Ookings of d00m

Being the person I want to be is a lot of work!

(context; I am making myself take an active role in communicating, which by habit, I am disinclined to do)

In relationships, power flows to the point of least desire. That is to say, ultimately, the only real power in a relationship is the power to walk away - if one is not willing to do that, one is at the mercy of whoever in the relationship *is* willing to walk away. All other power in a relationship is ultimately given - the only power one truly *owns* in a relationship is the power to walk away. Everything else is something your partner gives you, or something given to your partner.

NB: This is not triggered by issues in any of my relationships. Mostly, this comes from a) having just finished a book on power politics, and b) being madly caffinated at 4:23 am. I am willing to discuss why I am wrong, in this thought.

Editted to add - the only power someone has over you, then, besides the power to leave, is the power you *give* them. This exchange is made explicit in D/s relationships, but I think it applies to *all* relationships.

How do we measure ourselves? What do we use to tell whether or not we're "successful" or "doing well"?

For some people, it's money, or financial comfort - if I can just afford *that* house, or *that* car... (or, so long as I can afford the next house, and the next car, I know I'm on the right track). At a certain point, I think, one's wealth exceeds a certain limit and becomes just an indicator of power - for the fabulously wealthy in the business world, it's about power. For the rock stars and movie stars, it's fame - you are who knows you.

That's not how I measure my life (for a change, I don't think I'll talk about just what I think I am using), nor, I suspect, is that how most of the people on my flist examine the worth of their lives. Do we use progress along an imagined path? Perceived closeness to enlightenment or actualization? A qualitative analysis of the degree of happiness? Is there a "right" way to tell if one is "on the right track" with one's life? Perhaps more importantly, is there a wrong way? Is it getting what you want, wanting what you get, or something else?

I have been thinking, today, about what the things I want in my life are - not necessarily the big, long term things, but more the little, day to day things, the ephemeral, nonmaterial things. Things I want in the general sense, and how that ties in to the specific things I catch myself looking for. Am I looking for the right things, to determine if I'm getting what I want, or if I am going to? Are my goals (selected by my unconscious) attainable? Are they healthy?

I have answers for some of these, but not for others. There is more thinking to be done, but perhaps it should be done after sleeping.

When writing code, I'm most interesting in figuring out how to do something. Once I've figured out the technical details, I tend to get pretty lazy about the polish - bits to make things user-friendly, generally. I have been contrasting this with a coworker who is very concerned with completely polishing his assignments for this course.

Similarly, I tend to leave art projects unfinished, once I've got the basic idea across.

The final finishing stages get aren't as exciting for me.

A lot of people have been talking about how they use thier journals, recently. About meaningful content vs memes vs bland recountings of daily events.

When his blog was active, William Gibson talked a fair bit about mediated personalities - how sometimes he was surprised to encounter the mediated William Gibson, and how different that person was from the self he usually related to.

What we do when we write in our livejournals is creating a mediated personality of our own - we shape how our readers see us when we pick and choose the thoughts and events in our life to write about.

If you ever thought telepathy would solve the world's problems, look at livejournal more closely - when people can read what other people are thinking, what's bugging them, etc., we tend to get Drama. As LJers progress, many of them begin to more heavily censor thier journals to avoid Drama. This tends to mean posting less about intensely personal feelings and experiences, which in turn mediates the personality that readers experience.

The person you all know as curgoth is not exactly the same person I think of as me.

(this may be what happens when I start reading more non-fiction humanities books, and drinking caffeine.)