some things or Mr. Nobody Goes Away
[This post has gone through many phases. It began as a comment to a comment on liz's blog, then, as a comment to a post, and now, as a post on my blog. Each time it gets longer.]
(this comment began under your comment about maslow, two posts back, but was cut and is now pasted and continued, here.)
that got me thinking so i checked m-w.com:
self-actualization is to fully realize one's full potential.
then i checked maslow:
http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/maslow/self.htm
i read it all. it was enlightening. i think it's important to read something that describes characteristics of healthy people, because when i associate with a described characteristic, i'm associating myself with something good. there were 5 or 6 points that were worthy of highlighting, so, that's something.
i learned a lot, today.
i confronted a bee at one point and although i knew i was agitating him, i was still very composed. it wasn't that i was less afraid of the pain of being stung, but that i felt that i understood the bee much better. i was more aware of him, his intentions, his patterns. if you act normally, a bee will make you aware of him, usually with a kind of zig-zag pattern (i'm making this up, in the sense that i did not read that link on bee behaviour.), or he might even circle around you. we have a lot of bees outside our store, and i was sweeping the parking lot edges of cigarette butts. i looked at a bee and wondered if he had really been warning me or had just been passing by. i backed off and saw that he stayed in that area. then i noticed that other bees that entered that area were swiftly attacked. ok, i was pretty sure, now, that he didn't want me going in there either. but, i did, looking down and continuing to sweep. this caused him to move from the spot where he was hovering and zip around me again. so i backed off again and he went back to his spot. i realized that if i had been a bee, he'd have tangled with me. with me, and my larger frame, he was hoping his intimidation techniques would be enough to keep me from interfering with his desire to control that area. well, i would not be intimidated. i went towards him and swung my broom. he flew away for a second but came right back and dashed in front of me until i again backed off a little. but i went right back at him again and swung and this time he came straight at me and made a pass at maybe two feet that lasted at least a full second. i didn't challenge him again. so, it was kind of like i communicated with a bee. yeah, the events could have been predicted by common sense, but i'd never felt so secure in my judgement that i had nothing to fear. it's nice to feel like you understand things.
probably more importantly, i regained my desire to greet people with a smile. hmm, i hadn't expected to phrase it that way. in my head, i thought i had just today learned that greeting someone with a smile makes for a more enjoyable conversation and allows for more expressiveness from each individual because of the feelings of safety and comfort that are associated with smiling. or, that i had overcome my fear of smiling at people. but once i did it the first time, it's hard not to do it anymore. it's already back to the point where if i smile and the other person does not, i would, at worst, feel a little bad for the other person and would almost be compelled to ask them if there was anything wrong. this is a total flip in my actions from even a few days ago. this is something that people will notice and say, yes, i've changed. but i've been getting better for a long time, from my perspective.
hmm. most people seem to respond to others. most people will reflect another person. there are other people out there though, and these are probably the more self-actualized people. these people will smile at you no matter in what manner you approach them. they do this because they have the self-knowledge that that is the right thing to do. as marlow said, be prepared to be unpopular though. he says that self-actualized people (if you haven't read the link) are more apt to ignore answering questions in ways that the environment suggests that they should, and instead, they answer from their own inner experience. i definately know of people who always seem to make me feel better, and they definately don't do this by reflecting how i've been acting. they are being creative and they are energetic. they don't try to understand me more than they simply, and confidently, act the way they 'know' is right. my mother, for one; she can't help but be herself, no matter how much ~playful? criticism she takes.
mmm, well, i'll stop now. guess who just came in. at least it's already 6pm.
(this comment began under your comment about maslow, two posts back, but was cut and is now pasted and continued, here.)
that got me thinking so i checked m-w.com:
self-actualization is to fully realize one's full potential.
then i checked maslow:
http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/maslow/self.htm
i read it all. it was enlightening. i think it's important to read something that describes characteristics of healthy people, because when i associate with a described characteristic, i'm associating myself with something good. there were 5 or 6 points that were worthy of highlighting, so, that's something.
i learned a lot, today.
i confronted a bee at one point and although i knew i was agitating him, i was still very composed. it wasn't that i was less afraid of the pain of being stung, but that i felt that i understood the bee much better. i was more aware of him, his intentions, his patterns. if you act normally, a bee will make you aware of him, usually with a kind of zig-zag pattern (i'm making this up, in the sense that i did not read that link on bee behaviour.), or he might even circle around you. we have a lot of bees outside our store, and i was sweeping the parking lot edges of cigarette butts. i looked at a bee and wondered if he had really been warning me or had just been passing by. i backed off and saw that he stayed in that area. then i noticed that other bees that entered that area were swiftly attacked. ok, i was pretty sure, now, that he didn't want me going in there either. but, i did, looking down and continuing to sweep. this caused him to move from the spot where he was hovering and zip around me again. so i backed off again and he went back to his spot. i realized that if i had been a bee, he'd have tangled with me. with me, and my larger frame, he was hoping his intimidation techniques would be enough to keep me from interfering with his desire to control that area. well, i would not be intimidated. i went towards him and swung my broom. he flew away for a second but came right back and dashed in front of me until i again backed off a little. but i went right back at him again and swung and this time he came straight at me and made a pass at maybe two feet that lasted at least a full second. i didn't challenge him again. so, it was kind of like i communicated with a bee. yeah, the events could have been predicted by common sense, but i'd never felt so secure in my judgement that i had nothing to fear. it's nice to feel like you understand things.
probably more importantly, i regained my desire to greet people with a smile. hmm, i hadn't expected to phrase it that way. in my head, i thought i had just today learned that greeting someone with a smile makes for a more enjoyable conversation and allows for more expressiveness from each individual because of the feelings of safety and comfort that are associated with smiling. or, that i had overcome my fear of smiling at people. but once i did it the first time, it's hard not to do it anymore. it's already back to the point where if i smile and the other person does not, i would, at worst, feel a little bad for the other person and would almost be compelled to ask them if there was anything wrong. this is a total flip in my actions from even a few days ago. this is something that people will notice and say, yes, i've changed. but i've been getting better for a long time, from my perspective.
hmm. most people seem to respond to others. most people will reflect another person. there are other people out there though, and these are probably the more self-actualized people. these people will smile at you no matter in what manner you approach them. they do this because they have the self-knowledge that that is the right thing to do. as marlow said, be prepared to be unpopular though. he says that self-actualized people (if you haven't read the link) are more apt to ignore answering questions in ways that the environment suggests that they should, and instead, they answer from their own inner experience. i definately know of people who always seem to make me feel better, and they definately don't do this by reflecting how i've been acting. they are being creative and they are energetic. they don't try to understand me more than they simply, and confidently, act the way they 'know' is right. my mother, for one; she can't help but be herself, no matter how much ~playful? criticism she takes.
mmm, well, i'll stop now. guess who just came in. at least it's already 6pm.
on a whim, chad was marco @ 6:00 PM
3 $BlogItemCommentCount$:
At 11:28 PM,
Anonymous said…
hey, that link you found on maslow was pretty cool. but after reading the descriptions of people who've realized self-actualization, don't you wonder whether any normal people ever attain all those ideal qualities? he makes "normal" people sound like jesus or buddha or something... full of wisdom, completely at peace with the world. is it really possible to be that well-adjusted and in tune with yourself without being, like, a zen master?
i guess it's nice to think that it's possible, and even if it's not, i guess it's still worth shooting for. lofty goals can be good motivators.
anyway, i wanted to say that i really liked the bee story. did you know that bees actually dance to communicate with one another? maybe the bee was trying to tell you something.
At 1:01 PM,
chad was marco said…
yeah, i agree, you wouldn't be normal if you had all of those qualities all of the time.
i have a lot of questions that i want to know about those people he studied. were they aware of how they acted? would they, themselves, have put themselves at the top of the pyramid? would maslow consider himself one of those people? what percentage of people would he consider to be self-actualized? what percentage of those people were very well-off economically? or not?
i watched the bees dance a little but i couldn't really make sense of it. the video showed lots of bees dancing on their hive, or more they were just moving around. it didn't seem like i could learn from it. but, anyway, i'm pretty sure that bee was trying to tell me to get the hell away from him, don't you?
At 8:42 AM,
ClickNathan said…
well who could be certain of what the bee was dancing for other than you?
at least you'd be in the best situation to judge it.
and I didn't read any of that maslow stuff because, well let's face it, if I read that I'd have to read everything on the Internet and I don't want to set a precedent, but I think it is very possible to achieve a Jesus or Buddha like status in your own life, I just think the hardest part of it all is is figuring out what your ideals are, and not confusing it with just following the teachings of someone else.
And even after you figure that out for yourself then you've got the nearly as difficult task of actually living by those standards. Or at least doing your best to achieve them without always coming back to "Yeah, but I lived by my ideals yesterday so I deserve a break today." Because I think that if you really believe them then they won't be a chore.
Of course, I could be missing the mark on what you're speaking of completely, in which case, consider this a completely unrelated comment.
But oooh yeah, dancing with bees, it's things like that which make life to me. Nothing makes me happier than hearing a story about you learning from bees or Julie & Shawn on a long drive where they don't need music in the background or Roker telling me about the halfpipe he built on his deck. So many little things that define every aspect of existance to me, they make it all worth while. I get so much more into the idea of an experience rather than the experience itself.
Like fires. I mean, on one hand they are mesmerizing things, flickering and burning and consuming, they're life forms that need man to keep them growing but can also flail out of man's control, but aside from that, sitting around a fire cooking a hotdog can be a pretty mundane experience, until you realize how much you appreciate that smoke in your clothes smell and watching the flames flicker through your beer bottle and the sky is open and clear and you're hanging with a very old friend and at that very moment nothing is more special and precious than everything about life.
I think that all things fall into place if given time, you just have to be able to recognize them and appreciate them, because they usually fall back out of place again at some point. I've spent a lot of time trying to get myself to ignore that I know that they'll fall out of place eventually and just enjoying them while they're sitting there all in a row.
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