A Pixelated Mind

There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where one of the characters talks about how groups of women always look hotter than each individual woman. They called it the “Cheerleader Effect.”

In high school, my group of friends was huge. As a result, we would go out and do things almost every day. There was always something going on and always enough people so that any event would be well attended… and awesome. It was one of the best times of my life.

I think about that time still to try to understand what happened and why it fell apart. First, of course, time changed our circumstances. Pam & Miguel went to Albuquerque, Fernie joined the Navy, and so on. Second, people’s priorities changed: motherhood, getting into careers, etc. Third, there was some intra and inter-group relationship drama.

But mostly, I just don’t think most individual pairs of people in the group had that strong of relationships. The relationships were strong in the abstract, but when the group as a whole began to dissolve, many of the constitutive relationships also fell apart.

This didn’t just happen with my high school group (indeed, most of those relationships have been the most resilient to time), it also happened to my friends at Turnbull Hall in IUP, the gaggle of friends I made in Australia, and the TRUpers from my time at the student newspaper. I still hold special places in my heart for dozens of people I met in each of those places— and still talk regularly with a few— but my relationship with the rest of the assorted group is more of a casual acquaintanceship with memories of better times. I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking to stay at their house, for instance.

So yeah. I don’t really have a point. I’ve just been thinking about this recently.

It turns out I’m… 26 now.

“I’ve decided that the best way to live my life is to treat myself with the same basic decency with which I would treat complete strangers.”

– Mari A-H

My roommates are these two guys: Future Me and Past Me. I never actually get to see them, because their schedules tend to be as hectic as my own. Generally, I’m on good terms with Future Me– he seems to be on his way up in the world.  But Past Me is this jerk, you know? He doesn’t clean or make the bed or anything, and it really gets to me.

If I try to get back at him by doing the same thing to him that he does to me, it only hurts Future Me, because he ends up having to clean up after the both of us. I’ve tried talking to him about it, but I can never seem to get ahold of him. So Future Me is left not being able to distinguish between myself and Past Me.

Why do I even live with these guys? Because Past Me’s paid every month’s rent for a long time… and Future Me says he’s going to handle the rest from now on.

So I’m going to start eating better, being more courteous, and tidying up more often. Maybe then Future Me and I will have a better relationship. And maybe Past Me will learn by example.

(Crossposted)

This is a list of items I hope to do every day. If I fail at any particular item, it’s okay, because there are many items on this list and I just want to do most of them:

• Run 5k
• Write microfiction for 20 minutes
• Write one sentence
• Write e-mails for 10 minutes
• Read RSS feeds for no more than 20 minutes
• See people for social reasons for 10 minutes
• Not drink alcohol (Sunday thru Thursday)
• Call someone
• Work on a personal project (podcast/video) for 10 minutes
• Read/write for my dissertation for 20 minutes

My friend Mari thinks I have too many items on my list.  She may be right. I’ll let you know how it works out.

I haven’t broken a promise in the past ten years. It’s very important to me. Probably more important than my life or other silly things. My moral outlook is somewhat inconsistent with this, but I find that I need to have a word of gold to make sense of my life.

So I have these rules for myself. You can follow along with me, if you like. I find it’s been very helpful in my life to distinguish between things I say, which are very likely to be true except in cases where feelings or fortunes depend on their falsity; things I say I’ll do, which generally always happen, but can fail do to circumstances beyond my control; and things I promise, which will always be kept.

1. Don’t make promises often. This is key. Promises have to be special or else they’re not worth their breath.
2. Remember your promises. Keeping the first rule will help with the second. But even so, keeping track of what you agree to do vs. what you promise to do is crucial.
3. Don’t make promises that depend on circumstances. You can’t control the world, no sense promising things that depend on it.
4. Don’t make promises that depend on other people’s actions. This is why I will very likely never get married. (Nor do I have the desire to.)
5. Never make a promise that’s been requested. When people find out that I don’t break promises, every once in a while they try to get me to guarantee something will get done by asking me to promise it. This is horrible. It cheapens promises and puts you in a tricky position to either deny the request and imply you won’t do something or accept the request and risk breaking your word. This rule is your way out.