Wandering the savage garden…

January 20, 2016Daily Archives

31 Days Challenge

I’ve decided to join Jeff Goins‘ 31 Day Challenge, in which he challenges writers to write 500 words every day for thirty-one days. It’ll be interesting; you’re supposed to write 500 words every day, without editing, and for me that would lead to a lot of really incoherent ramblings. I guess I’ll try to edit less, maybe, since editing while I write is an ingrained habit.

The challenge is not going to be in the writing itself, the challenge will be in the discipline to do it every day for thirty-one days. Rambling is easy; recording it and making it coherent and representative is not. (I write a lot of things that expose things about myself, where I use those things to reflect and repair. Most of my writing seems to be “things that are wrong with me that I need to fix.”)

So is this a journal? No, I don’t think so. This site isn’t really a journal, and the things I write that are explicitly to myself need to remain private, of course… and if you think I ramble here, you should see the tangled spaghetti thoughts that get recorded in my journals. I don’t know that I’d call it villainy, but a hive, yes, jumping from topic to topic with very few connections and little sense.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been a good blogger – I write fairly well, I think, but I also write formally and impersonally. I think I present some decent insights, but because I wall myself off, I don’t have the warm, empathetic approach that people seem to want.

I don’t even want to have that warm approach. It’s not who I am. I’m not especially friendly; I’m rather prickly. I keep people at arm’s length, typically, and strangers especially are at arm’s length… and going from “stranger” to “associate” (or even further, to “friend”) is a long journey, protected by shotgun, attack dog, and landmine.

I don’t think that’s especially healthy, honestly, but it’s the truth. I know it’s a problem; it affects my daily life, too. But it’s who I am, and I’m not going to lie to people and say “Look how friendly I am, look how fuzzy I can be,” without actually being friendly or fuzzy. I’d rather have a commitment to truth and honesty.

That way, if people do feel that they know me, they have a chance of honestly knowing me, at least to the degree they understand.

That’s the basis on which I’d like to have relationships; they’re honest, they’re real, they’re based on a valid assumption of distance.

The challenge – the five hundred words per day that instigated this post – will be fascinating, because while I can easily write more than five hundred words, writing five hundred words consistently on a specific topic, without chasing rabbits, is going to be hard on some days.

But I guess that’s part of building that habit, and if it’s a challenge I’m going to accept, I’m going to give it my best shot.

savage
January 20, 2016
Lifestyle
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Don’t Observe: Participate.

I struggle with passivity.

I’m a classic INTJ, in terms of Myers-Briggs typology, which usually means that I watch and plan until I’m needed. As an example, I might notice the dishes need washing, but there are four other people in my home, all of whom are capable of doing the dishes; I’ll watch the dishes go undone until I decide that nobody else will do them. Then they’ll get washed. (I have to confess: I don’t like washing dishes, but I absolutely despise drying them, and have to force myself to dry them.)

Even though this is a fairly core aspect of my personality, I find that I don’t like it at all. I heard from my church’s women’s minister that she doesn’t like “New Year’s Resolutions,” she prefers an adjustment of priorities – which makes a lot of sense to me – and if I had one this year, it would be a priority on action rather than on observation.

That means that if the dishes are dirty, do them. No pile-up of dishes, ever. If I’m there, they’re done, no matter who else might do them; if someone else won’t pick up the mantle, I will.

On Facebook this morning, I saw a friend post a link to this, with the comment that the moron on Christ’s side didn’t know his theology well enough to defend it:

It’s funny, but it got me thinking.

For one thing, the Christian in the image apparently did not know his theology well enough to understand the actual machinery of God – which is indeed something of which we are all a part.

For another, I’m not sure my friend knew the theology himself – he pointed out that “God helps those who help themselves,” which isn’t actually a biblical statement at all. He went hunting through Paul and the Beatitudes looking for some equivalent.

For a third thing, it got me wondering about the nature of passivity. The most offensive thing – if offense is the right term to use – about the exchange was that my friend was fairly passive about the link in the first place. “Ha, ha,” he said, indicating the humor… and that was it.

I found myself infuriated. Not at the ignorance; that’s just this thing, you know? It’s a state of being. It happens.

What infuriated me was the passivity on everyone’s part. An assertion is being made, someone knows it’s ridiculous, but lets it lie.

Nope.

What I would have liked to have seen is for someone to listen to the voice of God in their head, saying “This isn’t correct,” and then that someone acts on it… by trying to gently correct the ignorance in God’s Name.

I know that I struggle with the “gently” aspect there; I’m far more likely to go in with a bat, breaking things in the name of accuracy, which isn’t really any better than letting ignorance lie for most cases, so I have to be really careful not to cause harm in the interest of trying to advance God’s cause.

(“No, you idiot!” is not a good leading statement.)

But at the same time, I have to find ways to share learning and knowledge in such a way that everyone grows and no-one is harmed… because being passive is harmful. Observation is the beginning of action, but observation without following through is wrong.

Shalom.

savage
January 20, 2016
Lifestyle
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