Thursday, November 1, 2012

Speed

My life's been a struggle to balance an almost manic pent up speed and need to "do" with a methodological stillness and simultaneous want for peace and order and containment.  I have been quite spastic, frenetic, and otherwise unfocused.  When I am focused and inside of the flow, I find eternal bliss and never want to stop.  When I am jumping from one activity to the next, nothing satisfies.

But these feelings are shells now.  I have much greater ease sustaining concentration than I used to, though it isn't always a smear of lightning that I want it to be.  Creativity--the production of stuff, whether for work, play, or personal (broad, right?)--is a process that doesn't surf straightly.  I wish it did at times, if only to be more consistent, but I'm sure I wouldn't feel as satisfied afterward if it was.  Unfortunately, though, patience is required in multiple stages of development.

Ah yes.

But in life, patience is often a handicap, right?  Aren't the fast-paced quick movers the ones who get ahead?  Haven't I been too sympathetic?  Too naive?   Too understanding?  Wouldn't it be best to be strictly strategic?  Phlegmatically unmoving?  Isn't it a crutch to understand everything from all perspectives and rest one's foot on none?

I'm not sure. It isn't in my nature to be decisive, see, so even my meta-decision to find a solid place to stand is belabored.  And that might be damning in some fields.  The trick is, perhaps, to sketch out the details of a "development path" where that particular attribute is advantageous.  I think I have one, but it probably won't be clear for some years anyway, and by then I'll be too set in my ways for it to make a difference anyway!

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