd have appreciated it more.

It's not just some mental walkabout in which I'm constantly engaged, though that most certainly exists. Unfortunately the more my real journey continues, it slams me with sensory overload, and between my elevated anxiety and decreased latent inhibition, it can all get very...complex. Needlessly, I might add; plenty of people seem to live perfectly happy lives without traveling the globe and contemplating existence as a whole as well as their own place in it. In the end, I just have no idea what I'm doing, despite a significant amount of evidence to the contrary. And I wonder if I'm alone, you know? You wonder how many people who did great things did so thinking, with at least some justification, that they didn't have a fucking clue what they were actually doing. All the while people around them said, "Oh, this is extraordinary," as they stood there thinking, "No...this is luck."

Existence itself is like this tightrope between fate and chaos, I think. Maybe the key is that I keep thinking it's all random when really, I'm supposed to be right here, staring into that mirror wondering why I'm so interested in looking so close. Do the details matter or is the entire picture irrelevant? I don't know. I don't even know what a proper response to any of this is. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore.

It's 0230 on the Pacific Rim, the same latitude as Havana, and I've got a girl waiting for me in my bed.

You kids be good.

< Message edited by MasquedRonin -- 2/28/2009 10:31:38 AM >

_____________________________

memories of the past
are no more real than
visions of the future

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Post #: 8

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 11:27:41 AM

pdv99

Posts: 140
Joined: 3/13/2007
From: UK
Status: offline

Ya born, right? And then ya die.

Best you can do is pack in loads of stuff in between.

Sounds like you have done plenty of interesting stuff already - so you certainly haven't been wasting your life. It's all experience. Give it another 20 or thirty years and you'll get some perspective, and be able to work out which of those things was valuable, which were meaningful, which you should have learnt from but didn't. Hindsight is good for that. All I'd say is "try to do no harm to others". It's what you are most likely to regret later.

(in reply to MasquedRonin)

Post #: 9

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 12:26:55 PM

kiwisub12

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When i was 21, i pulled up roots and moved to America.

When i look back at who i was then, i wonder where i got the courage - and what the hell was i thinking????!!!!!

I don't recall thinking very much about the whole thing - but i must have done a bit of the old cerebral exercise. The thing is, when you are actually doing something it doesn't seem that big. Same with quilting - you start one block at a time, and before you know it, you have finished something amazing. But if you start by looking at the finished product, you may well be so intimidated that you would never start.

(in reply to MasquedRonin)

Post #: 10

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 7:18:42 PM

DesFIP

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From: Apple County NY
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I'm confused. You say you've done all these amazing things but at the same time you admit that two years after a relationship broke up, you are still afraid of getting close to anyone. You go a whole month without having any real connection with another human being. You are suffering from sensory overload and anxiety.

So why is this a wonderful life for you?

There are people who would be made happy by this. It sounds as though you aren't one. You seem to think that living in 45 different countries automatically makes you better than someone who stays where he is born. That isn't true. Some people are like trees, and need to have their roots planted deeply. If you uproot them, they aren't going to do well. Others are like the wind and do need to keep moving. The important thing is to know which you are.

You admit you aren't happy doing what you're doing, so why not do what would make you happy instead?

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Slave to laundry

Cynical and proud of it!

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Post #: 11

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 2/28/2009 10:12:05 PM

IronBear

Posts: 9008
Joined: 6/19/2005
From: Beenleigh, Qld, Australia
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Stione the bloody crows, By the time I was 30, I'd already acvhieved in some areas more than i could have dreamed of (Thanks to the military and Vietnam), mow at 64 and disabled I'm looking at a new adventure of moving interstate and buyinmg a 200 acre farm and becomming a farmer growing Walnuts, Chestnuts, hazel nuts with a second grove of wallnuts with black truffels attached and for immediate cash for the farm start both rabbit farming (after gaining a meat uinspector's licence, and mushroom growing. No neighbours close and lots of open spaces. Crazy? hell yes. Immediate income" no there will be a ten year wait for the main income from the fatrm which will be owned by a company registered on the British Virgin Islands.. Fun and hard work" Too bloody right and I'm looking forward to it too.. You'll see the whole picture mate in a few years. Not an age thing but with life experience over say another 20 years you can sit back and reflect how you might have done better and how you could have done a whole lot worse too..

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Master of Bruin Cottage

http://www.bruincottage.org

Your attitude, words & actions are yours. Take responsibility for them and the consequences they incur.

D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F.

(in reply to DesFIP)

Post #: 12

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 3/1/2009 10:40:54 AM

Jeptha

Posts: 780
Joined: 9/18/2008
From: Portland, Oregon
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasquedRonin
... Is this who I am? Is this what I want? ...

Good questions.

I don't know if your further writing served to elucidate that or obscure it, though.

Those questions are very simple, very straightforward. But the answer always seems to be some combination of yes and no.

My version of that line of enquiry is "Am I happy?".
(thought I might as well ask "Is this who I am? Is this what I want?")

The answer is yes and no ~ I compromise a good part of the time.
I would not work if I had independent means, for example. Still - I get enough rewards out of the work experience to make it acceptable...at least for now.

And then, I laze around part of the time because pursuing what I really want requires a bit of stuff to get up and make it happen.
In that sense, I have to actually make resolutions, keep notes, set goals, mark it on the calendar, etc.

That tends to be the stuff that makes me feel the most "me", though; the stuff I think about and then try to put into action.

Even if the project doesn't turn out to be as rewarding as had been hoped; then the lesson is that maybe that wasn't "me" after all. But sometimes no matter how much forethought you put in, you don't know until you try.

< Message edited by Jeptha -- 3/1/2009 11:07:49 AM >

(in reply to MasquedRonin)

Post #: 13

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 3/1/2009 10:49:39 AM

MasquedRonin

Posts: 6
Joined: 7/7/2007
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesFIP

I'm confused. You say you've done all these amazing things but at the same time you admit that two years after a relationship broke up, you are still afraid of getting close to anyone. You go a whole month without having any real connection with another human being. You are suffering from sensory overload and anxiety.

So why is this a wonderful life for you?

There are people who would be made happy by this. It sounds as though you aren't one. You seem to think that living in 45 different countries automatically makes you better than someone who stays where he is born. That isn't true. Some people are like trees, and need to have their roots planted deeply. If you uproot them, they aren't going to do well. Others are like the wind and do need to keep moving. The important thing is to know which you are.

You admit you aren't happy doing what you're doing, so why not do what would make you happy instead?

I basically said exactly that same thing in couple of sentences...

quote:

...between my elevated anxiety and decreased latent inhibition, it can all get very...complex. Needlessly, I might add; plenty of people seem to live perfectly happy lives without traveling the globe and contemplating existence as a whole as well as their own place in it. In the end, I just have no idea what I'm doing...

I never said I was better than people who weren't like me. In fact, I think I said that many people who live completely different lives than me can seem happy. And I'm not exactly miserable, either; I'm just questioning where I'm at. I am where I am because of that and so far my questions have served me well. Travel or no travel, my mental condition would continue; whether or not I've completely gotten over a traumatic break-up doesn't define my existence. But, whatever you see is what you see.

_____________________________

memories of the past
are no more real than
visions of the future

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Post #: 14

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 3/1/2009 10:50:35 AM

FullCircle

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Chinese proverb: It's important to be able to step out of yourself so that you may scratch your back.

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∞ ﮒuקּƹɼ ƾɛϰưϫԼ Ƨωιϯϲћ.

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RE: Ronin's Randomness - 3/1/2009 10:52:07 AM

MasquedRonin

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Joined: 7/7/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jeptha

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasquedRonin
... Is this who I am? Is this what I want? ...

Good questions.

I don't know if your further writing served to elucidate that or obscure it, though.

Those questions are very simple, very straightforward, and they deserve a (fairly) straightforward answer. (Like first of all, a 'yes' or a 'no', which then may be followed by any length of circumambulation, justifying ourselves to ourselves, etc.)

Simplicity is a matter of perspective, I think. But I think I'd agree. Especially about my writing. Clearly it's not for everyone. :)

_____________________________

memories of the past
are no more real than
visions of the future

(in reply to Jeptha)

Post #: 16

RE: Ronin's Randomness - 3/1/2009 11:12:47 AM

Jeptha

Posts: 780
Joined: 9/18/2008
From: Portland, Oregon
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasquedRonin

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jeptha

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasquedRonin
... Is this who I am? Is this what I want? ...

Good questions.

I don't know if your further writing served to elucidate that or obscure it, though.

Those questions are very simple, very straightforward, and they deserve a (fairly) straightforward answer. (Like first of all, a 'yes' or a 'no', which then may be followed by any length of circumambulation, justifying ourselves to ourselves, etc.)

Simplicity is a matter of perspective, I think. But I think I'd agree. Especially about my writing. Clearly it's not for everyone. :)

I edited my answer to make it all kinds of convoluted!
I think my "happy?" question is easier to answer, because you can feel that. The other questions require some excursive writing because they aren't so easy to know right away.

(in reply to MasquedRonin)

Post #: 17

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