(no subject)

[austin_tycho]

I used to make memories out of posts from other people's journals, but then I saw that if the journal got deleted or it was a friends-only post and I got dropped, I was SOL. So, this is from contentlove's journal:

I wish to be a person who is motivated and inspired by the kindness in others, rather than unkindness in others. I'd rather be active, in the sense of working with my attractions, than reactive, in the sense that I allow the things that annoy me to make me dance. It's a reality check thing.

So why is it that I wake up thinking more about what I perceived at the time as a deliberate social snub by one of my hosts last evening, rather than remembering some very nice and unexpected accolades I received from my peers? It's very possible that I'm oversensitive to that sort of thing, particularly in this situation.

If I could control those stray thoughts, it would be a lot less likely that I'll end up with ulcers like my father.

But I can't really do anything about how other people behave, and moreover, there is no profit in assuming anything about their motivation when one really, really doesn't know.

Worse, it's almost like I'm reifying an impression by recording it here and now. And while I know that objectification can be one step in a powerful banishing, in this case, I'm not interested in banishing, I'm interested in balancing. Not that those two are necessarily mutually exclusive, as they can be set in harmony. But they can also work at cross purposes so I'm thinking the short path here is integration rather than disintegration and release.

Okay. I'm better now.

And a really pithy reply by paulrhume:

Part of the problem (I suspect) is that a fairly primitive piece of our minds is programmed to catalogue and review painful (ie. survival threat) situations. And it doesn't really distinguish between the way a leopard in that tree almost ate me once, and the way a dipshit dissed me once (or even the time I was a dipshit and wish I hadn't been once).

Have you done emotional recall exercises in acting classes? How easily most of us can recall painful situations exactly, and evoke those emotions, and with what difficulty do we recall joyous ones (or so it seemed to me watching myself and the other actors doing that exercise).

There is the famous story of the young Cellini and his father, when they saw a salamander (elemental variety) in a fire. Cellini pere turned around and boxed his son's ear, later explaining that this insured the boy would always be able to recall the amazing incident with exactitude.

It's also something in the aethyr today - I found myself in tears today during my morning shower recalling a stupid exchange I was in 30 years ago.

Yeah. I can remember with vivid detail embarassing or painful things that happened to me 30 years ago, and only vague senses of the good stuff. There is much fodder for reflection here.