Sometimes, I hate the internet, then sometimes… … … …
By complete curiosity that has been a few days in the making, I stumbled upon some responses to my Bael post. I haven’t been getting notifications like I used to, which can lead to me missing things. Or, as I like to believe sometimes in my head canon, forces beyond me try to hinder my progress when certain paths might lead to some enlightenment.
Anecdote from Two Days Ago
It has been the hottest it’s ever been in my area. I nearly gave myself a heat stroke when I was out cutting the grass because my desire to have short grass for my dogs outweighs my natural “self-preservation.” After the deed was done, I sat in the red, plastic chair in the yard overlooking the grass as the remainder of my dachshund flock chased each other around the yard. A armchair sheppard aided by wire fencing and garden stakes.
Not thinking of anything particular, I took in the rays of the sun and tried to be in the moment, which is something I haven’t done in a long time (at least, long for me). Naturally, my thoughts trickled to work, then cleaning, then work again.
A woman at work recently has stirred some hard feelings in me. She is not nasty or cruel, but she disregards truth. I took the initial interactions as something like: “Maybe I’m incapable to being around people who have a different opinion than me.” or “Maybe I’m incapable of taking feedback.”
I sat in that feeling now, wondering if that was true.
This thought was interrupted by a weird, distant thought, thinking back to the On Magick and Effort post from my early time in this forum. A person crossed my mind, and I was going to come back and read up on other posts by the author, but I am one hell of a procrastinator.
The thought only lasted a moment, then–suddenly–back to work. I considered my career prospects, and my desire to leave the technology field and follow my original passions to become an educator, but this woman stuck in my head. If I’m incapable of dealing with people, how can I be an educator with students that–on many occasions–don’t want to be there and learn.
How will I be when I look back, hoping to make them hate a subject less, and they hate it and me all the same? What happened to my alleged “resiliency”?
Then, I realized, it wasn’t her or her feedback. It was the fact she was wrong, and was so confident in her wrongness that I didn’t push the issue. I was angry at myself for not “defending myself” better.
I try to stand for truths as I can, but I recognize that truth for me may not be truth for someone else, because my perception can change what the “facts” are in interpretation. Thus, I am not often someone to argue the small things. I have no time or patience to do so, and most often I find that those that do argue over these things are often unable (or unwilling) to see any other side of it outside of their own (I may or may not speak from experience–but this isn’t about me, it’s about others being terrible! haha).
This triggered some understanding in me, or at least the desire to understand, as I found myself on the top of the slide back into the pit of despair, despite all the substantial progress I’d made.
I wondered, in my core, if I would ever be content (or at least not in turmoil) for any substantial amount of time. I felt it so strongly that I nearly gave up on the idea of changing my life at all because it lacked point.
We wandered back inside and I resigned to cleaning, as I normally do when my head is a mess.
It was that night that my brother and I had the driving conversation, all completely stirred on by this woman and the feelings about that situation that led to a larger analysis of “The Feeling” that you may have read about in my other, non-mirror postings.
I bring the story up because the world, universe, architect, sovereign, force, higher self–whatever–works in mysterious ways. So, the Bael post, which led to another post, which led to many more.
It was there that I read something truly profound,
I can’t say what, within this moment, truly moved me about the statement, but maybe this combined with the realization brought to me through the dialogues by DarkGodofQlippa and his examples of “teaching moments” brought me to a “damn, it was right in front of me this whole time.”
Is this the entirety of my dilemma? No, but damn if it’s not 90% of it. Sometimes, I am so thankful for these not-so-random stumblings.
“It’s only a riddle if you don’t know the answer.” – Witch, Resident Evil 8