I Can See That You Were Right About This Place

Hm. Another one of those moods is on me, it appears. What's important? What is it I truly want? Am I doing the right thing here?

I'm doing a good thing, of that there's no doubt. But I have another 18+ months to go. I've made some friends, but is that really enough? I had a hard enough time in DC, since I didn't have sufficient social outlets, can I really take this? I don't want to end up dependent on the internet for sanity. That's not healthy. It just reinforces feelings of isolation/loneliness. Work helps, though. Something to do, something to throw myself into, occupy my brain with the "now" as opposed to the past/possible futures.

I've talked with my program staff, and this sort of attitude is apparently normal - winter means less sunlight, which means any tendencies towards SAD come through. I don't think I'm anywhere near there, but I think I do need more social time than I've been having. Or, perhaps, different social time. Social time where I don't feel like I have to suppress part of who I am (due to lack of vocabulary, possible alienation, what have you). Regardless, I'm trying to find a balance between contact with my old life and forging connections that will make the new life easier.

It's times like this that I understand the tendency of Eastern Europeans to drink heavily.

But, that's just another escape, isn't it? Instead of seizing the day, you seize the bottle. What does that get you?

A liver that hurts and a spotty memory is what (in addition to whatever good times you might have had along the way).

If you let yourself, you'll get into a rut, regardless of where you are, what you're doing or how you're thinking. New paths are needed. New experiences; new perspectives. New data. Anything to keep yourself from stagnating, falling into predictability, falling into banality.

Admittedly, some stability is good. Knowing you'll have a roof overhead, food on the table, utilities, what have you... this is a good sort of stability. Doing the same thing day in, day out, not so much. It stifles creativity, robs you of mental richness/diversity in your life, kills your dreams (mostly. Sometimes you get lucky and do whatever it is you want to do, day in, day out).

Dreams. Good, bad. They're a part of us. The brain gets bored, puts on a movie. Alarm goes off, consciousness arrives, vague impressions remain. The body reasserts itself, companions vanish, company gives way to solitude.

You wake up alone. Even if there is someone there (and there hasn't been, for quite a while), you still wake up with no immediate awareness of them. That only filters through later (admittedly, sometimes very shortly afterwards). The point remains. Inside your skull, you are alone. This can be either a good or bad thing.

Good and bad, on reflection, seem to be wholly subjective. If someone sees something as 'good' (alternately, as merely 'not-bad'), how can they be expected to behave in a manner contrary to that judgment? I'm not saying that condemnation is to be ultimately avoided (murder/rape/etc), but it seems that good/bad are largely regulated by society, rather than the individual.

What is the individual? Where does the boundary between "self" and "interaction with others" fall? Do we define ourselves through how we interact with other people/things/concepts? What defines the self? I'm not in a proper state of mind to answer. Rhetorical question, maybe?

I keep trying to impress the importance of questions on my students. Not sure how much success I'm having. I can't shake the feeling that if I could only encourage my students to question everything, I could have a more lasting effect on my philosophical environment as a whole. Is having a lasting effect immortality? Is it pride? If yes to both, does (justified) pride == immortality?

Too many questions. Not enough answers. A metaphor for life, perhaps? Life is a riddle, not an answer? Perhaps I should take this up when I'm not prone to mental wandering.

Thoughts?

Later, flipsiders.