mh, navel gazing stuff
was thinking about the first noble truth
Essentially change will happen no matter what. Suffering will happen no matter what. I *am* going to age and die, my body *will* be or become what I would rather it not, a lot of both positive events and negative in my life would occur no matter what, because they're outside anything I control. My brain will connect up those two things to yield "change will bring suffering," the root of conservatism, which I know doesn't work on an external level far more than I know this is true internally.
Except some change "is supposed to" work, because of investment in ego. I would like to believe that I am good, smart, not a complete hack artist, etc, and that tries to make sense out of my effort and active suffering by saying it pays off.
For both a highly materialistic and highly moralistic society "pays off" is supposed to mean "considered good therefore valued fiscally therefore able to enjoy a high standard of living including independence." And yet as two examples, my expensive but never employed college education paid off in allowing me to build a much fuller personal life as well as be fairly happy despite the massive amount of depressive self-loathing I faced, those first years in Ann Arbor. My drawing has at best made me only a little money and recognition, but has also saved my life and I feel helped deal with PTSD at a physical level, given the connection of memory-making and spatial awareness.
re: mh, navel gazing stuff
While up last night I ran into art by someone about their mother, and how their mother's similarities and age reassure them that things can work out for them. I now feel a certain amount of my personality - anyone's personality - is to say "I am different from you," which is something familiar to me from art. I have to say at some level, no I don't draw like Iain McCaig or Claire Wendling, I draw like me instead, but that is all right too.
Similarities are a passive assurance that I'm on the right track (I figured this out by studying my heroes and I trust it's worthwhile) so differences get really caught up with how this could be the WRONG direction. Driven home by being separated off to be bullied; driven home by catastrophizing; driven home by being handed dogmatism; worst of all, being driven home by being taught I am innately stupid, unlikable, evil, incompetent, ugly, etc SUCH THAT any different route I might take is doomed to failure.
And yet of course life isn't a toggle switch, again, there's no guarantee that if I zig instead of zag, wonderful friends and fabulous riches will follow. One example that comes to mind, when I found a list of Jewish Olympians and a not small number of them went from being literally the best athletes in the world to dying as traumatized prisoners in the 30s and 40s. Etc etc.
re: mh, navel gazing stuff
Again, my analogy is;
I have been trained that if I strive to be (or if I am, my upbringing was real big on the idea of making it to the top through innate virtues) X Y and Z and do A B and C, then 1 2 and 3 will happen, when in reality is more like;
I am X and Y but maybe also J instead, I can maybe do B but don't get to do C and as a result do H instead, and external events L M and O happen, which means that maybe I get 1 and 2, but only for a short time, or maybe I get 3 and that gives me enough confidence to do K which leads to other stuff, and maybe I wind up at 1, 15, and 23 instead.