Results, Insecurites, Complexities and Money

So far my plan to be more productive is creeping along ok. It would be good if I had some more palpable results, you know, like *poof!* I have $200,000 in my savings, a spotlessly clean and well set out house and 2 published books (one fiction, one non-fiction). Alas, I guess the whole point of this is so that this will eventually happen. Things, unfortunately, take time, effort and luck.

The equation probably goes TIME/EFFORT = (result x (LUCKx130000456) or something. But I think I need to remember that it isn't the results that I actually want. Its the feelings around the results. I want to feel productive. I want to feel like I'm doing something worthwhile, that I'm fulfilling some kind of purpose. And, naturally, I want to feel important. Not that I would say that out loud to anyone. Not that anyone, I think, would admit that to anyone, but its true. I want to feel that what I have done, or what I am doing is important ... and that feeling probably drives me more than anything else.

If you really think about it, I guess it comes from that old insecurity. "What do they think of me?". It isn't so much about myself, but what other people think of myself. And when I think that they think that I'm worth something then I will be worth ... something.

Of course that's bullshit. I know that. I intellectually know that. But that doesn't help me in my everyday experience so much. Its a feeling that is so deeply ingrained that even though I would counsel the same thing to anyone with the same surity that I would assure them of gravitational pull, I can't escape it myself.

Its like what John Green says so frequently. We know that other people out there are the same as us and we know that they are as complex and individual as we are, but we can't help but not imagine them with any complexity. At least, not with the same complexity that we regard ourselves. That's because we are trapped in these bodies, we cannot possibly know what it is like to be anything or anyone other than ourselves. We could imagine it sure, but we would not come close. Like when you are in great pain and someone says "I know what you're feeling" or something like that, and you could cry out and say something selfish like "How can you possibly know what I'm feeling!" because how could they? This pain is yours and no one has ever felt that before.

By the same token, how do we know that the pain we feel is unique. How do we know they don't know how we feel? That's right. We are selfish.

My boyfriend tried to tell me the other day that we, as a race, are not capable of true empathy because of this fact. He peppered his explanation with talk of survival as well. We have to look out for ourselves etc. But I countered that yes, while it is virtually impossible to be truly empathetic with someone, to truly know how they feel, it is not impossible to feel empathy at all.

I think that I am an empathetic person. When someone comes to me in pain, I try to feel their pain too. Of course that comes with my instinct born of being an older sister, to protect that person and to fix it for them. If that fails though I just have to be there for them.

Then again that flies out the window when I'm driving in the city and someone cuts me off, or is driving 15kms below the speed limit. The person in front of me is not a complex human being who is flawed but ultimately good, rather they are an IDIOT who can't drive and obviously has no regard for anyone else, or (more likely, I think in the heat of the moment) great disdain for me personally. How amusing is that? Although I fuck up on the road with frequency (I'm sure) I don't regard myself as a horrible driver, do I? So why should this person be an idiot when I've only been shown one example of their whole driving career? It really makes you think. Or, it really makes you laugh. Either way...

Anyway. Despite all this I would really like to be given everything that I want right now. Or, if I have to be picky, the money to get me started. With $200,000 I could buy some land, go over seas, fix my car and be the best aunt ever and set Charlie up with a trust fund. Unfortunately ... this will have to stay in the dream basket for now.

Still... it is a good dream ... make everyone happy, have a solid financial investment (literally solid), be flying to London to Dublin to Seattle to Boston... all that good stuff. *Le sigh*


Better get back to reality. I have a story arc to figure out.
xo