The weekend is coming!

My son is turning 8 today and we are going to see Monsters vs. Aliens tomorrow and whatever else fun birthday stuff we can find. I need to do a lot of homework too so that won't be as much fun. Ah life. It crawls on and on and then it rolls over on it's little back and waves it's legs until you turn it back over.
Yes, I know. That's a bad analogy but it's all I got.
Have a great weekend!

Philosophical bendings

I'm reading a book called The Art of Happiness. It is written by H.H. the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. I'm reading it because I think I need to create some new pathways in my brain to handle what my life is and what it will become. I really admire the Dalai Lama and how he thinks and how he handles his life. The book is good.
Then I started listening to all the background commentary in my head and realized how this book is starting to change the way I think already. The commentary goes like this... "I really like this book, it gives me a peaceful feeling.... it would be really cool to meet the Dalai Lama and be able to talk to him..... in the past I've been disappointed by people that I thought were really cool and then I met them and they were not so cool, or just boring, or really didn't know anything beyond what they were known for.... so maybe I wouldn't want to meet him because my hopes wouldn't be met and I would be left feeling disappointed.... you know, that isn't their fault really, it's my inflated expectations that do that, I expect a certain thing and they don't live up to it...."
The difference in that conversation rather than usual is the point where I realize it isn't the person letting me down, it's my own expectations. I'm hoping that this realization will eventually lead me to know which expectations are mine and not a fault of the person. Like everyone I just want some peace and happiness in my life. It's up to me and my state of mind to provide that.

Philosophical musings

Sitting in drawing class the other day I started thinking about how there is a dichotomy (not sure if that's the right word) in how people perceive their wanting to belong to a group and wanting to be an individual. I know how powerful it can be to want to be part of a group. You would think that would be mutually exclusive from wanting to be unique, an individual. Art majors tend to want to at least look unique and be unique in other ways. But yet they might also want to be part of the "art crowd". I always think of myself as pretty unique and proud of it most of the time but at the same time I feel these pangs of not belonging to anything. Watching an old episode of Friends last night, Monica was telling Ross how his fiancee had been planning and dreaming of the perfect wedding since she was five. This sort of standard woman thing has never applied to me. I've never dreamed of perfect weddings or a certain number of children and I never have long conversations about makeup or hair or clothes so when I see things like this I feel like since I don't do these things I don't belong to the "standard woman" group. Some days it makes me wonder why I don't like these things and why I'm not "right". Other days I'm glad I'm not concerned with such things. You can spend a lot of money for something that doesn't give much satisfaction. It's hard to ignore the pull of outside things and ideas about how other people think you should behave. I guess I'm just trying to find myself.