tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794978458772149149.post4450215217965451792..comments2023-10-25T07:38:16.249-07:00Comments on Green Thoughts: Haul out the T-square, drop down the plumb.Renaissance Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06243095907452011303noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794978458772149149.post-83334364701408561572008-03-29T10:52:00.000-07:002008-03-29T10:52:00.000-07:00This is a really beautiful post, RG. I've been mul...This is a really beautiful post, RG. I've been mulling it over since it went up, trying to understand my response to it. <BR/><BR/>The craving for validation is where I most identify -- except that, when (if!) it comes, it never confers what I so desire. It only ups the ante, or prepares unfair expectations; or I suspect the validator of lying or of insufficiently discriminating taste. Or, worst, it allows me for a time to rest on my laurels, the least productive non-activity there is. (This is where laziness comes in.)<BR/><BR/>My problem (with food, with partners, with writing -- your triumvirate of anxiety-carriers is very apt) has always been not enough control, rather than too much. I have a sick jealousy of the type-As, the control-cravers -- if only, I think (dementedly), I could exert, or at least desire, that level of control, think how successful I'd be / how much I'd accomplish / how people would adore me!<BR/><BR/>That's insane, of course.<BR/><BR/>But I do think it's possible that the nature of academic work, of the profession, can drill that sense into a person, especially a woman, and especially in the early years. One of my mentors has a favorite praise term for colleagues and students: "S/he controls every detail of x, y, or z." It's easy to perceive that expectation, easy to think that I am expected to control everything, never to miss a beat, always to be a step ahead of the conversation. <BR/><BR/>Nobody, of course, expects that. Or anything like it. <BR/><BR/>What's impressive, and important, and health-building, I think, is that we look at these things. We look at them, and we start to understand them. Then, eventually, comes the day when you can say, "Okay, here's this thing again. I know what this is. It goes over there." Recognition, I think, is the most important step toward overcoming these things.<BR/><BR/>See? Look at all those words. No control at all. (Speaking of "inchoate"... which, naturally, is one of my favorite words. It describes my existence perfectly.)<BR/><BR/>Thanks for this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794978458772149149.post-49938766939101218342008-03-28T19:10:00.000-07:002008-03-28T19:10:00.000-07:00Sorry to hear about the divorce -- that sucks. I h...Sorry to hear about the divorce -- that sucks. I hope you work your way through it as serenely as possible. <BR/><BR/>As for the incomprehensibility of the world: I kind of like that. It's also why I love travel: the sense that anything can happen, that there is much to surprise me. It can be exciting to be in a situation that is bizarre and difficult to grasp. I think if I controlled too much of the world, I would find life too dull and predictable.squadratomagicohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07977502780584567298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794978458772149149.post-86089137642313160362008-03-28T14:02:00.000-07:002008-03-28T14:02:00.000-07:00I wish I were responding to the "chaotic universe"...I wish I were responding to the "chaotic universe" problem as productively as you are. Lord knows, I’d publish more. For me the mechanism of control is maintaining a preternaturally clean and ordered home. Sad but true. That, and the existential purity of weight lifting. It can’t be faked, you know? Either you move the iron or you don’t. Sort of like running or writing the perfect conclusion to that poem.<BR/><BR/>Good luck with it, and with life.dkmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00800156270296672889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1794978458772149149.post-43625597151878892252008-03-28T11:50:00.000-07:002008-03-28T11:50:00.000-07:00I'm so sorry about your divorce--and all the bad t...I'm so sorry about your divorce--and all the bad things that go with it. Please take care of yourself.<BR/><BR/>* * * * *<BR/><BR/>This part of your post really resonated with me: <BR/><BR/><I>there’s also the realization, especially hard for someone of my psychological profile, that no matter how much one tries, how hard one works to find the perfect words, the perfect behavior, the universe remains chaotic and incomprehensible and out of one’s control.</I><BR/><BR/>For that reason, it helps me, sometimes, to reflect that in a while (never soon enough, and never quite when one needs it) the mess will make sense, and that it's a sense-making that we ourselves are in control of: it's not that time heals all wounds or everything happens for a reason, or whatever other bullshit people tell one, but that time gives one enough material to more tidily and usefully narrate to ourselves whatever it is that happened.<BR/><BR/>(And that's exactly the kind of control that I, personally, always long for.)Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.com