Be Yourself. Do your thing. NO. MATTER. WHAT.

 

SOMEWHAT RANDOM THOUGHT MATERIAL ABOUT

"amateur professionalism" ... YOUR "unique personality"

AND THE UTTER NECESSITY to "be yourself" NO. MATTER. WHAT.

 

let's start with a quote. that's a thing, right.

"Do you want to play an instrument really well? Start by just noodling around. In fact, never stop noodling. You want to draw? Just doodle. Scribble even. Don't worry about how well you do things. Do them to the best of your ability, with enthusiasm, but by all means. Dabble."

-- anonymous

Do you know what? So we live in a culture where you are expected to specialize. You have to be the best in the world at something. You know what? I'm tired of that. I don't want to feel limited to doing things that I am the best at. I want to do things poorly. I want to give myself permission to do things poorly, sloppily, haphazardly, sometimes horribly. I don't think that this is a problem.

...I'm not saying I'm going to walk into the ER and claim that I can perform delicate surgery - no not everything... But there are so many things that I want to do! that I can do, safely and with vigor, and a disregard for rules and standards. Those are tools meant to give you a hand at getting started, not limitations put in place to keep you from reaching your full potential AT ONCE. Not even reaching it. Using it. What you have NOW. You have the tools you need to do the work you want to be doing. And what you don't have, you can acquire. It is just within reach.

I want to give myself permission to DABBLE. And I think that you should, too.

***

Here is an example.

(I don't know what I'm saying, but I'm gonna pretend to say it anyways)

I believe that every human being is a master of the study of personal psychology. Do you know what I mean?

"You are YOU. That is truer than true. There is no one alive who is YOU-ER than YOU!" - Dr. Seuss.

In the field of psychology, there is the study of individuals as products of their formative years. You are who you are because of how you grew up, how you were raised, the family and friends and environment that made you who you are. So that story, or the events as you and perhaps those lasting connections continue to understand it, that development created your personality as you know it. And your wants and needs, your habits and routines, what you seek from the world and in your life... follows that initial developement.

It's kind of like your life is a puzzle. But it is the kind that formed into a certain shape, that you continue to solve on a regular basis. If you are getting what fulfills you, that means that you are solving that puzzle that is you. Again and again. You are finding the kind of friends and hobbies and discoveries that are reconfirming that formed shape-of-you.

SO NOW... you do continue to develop and change as you move along. But instead of the DIFFERENTIATION that defined your early life, now it is REFINEMENT that develops. And that's just natural. You will get so much better at the things you do, you might even feel a whistful nostalgia for that "beginner's mind" that you can't ever recapture. --but nevermind that. Mostly it's just really good to be good. And it's good to be you. And it's most of all good to be GOOD AT BEING YOU.

Face it. No one is as good at being you AS YOU ARE. (but if someone is... haha... that might be someone to befriend... to revere...)

Doppelgangers aside. So. You are you. But that is not all. There are people and things in this world that complement who you are. They might not be similar at all! They might be the kind of different that you can never achieve by yourself. This is a good thing. This is why there are others out there. And if they feel the same way about the ways-of-things that you have... now there you have something special.

SO. There you go, ME... (or whoever is super-reading me at this point. excelsior to you) there is your write-up. DO THE THINGS WITH THE PEOPLE. It doesn't matter how well or poorly you do them. It just matters that you continue to do them, with the people who fit your puzzle. And with gusto, with vigor, with enthusiasm. With that special and unpronounceable

"JOIEUAX DE VIVRE"

***

SOMEWHAT RANDOM THOUGHT MATERIAL hereby completed.