Killing Your Sacred Cows since 1992

So, this weekend, I was at Penguicon. I had fun, though I always feel a little pressured to "stay up late and have fun!" Except staying up late is not fun for me, generally speaking. I enjoyed some panels about writing, playing Fluxx in the games room and enjoyed the hell out of the Drag show, though I was too antsy to stay past the first hour or so of it (I'd already been sitting a long time watching the Masquerade).

I also volunteered for the first time, thinking it might be a way to force myself to meet people as I can be a bit shy and just tend to hang out with people I already know at these sorts of things. My shift was from 8-10 a.m., and it was eery to see how quiet the hotel was at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, considering it was completely full. So, that didn't help much with the meeting people thing, but at least I earned some good karma points.

Yesterday was J. and my 13th wedding anniversary. We didn't do anything too exciting, but I always kind of think of Penguicon as our anniversary getaway as it's usually just a week or so before our anniversary. I made bean and potato enchiladas and we watched "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" which I really loved, so it was a good evening.

And, later this week, we will be adopting a cat, which I'm really excited about. Photos and details once the adoption is complete!

I've been thinking over some things over the last few days, and I could probably go on and on, but I'll try to keep it concise.

I've heard or read several acquaintances and friends lately talk or write about feeling like observers in their lives, talk about "faking being an adult," or talk about feeling they are play-acting at some aspect of their lives. I know others who get down about "getting in a rut" or "taking someone or something for granted" or doing things out of habit.

It seems to me those feelings are both completely normal and are the beginning and ending points of a process of acclimatization.

At first, when you try any new skill, whether it's something you do at work, or a relationship skill, you feel like you're faking it. I used to feel quite scatter-brained, and so I would keep multiple calendars and put sticky notes all over my desk. People would assume I was organized, but I felt like a deeply disorganized person who was just "faking" being organized. But if you turn those behaviors that help keep you organized into regular habits, you're not just faking organized anymore; you ARE organized. I've always thought that "Fake it til you make it" was great advice for many situations, but especially in the area of faking confidence until you actually feel confident, whether it's a work interview or a first date.

The flip side of that is feeling that you're in a routine, that you're doing things out of habit, and you're not really putting much thought or effort into them. That's actually a good thing in some parts of your life. I surely don't feel the need to be wholly present and give brushing my teeth my full attention. If I was a good Buddhist, I probably *would* spend some time giving tooth-brushing my full attention, just as practice in being mindful, but I'm not quite that enlightened yet.

I think the problem comes when you feel that *too much* of your life is routine, or that things that should have more meaning and more feeling attached to them have become mere habit. Kissing your spouse before work or as you're arriving home from work is a nice ritual. But if it's done out of obligation and without feeling, I can see how that would feel deadening and disappointing.

After all my pondering, I think it's important to:

1. Relax when you feel you're play-acting or faking it, and trust that the new way of being or doing things will become more comfortable over time.

2. Figure out what things it's OK to let become habitual and routine and not worry about those.

3. Find the important areas of your life where you've gotten into a rut and figure out how you can do those things more mindfully, whether it's giving your spouse a really *soulful* kiss upon arriving home or whether it's doing a routine job at work with more attention and thinking of ways you could improve your efficiency at that process or another process or task at work.

4. Plan to try out one new thing every week (or month or every quarter, since everyone has different needs and tolerances for The New vs. the Old and Familiar) to keep yourself feeling challenged and alive. These new things can range from something small like listening to a different radio station on your commute (or turning off the radio and driving in silence) to planning a long hike somewhere you've never visited before to committing to taking concrete steps toward finding a new, more challenging job.

For a long time, I've realized that unsolicited advice is unpopular, rarely heeded, and is likely to make the person being advised angry. I've also long held the belief that even when people ask you for advice, they almost always only want you to tell them to go ahead and do whatever they've already made up their mind to do.

More recently, I've come up with a corollary belief: people can't extrapolate from other people's experience to their own.

You see this in LJ communities like sextips and birthcontrol, and you see it in advice columns.

Good critical thinkers can make generalizations and apply them to new situations. For instance: Ah, I see that putting my hand in the bonfire hurts. I see flames on the kitchen's gas stove; I bet that putting my hand in that source of fire also hurts! In fact, I bet even an electric stove, since it is a source of heat, could burn my hand and hurt me.

But so many people are obviously NOT good critical thinkers when it comes to extrapolating from one situation to another. For instance, versions of the same goddamn question get asked over and over on sextips because people think they're a "special case." For instance: I know you gave the person two posts ago advice about having an orgasm through PIV sex. But my situation is different because my boyfriend is 5'7" and blond and 28, not a 17-year-old brunette. (OK, yes I'm being snarky, but you get the idea).

Or, on birthcontrol, there will be a series of questions about whether you're "really protected even on the placebo pills." They think their situation is different because they're on a different brand of pill. Or they can't extrapolate to the fact that the same thing applies when you're using the patch and you're on your no-patch week, which is essentially the same thing as the placebo pill week for pill users.

I think the place people have the hardest time making generalizations and extrapolating is in relationship issues. Yes, generalizations can be problematic because we're all individuals, but people still fall into the trap of thinking they're "special cases." In an advice column, you'll see a letter that says something like, "I'm a big fan of your advice, and I know you've had several letters about cheating. You've said that if he cheated on his wife with you, it's likely he's going to continue cheating even if he leaves her and marries you. But my situation is special. He's only cheating because blah, blah, blah."

No. You're not special. You just don't want to accept the advice everyone in the same goddamn situation gets, and so you're looking for all the exceptions and minor differences.

Really, if we could learn from other people's experiences, it'd be great and would save us a lot of heartache. But it rarely works that way, does it?

I was talking with dionysus1999 about default social strategies. If they're at all nervous in social situations, most people have a default strategy or personality they don. For some, it might be "The Jester," where you feel you have to entertain people. For someone else, it might be "The Lecturer," where you feel most comfortable teaching people something. You might be "The Cruise Director" or "The Devil's Advocate."

I think my defaults are "The Flirt," "The Hostess," and occasionally "The Hermit."

How about you?

This is a poem I wrote several years ago. I don't think it's all that great as poetry, but I stand by the sentiment.

( The Value of Communication has been Overstated )