The Allegorical Tomato March 5, 2007
Posted by m5 in Food, Life.8 comments
As a lazy midweek pub conversation turned to food, someone raised a quibble with how most tomatoes these days are tasteless, though perfect looking. And I thought I was the only one who’d noticed the tasty tomato dearth!
He asked, “What is the world coming to?” and there could be no reply but, “Bad tomatoes, and good presentation.” While the comment was true on the literal level, as I said it, I couldn’t help but feel wistful at the thought of how applicable it was to much of the (American?) values of today. External success and appearance drive our society to a large degree. What of the meat inside us?
Light January 30, 2007
Posted by m5 in Life.2 comments
I was asked, “What are your strengths?” I found myself struggling to stay focused on enumerating what I’m good at, floundering and drifting into thoughts about areas that could use improvement. It made me realize that I don’t fully acknowledge my gifts.
Some time back, a friend made me a bookmark with a quote that is a beautiful reminder of the value of such acknowledgement:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
The quote is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, but in actuality is by Marianne Williamson.
Expectation January 30, 2007
Posted by m5 in Life, Psychology.2 comments
I’ve been quite interested in personality systems as aids for self-awareness and observing interpersonal dynamics, mainly Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram so far.
The other day, a friend and I were discussing Myers-Briggs types (there’s a good overview at http://www.personalitypage.com/info.html, from which I draw for my summary). In short, this system devises 4 axes of personality: our flow of energy (Introvert/Extrovert – are we primarily focused internally or externally?), how we prefer to take in information (Sensing/iNtuition – do we trust what we perceive with our senses or our gut feelings?), how we prefer to make decisions (Thinking/Feeling – do we decide based on logic or emotion?), and our preferred general lifestyle (Judging/Perceiving – do we prefer to be organized and come to a decision, or do we prefer to leave things more open-ended and flexible?).
Not surprisingly, the Judging characteristic is sometimes misunderstood to mean judgmental. My friend had said that most of his girlfriends had been J types, and when I asked him what he thought J characterized, he said something like, “Having unspoken rules that I am judged by,” at which point I joked, “Well, no wonder you thought that most of your girlfriends are J’s!”
It probably wasn’t the best joke to make, reinforcing the stereotype that women expect men to be mindreaders. But more seriously, don’t almost all of us have expectations, possibly many of which are not even conscious? And while expectations remain unconscious, there’s no possibility of considering how reasonable they are, or communicating preferences.
Essence January 26, 2007
Posted by m5 in Life.5 comments
I have been asking myself, “Who are we, essentially?”
I’m taken with two contrasting points of view. One, that we do have an essential self, that if embraced, will let us relax into the ease of being ourselves. Sonia Choquette says, “… you cannot actually be whatever you want. You can only be who you really are, and only you can give yourself permission to express it.” And on the other hand, there is the idea that in spite of tendencies, these can be sublimated through conscious choice; you can be whatever you want. I find both views comforting…
I was recently out social dancing and commented that I usually try to adapt my style to somewhat match my partner. But it could also be viewed that my partner is bringing out an aspect of style that I always had, but don’t normally express. More generally, different people, different situations evoke different parts of ourselves. Is what comes out intrinsically ours, or is it a synergistic product with our current environment?
Regardless, there are so many sides of us that remain unseen by the majority of the people we interact with. It’s startling to consider how many missed connections may exist with people we already know, casual acquaintences, passersby, simply because of this.
What do you really want? January 17, 2007
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Both birthdays and January 1 are often days that give pause, times to review one’s life and consider one’s direction. As my birthday is in the beginning of December, I tend to be quite contemplative during that entire month. One intention I set as this new year began was to listen more attentively to what I really want and to heed genuine impulse. How often do I hold back out of conditioning, habit, fear?
