Comfort Zones

I was assigned 'Comfort Zones' as my next blog topic, kind of in keeping with a comment someone made on my last blog re fitting ourselves into certain shapes. I googled the term, and arrived at Wikipedia... so being the tired/lazy cheat I am, I'm doing a cut and paste exercise. I've underlined sections that jumped out at me, specifically in relation to the last blog... Others are colour coded - cos I'm in a strangely aesthetic mood - to help you cross-refer!

The term comfort zone is used to denote a type of mental conditioning(a) resulting in artificially created mental boundaries, within which an individual derives a sense of security.

These boundaries tend to result in an internal state of mind(b), an example of which would be rigid attitudes and beliefs, which may not necessarily be true. This may or may not manifest as an external situation in the individual's life.

A comfort zone may result when the mental concept that a person has about something and actual reality of it, are not congruent with one another. A classic example to take would be of self image(c).

Self-image may consist of three types:

1. Self image resulting from how the individual sees herself
2. Self image resulting from how others see the individual
3. Self image resulting from how the individual perceives others see her

These three types may or may not be an accurate representation of the person. All, some or none of them may be true.

(a) Mental conditioning may be attributable to several causes - mass media, society, peers, parents etc. All of these may directly or indirectly create mental conditioning.
(b) State of mind redirects to Miriam Webster definitions of Mental Health, namely:
"A state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life."
(c) A person's self image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, sex, I.Q. score, is this person double-jointed, etc.), but also items that have been learned by that person about himself or herself, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of others. Those items include the answers to such questions as:
Am I skinny? Am I fat? Am I attractive? Am I weak? Am I strong? Am I intelligent? Am I stupid? Am I a good person? Am I a bad person? Am I masculine? Am I feminine? Am I likeable?

Square Pegs and Round Holes

And once again, I can't think of anything off my own bat, so have to be inspired by others... and on the question of fitting in...

Hey, you know me... full of useful/useless (delete as appropriate) advice... So here's the thing.

I'm an odd shape. Always have been. Certainly tried to do the fitting-into-the-appropriate-mould thing, and never found it to work. I got close to giving up on life itself when fitting seemed the only thing to do and turned out to be futile. Thankfully I was too juvenile and scared to do anything really serious...

As an aside I spent my formative years in a church environment which I quickly rejected, even when I was probably too young to fully understand what I was doing. However, in moving from front-of-house hymn-singing I found myself in the orchestra, and this confirmed a love of music from a different participation level, so no bad thing. In later life, I re-evaluated having faith in something bigger and more important than myself, and I'm happy with where I'm at.

So here comes the lesson learned from experience... I realise that I have straight edges (no pun intended), curved edges, sharp edges, fuzzy edges, black, white, every colour in between... There is no one shape that matches mine. I do not want to fit myself into something that could potentially surround and suffocate me. I like to be able to breath.

Instead, I try to gather around me shapes that compliment mine. There is no one shape that suits me best - I recognise that some shapes are more rudimentary, more conventional, and some parts of me match those too.

I have endeavoured to make big bits of me fit into the closest known shape, and the consequential fallout is not pretty. I now make a special effort to avoid that. Small bits of me can be honed to fit certain aspects, such as work environment for example, and I can live with those minor adjustments.

Those who I let get closest to me will understand what is fitting, and what fits (pun definitely intended).

A couple of phrases borrowed from a friend's blog space:

Those that matter don't mind, and those that mind don't matter...
and
I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not...

Learn to love the shape you are. I'm getting there.

Thanks for the reminders

Yes, I am well aware that I haven't really done any honest-to-good blogging... kinda had other stuff going on.

So instead, I changed one thing on my profile. Go on - have a look... it's subtle.

Oh, I changed the music around too, but that was done a few days ago. I tried changing the photo album, but there's some weird thing going on so it's back to how it was. I was working on a cool myflashfetish (same as the mp3 player) photo album, but it 'broke' - no, it was not user error.

Work: It has its moments. Friday was good, today was bad. It depends on a) office attendance, i.e. who's there on any particular day, and b) current headspace and/or motivation. Friday I was in a good headspace and motivated. Today I had a new person sitting about three feet away from my screen and felt intimidated, but it was that crap time of the month and I didn't feel like being there at all.

Social stuff: Yesterday was the Big Gay Out. The rain held off which was super cool. Our bowling group did a stonking good cook-out for our fundraiser - I'm sure we must have equalled what we made last year. I worked on putting the tent and stuff together this year, and was all done and dusted way before the crowds started arriving. Hung around with various groups of friends... walked hand in hand with my gf, which was absolutely lovely. So, so cool to have someone to share BGO with. And there's more Hero stuff going on... There's the 'D Thing' exhibition this Friday, and of course Flirt on Saturday - yes Machi... I guess it will be a sort of anniversary... And the Hero Debate next Monday. Sweet.

I'm on painkillers and a wee bit of alcohol - that's all you get.

Have fun out there.

A Whirlwind Week or More

The last PL blog didn't say much, and this one probably won't say much more...
suffice to say I'm still alive and well - extremely well in fact, barring sleep disorders
and fluttering hearts, which are probably related.

This is not a private letter, although to those in the know it might seem as such...
No, this is an open declaration (to those on the preferred list naturally) that I haven't
felt this alive in years. I have to say that the new job thing was really not going well
there for the first couple of weeks - I did not appear to have the mental capacity
to deal with a new job AND a new - oh, I'm going to say it - girlfriend. To those of you
keeping up with the story so far, this is continuation from the Flirt night out I wrote
about on the 26th Jan.

And that's all you get. Not because I don't want to write about it - cos indeed I do - but
it is kinda like airing laundry. Maybe a PL is the best place to do that, but I'm not
ready just yet. Still getting used to the blogging thing anyway.

And I'm writing this at work... which incidentally is getting better and better, more and
more stuff gelling into place, making sense, but still finding it hard to put a full 8 hours
in when my mind really is elsewhere. It will balance out I know.

Bad girl... yeah, whatever.