I’ve been having a weekly sunday publishing routine for probably more than a year now. Most of the time, it is my favorite time of the weekend. Sometimes, like today, I don’t feel like I want to publish anything. But I guess that’s why long-running streaks are powerful. No matter how much I don’t feel like writing, breaking my streak feels worse.
Since I don’t have any particular theme I want to write about, I’ll write a snapshot of my mind at this moment in time. That’s a really good fallback, because I always have a million things running in my mind.
I’ve been thinking a lot on morality lately, how people, including myself, seem to like taking the moral high ground without considering the nuances of the narrative and viewpoints of all parties involved. I think about how easily we’re actually manipulated (obviously I’ve been watching too many political dramas), and the line between right and wrong is constantly blurred all the time. Also, how do we decide on what is right and wrong without the capacity to observe the impact of the event for years to come?
Another subject on my mind is vulnerability and connections. Great connections with people come when we throw ourselves wide open. I’ve read Amanda Palmer’s new book in the past week, and it set me thinking a lot. One of my favorite part of the book is the foreword by Brene Brown:
“the best way to find light in the darkness is not by pushing people away but by falling straight into them” – @BreneBrown
— Winnie Lim (@wynlim) November 18, 2014
I’ve always considered myself to be really open, only to realize that it is only true to a certain depth. I’ll give almost all of myself to anyone who’s willing to connect with me at the depth, till like 80%, and the last 20%, I don’t even know I can reach that depth with myself.
That said, I’ve also realized that I’ve been spending the past three years working really hard on myself, because prior to that I was just too busy coping with life to even take a good look at the person I am and who I want to be. I feel like I am still in transition, still trying to suss out who I actually want to be. The older I grow, the more I learn that I don’t actually know myself very well. I have proven myself wrong so many times in the past three years that I don’t even know who I am anymore.
So I’ve spent these three years mostly isolating myself, mostly because I needed some space to recover from my old self – basically unlearning a whole lot of what I knew. I think I am still a work-in-progress (and always be, but I mean foundationally), but I think it is time to climb out of that self-made shell.
I’ve surprised myself by how life has unfolded for the past six months, so I no longer have expectations of who I’ll be, except that I hope to be always open to risk:
“Risk is the core cost of human connection.” – @amandapalmer
— Winnie Lim (@wynlim) November 20, 2014