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Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

My entire life, I have had trouble with one invaluable concept: as the sole administrator of my own life, I can and must set my own rules. This of course is true no matter the situation I'm in, but especially now. I feel obligated to nobody. The time I have spent alone for the last year, having segregated myself in order to peacefully deliberate on the life I plan to lead, has given me the clarity to understand this truth.

It sounds so self-evident. And yes, it is, but history has proven that we have the unique human ability to acknowledge a truth openly while acting in direct opposition to it.

With that in mind, I can embark on any path in life with no reservations, because I know that I can choose another at any time. That knowledge has consistently kept me committed to tasks, because I've found it's in my nature to push myself, in defiance of the slightest perception of hedonism. I will coax my lazy side with that sentiment, with promises of relaxation and indulgence, and at the last minute do the very thing I was dreading the most. It's natural to me, and I've had to fight that tendency in recent days because it becomes almost self-desctructive. However, I need to learn to harness that drive in a healthy way if I am to make anything of what life I have left.

The following list will serve to sum up my current outlook and my immediate goals:

• Priorities:
  • Organize and eliminate debts
  • Plan for medical expenses
  • Start saving
  • Make a budget to allow for school
  • Explore supplemental work:
    • Labor
    • Volunteer
    • Writing
    • Animal/conservation
  • Seek methods of traveling abroad
  • Use work as a learning tool, but limit the time given to it by scheduling activities before and after. If personal, informal obligations don't do the trick, make them up. My time is my business.
  • Concentrate on one undertaking at a time while keeping notes on future projects. Incoming cliche: TIME MANAGEMENT.
  • Begin research and writing projects for varying degrees of publication by starting close to home, concerning topics with which I am familiar. Branch out from that initial scope in an organized manner.
• Developing and documenting goals at work serves to improve job security and make the time spent more fulfilling. This is especially true when tasks must be completed within a limited workday. Overtime creates exponentially-fatiguing conditions and is not something I explicitly committed to at any point.
• Impose a mandatory cooling-off period on myself before committing to anything at all. Spontaneity is not without merit, but there is little that can't wait an extra day or two.
• Be what I feel is lacking in the world: maintain an unbridled excitement for my passions and be open to involving others and explaining these topics to them.
• The jaded will always challenge my optomistic views as naive, but I need to remember that I can't live my life afraid to relearn a few of humanity's lessons.
• Everyone's personal outlook at any particular time is undeniably unique, and worth documenting. We are not the same today as we will be tomorrow, and we often forget the ways in which we looked at the world in the past. I believe it's important to preserve those impressions. Perform character studies of the people I know.
• I need to learn that discipline should not go hand-in-hand with dread.
• Intellect, education, and critical thinking are imperative, but a life without expression is wasted.
• The key to developing creativity and skill is to identify your comfort zone: what comes naturally to you. This is not something you should remain within; rather, you should pass back and forth across the border as often as possible. You will find its boundaries quickly widen.
• Things that keep a sloppy or understated artist from seeming irrelevant:
  • Demonstrations of undeniable talent, however rare (the majority of their work style is simply a trademark).
  • Their familiarity of other widely-recognized artists with similar styles and the ability to readily cite them.
• The female character's reaction to an offer of musical collaboration in the movie Once raises the question of her naivete and the necessity of musical integrity. There is more to it, unfortunately, than simply playing music together. Some time could be spent on the fortuitous nature of musical compatibility.

I have to start somewhere.