afford to thoroughly be my eccentric disgraceful daring independent enthusiastic self

this goal means
to make decisions
by considering:
my will
my wish
my energy and enthusiasm

and not
what’s the likely outcome

my energy and enthusiasm and wish and will are not “likely”
they are the most authentic part of myself
if I lose that
and shift to consider what is average outcome and rational answer or sensible behaviour in any occasion
I’ll have an average life that’s not mine
and I don’t want that

the only things in my life I never regretted are those I chose, not caring for what everybody said would be the most probable outcome, I took risks and succeeded. Against any possible foresight.

Then something began to change and I got afraid and wanted only to be rational and understand reality to adapt to it.

That’s crazy, I don’t have to adapt to reality. That’s bound to happen anyway, but it must not become criteria for how I live.

Looking deeper into what I wish and having the courage to pursue it, oh, it feels exciting!

I’m so affording it. And it bewilders some. But that’s to be expected.

I have all sorts of more or less crazy ideas and if I were to put them all into action, my life would be… well, I can’t even imagine what it would be like :) It could lead me into making some serious mistakes, but could also be exhileratingly interesting.

As it is, I second- and third-guess many of those ideas right until the opportunity to act upon them is gone. I’m going to change that. It probably wouldn’t be wise to follow every impulse, so I won’t, but why not follow the harmlessly eccentric ones?

This weekend I was listening to street musicians and suddenly wanted to sing. So I went up to them and asked if they’d mind if I sang with them… they were rather surprised, but didn’t mind.A few people gathered and I think they got a little more money than before. They were in a party mood and shouted for everyone to sing along. Sadly enough, no one did, but it was still a lot of fun. I guess I want to be a street musician sometimes. I might do this again, when I’m out of town :)

Hope you don’t mind my adopting your goal, Turandot. I’ve been flirting with it for a loooong time. I think it’s wonderfully worded and something I ought to do far more often. Actually, for me it’s probably more of an “afford to thoroughly become my eccentric disgraceful daring independent enthusiastic self”. Is that a paradox?

I’ve noticed that I have to be more confident to be as strange as I actually am. Especially when I’m around one specific group of friends and acquaintances, who all seem to be so ‘normal’, this becomes fairly tricky.

This goal might get me into a really nice conflict with my respectability goal… :)

is about
beating my perfectionism
checking my limits
be thoughtless
and mainly:
fake it till I do it

this is another monster month in disguise
and we saw what the last monster month brought me:
satisfactions, certainly
but then I needed whole rejuvenating June to recover from health trouble and sleep deprivation
let’s try to do better this time

let’s try the careless route,
and see if I can defeat my perfectionism
by being inconsiderate, uncaring and utterly disgraceful

the
lavender
mauve
periwinkle
lilac
wisteria
heliotropium
eggplant
plum
shades of colors

“afford” sounds strange and utterly wrong to my ears when it comes linked to “be my eccentric disgraceful daring independent enthusiastic self”

I have realized that
1. I tend to think that all people consider important what I consider important, like what I like, do things the way I do them, think what I think etc. I don’t mean this for personal reliogous beliefs and such, but just very ordinary and plain things.

2. Then it always comes a moment when I suddenly realize that THEY DO NOT! Nothing of the sorts. What seems normal and completely plain vanilla to me looks as the most strange attitude to them!

3. Then I have 2 choices, it seems to me. Either I declare to myself that I am an eccentric and I don’t care and go on the way I am. Or I try to fit in the “normal scheme”.

4. Now I can say that the second option never worked well. And this explains the meaning of that “afford”.

In the last days I had a confrontation with a colleague about how I write and build up papers for publication. I had always had the feeling that the way I worked was the only possible way I knew and never thought much about it. He made me realize that the way I work on my writing is very strange indeed. He cuts a problem in some key points and deals with each of them separately. Excellent way. I never thought to use such a way. I start a very complicated outline, keep working on my outline for a long long time. I rewrite it. I add up to it. I have it develop kidneys. And stones in it. Eventually it trasforms in a dragon, even. I keep rewriting the dragon skeleton, till I know the flesh is building up on the bones and I only know the owrk is good when it can send out fire through nostrils.

My colleague told me that’s no way to work. And I felt so dumb I almost couldn’t react. I was caught up in the surprise, I thought that was the way all other people was following to write and the revelation was grand indeed. Either I choose to feel a fool or I decide to feel an eccentric genius. But he says I’m just procrastinating and lack self esteem instead.

^{I think have to have lunch with different colleagues next time.}

and BTW my dragon is starting to send out steam from her (oh, yes, it’s a she) nostrils ;-}