Appearances

If people don't judge, why am I nearly always asked, "Why are you wearing a tie?"

I think appearances usually have only one of two aims: to conform or to stand out. There is a third outcome, that of 'no aim' - simply a 'whatever I feel like'.

I actually do think about how I'm going to dress myself depending on who I'm going to meet, mostly along the lines of "How well do I know them?", "How do I best present myself in a way that I will be accepted?"

General rule of thumb: the more ridiculous I look, the more familiar and hence comfortable I am with person(s) and/or situation.

Now this kind of makes me look shallow.

I'd like to suggest that it's not. Really.

A chef would seriously think about how food is presented, because the smell and the look of food would be in one's mind before what it actually tastes like, and we're not even going into how healthy it is or how much it costs here. So many things to present, from the very first impression. All important.

Feel free to replace "chef" and "food" with whatever you can connect with better.

So you want people to know you? What you think, feel, believe? And care?

One of many revisits

A perspective I usually have. As articulated by someone with talent and practice in articulation.

I know; this is lazy.

Humility

Takes a bite out of your being.
Washes away the cloying sweetness of acheivement.
Hits where it hurts.

Allows for His strength to be strong.

My mind

This. And this. And this.

Interesting. I have to hold these at bay ALL THE TIME when I start talking and thinking too much.

I feel like I can't really write. Or think. Or speak. Or feel. Yet I presume to teach sometimes.

When is humility just crushing self defeat? When is pride just quiet confidence?

Ah. Who can deliver me from this body of death indeed.

It really is You.

the noblest cause

may i suggest that it is to educate. about right now you're thinking: so this guy wants to be a teacher. well as for that career choice (teacher in the general sense not the very specific classroom warrior) i haven't completely ruled it out and don't feel the need to hide my passion for it behind the veneer of 'i think this is so uncool, thus i am cool', but that's not what i'm trying to get at.

perhaps i am too obsessed about knowledge and the thrill of knowing, but is there anything better than passing on what you know to be true to another person? what about passing on HOW you know truth? the aim here then, is very obviously to educate not instruct, if i may dare suggest a difference between the two that i hope people understand. i have an aversion to instruction, which is sad really, because instruction does have its place and when there are opportunities i think i waste them.

the reason i don't 'like' instructing in the sense where i tell someone 'the right thing (to do)' is not because i do not believe in 'right'. in fact i believe in Right. i seem to value the honest process it takes to come to a conclusion about Right possibly because it has made the most impact for me.

in this sense then, i have never really regarded anyone as being my personal teachers. apologies to anyone who may be offended. i more or less have learned from these people and/or sources available to me and kind of cannibalise parts of ideas everywhere and make them my own because i believe ideas taken wholesale cannot be refined and will never be called one's own until one has taken it apart, stared at the insides, and reverse engineered it. sort of like how taking a mechanical object apart and putting it back together gives you a sense of ownership. i was going to say "watch" but then i find that the very good example of stripping and assembling a rifle is already within my understanding and experience. there are many like it, but this one is mine and all that.

also another analogy i like to use about ideas and the taking ownership of them is that of a baby. you know how the most common reaction to them would be how cute they are? well it doesn't really have any real meaning or gravity unless the person in whom the reaction had been elicited from has woken up at 3am to soothe the baby back to sleep or worked to earn the money to pay for the diapers which the person will have to change and dispose of a few minutes prior to lunch. cute baby huh.

this is why i do what i do i guess.