Whereas I like new things, changes and surprises (sometimes even bad ones, because they can also mean excitement) I am just unable to accept them. Just about as much as a six-month-old baby: give her the food 5 minutes later and she will cry her lungs out. Is this some sort of masochism? I am almost sure. The bigger the challenge, the higher the reward, when I finally make it (e.g. stop fighting back). But in the meantime the sh*t is scared out of me, so to say. I go as far as to initiate these changes (change countries, for example...) but be happy with my choice once the horror of adaptation is over.
What is interesting in it is that when I started to understand all this, I have found a book (or it has found me?) about the acceptance of the inevitability of change. Strange, ha? It is Chinese (of course :-) ) but let me say in my defense that taoism is my favourite religion since a long-long time.
So, it is called I Ching - translated "Book of Changes". And before you call me crazy to enter into strange practices of divination: it is not giving you outcomes or precise answers, it is merely somebody to talk to when you don't have anybody. You throw with coins to get a sign that will be the answer to your question - it is random, like everything else, so it could even be "true" whatever that concept means. You read what it says and then think about it. Easy, isn't it? What is difficult is to ask a good question and to look at your problem in an objective way - I guess it is this what makes it so good. And that's how I realized my difficulties with adaptation. Now I know that:
Alive, a man is supple, soft;
In death, unbending, rigorous.
All creatures, grass and trees, alive
Are plastic but are pliant too,
And dead, are friable and dry.
Unbending rigor is the mate of death,
And yielding softness, company of life;
Unbending soldiers get no victories;
The stiffest tree is readiest for the ax.
The strong and mighty topple from their place;
The soft and yielding rise above them all.
All creatures, grass and trees, alive
Are plastic but are pliant too,
And dead, are friable and dry.
Unbending rigor is the mate of death,
And yielding softness, company of life;
Unbending soldiers get no victories;
The stiffest tree is readiest for the ax.
The strong and mighty topple from their place;
The soft and yielding rise above them all.
4 comments:
Hey, lynx, that is something what I discovered about myself too...
I mean, I used to say that I hate surprises. I can't really react to gifts properly as well...
Still, I look for it. I look also for changes, and the more scary the better. I strongly believe that my coming here was the biggest possible change and biggest possible crisis I could manage to set for myself. Surviving it proves that I am strong and flexible and I will survive whatever happens (e.g. the long-awaited Canadian-American war kicks in, as predicted by the South Park movie...)
It is a sort of extreme sport I guess. I'm looking for challenge other ways too. I was always famous for not being patient, still both my professions are/were the kind which needs a lot of repetition and tedious work and might not result in anything good after all the efforts...
As for the book, I don't know enough about it to form an opinion. It just recalls the theory, that you could make all your decisions by tossing a coin: you have the same chance to make good and bad decisions, since you don't know a lot of factors about your future, so your "smart choice" might turn into misery, and other way around, your biggest failure might be the luckiest thing ever, looking at it from a different time-point.
The movie "Sliding doors" (A no ketszer) is about something like that...what is a good luck and good decision is not obvious at all...so why not to ask for the help of three coins instead of one.
Sorry, this comment is enormous, but it is all your fault, you touched more than one of my favorite topics in the post!
Do you remember the opening scene of La Cour secrète des arcanes ?
nana: don't be sorry, I am glad you answered in detail :-)
As an old friend told me when I was "suffering" of adaptation in Australia: people can survive anything, like being shut in a van with hundreds of others and being without food for weeks and being sold as a prostitute etc. So I realized it is true and started accepting my "difficult" life (e.g. having to take the bus every morning.) But this relativity cannot always take me through stuff...
Good point on our job: why do you think we have chosen it? And what about puzzles? (OK, that might be slightly different.)
About I Ching: it is said to be the "only book that can have a conversation with you". For example for my last question I got the answer "unity of people" that made me realize (what was quite obvious): I CANNOT ask this question in my name only - it is a matter that affects so many others that it is simply dumb to ask it out of context! It was quite funny.
tarelle: I just did not have eyes for this at that time! Thanks for helping me to realize :-)
About relativity, I was in San Diego with my boss and I was worried about the bad timing of my pregnancy, big time. One evening, she told me the story, that when she was 8 month pregnant with her first one, it turned out that her husband's body is full of metastatic bone cancer. They have no clue what the primary cancer was, but every option had close to zero chance of survival. Especially at this phase. (They were lucky and the guy is fine..)
I immediately regretted all my complaints which she listened patiently.
And she was the one I was jealous for having such an easy life...
Expectations about life are all wrong. Maybe i am the luckiest, happiest person in the world, I just don't know about it. Even when I have to take the bus and others don't.
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