Be everything that you are

I'm probably about 80% geek in my daily life. Most of my likes and dislikes are based on how geeky a show or a book is; I read mostly fantasy and watch mostly scifi. But I'm not only a geek.

One of my Core Desired Feelings* this year is to feel Unconventionally Whole. I decided that I needed the unconventionally part because a lifetime of trying to feel whole and steady in conventional ways has gotten me nowhere. That idea that all I need is a house I own, a husband, and a kid or three is a nice one, and I'd one day like to have those things, but not only those things. Because that would totally neglect and deny the fact that I can't stand being hedged in or trapped--so owning a house I don't love in a place I don't love would be like prison, and dating someone just to have a boyfriend, just to get married would be like killing myself slowly.

And really, that's all external stuff that has nothing to do with how well I integrate my own disparate parts.

• I'm a geek
• But I'm also overly educated**, and I have a strong literary bent to me and my worldview because of it
• And I grew up overseas so I don't really feel like an American maybe a third of the time
• And I love to travel and see new things
• But I'm also often riddled with fear and anxiety, and it makes new things hard
• And I love to eat and cook
• But I also had an eating disorder that still plagues me sometimes, and I have health concerns now that stop me from eating and cooking everything I want
• And I'm basically a hermit
• But I get really bad wanderlust and cabin fever and I need to get out
• And I'm smart
• But also very shy and recovering from a lifetime of acting dumb
• And I'm a romantic
• But also practical and wildly uninterested in the reality of the general view of romance a lot of the time
• I'm a writer and a natural storyteller
• I'm artistic but unfocused
• I'm soft and small and easily hurt
• But trying to be tough without losing that

So basically, I'm being dragged in a lot of directions right now, and I wanted to make sure that one of my CDFs was to address that--to find ways to integrate and to make peace between all these disparate parts.

I'm building a life where all of me informs the structure and the outcome of what I do. 

And I think you should, too. Because how many people all over the world feel stifled? I'd say probably most of them, or there wouldn't be so much depression, violence, suicide, sad people drinking alone, weird movies about all the various abuses of the world. I think everyone should try to integrate more and more of their forgotten and pushed-off other interests and truths. And if more people did, maybe more societies would be open and welcoming for the weirdness of having so many people who aren't all the same. And then the next generation wouldn't have to go through this same struggle.

And maybe it's first world, and maybe a lot of people don't have time for this stuff, but maybe also a world where people weren't crammed into some other idea of how they should live would be one where there's less of the divisions and hardship we're all faced with.

And I'm done acting like I'm not an idealist.

What are you done acting like?

NOTES:

*You can find your own Core Desired Feelings in the Desire Map, linked up there in the Affiliations tab!

**I made sure I am! And I'm probably not done yet!