Reflections

 It's been a terribly long time since the last time I've written a blog post. This week has been a lot less stressful for me. I can't say this for sure, but I suspect that my decision to remain proactive played a large positive role. Yesterday, I finished the Physics homework due tonight, which I likely would have otherwise been doing now. Must less stress. Ah.

I also began studying for my Physics midterm this Friday early, and have finishing up tasks ahead of their deadline. I feel on top of my day now, as cliche as that sounds.

I don't feel as if I'm drowning in work. There's something ignoble about procrastination and noble about proactivity. If I'm rushing to get an assignment done at the last minute, I regret not doing it earlier. I hardly even enjoy the process of doing the assignment. Conversely, when I get things done early, I can leave them as a gift to my future self. I often forget about doing it, but upon remembering what it would be like doing the assignment at the last minute, I feel a sense of relief.

Yesterday, I was thinking about the scorpion dream I had several days ago, which I wrote a post about. The glaring symbolism of that dream disturbs me. It's not even as if I'm trying very hard to extract meaning from that dream. It's just that each of the three scenes in that dream fit so perfectly into a metaphor for a growing concern that's being swept under the carpet. So many details about that dream are so apt. How the threat of the scorpion emerges as a lingering threat at the side of the bathroom. How the scorpion grows in size as I keep ignoring it. How it positions itself on the door as I have my head turned, blocking my exit route. And at last, after I ignore it for the second time, how it grows in size and slowly creeps up to me and bites me. The setting of that dream is perfect, in that it exactly captures the essence of a threat unknowingly creeping up on you and striking at the worst moment. How in the shower in my dream, I was in a compromised position without any physical protection; completely vulnerable to attack as the scorpion approached me. How I was locked in the bathroom, distant from other people who might otherwise be able to help.

It's as if this dream of the scorpion came out of a dark fairy tale or horror movie. Considering how superficial some other dreams seem to me, this dream seemed very dense with meaning. I am glad to have had that dream, for some reason. As I mentioned when I first wrote the post, the feeling I had when the scorpion bit me felt not very different that the feeling I get when I inevitably receive a bad grade on a test I didn't study for (as if I were expecting to receive anything else but that grade), or when I fail to keep track of time while playing outside and miss an important meeting. It feels especially bad because I had a chance to save myself, whether I knew so consciously or subconsciously, but failed to respond to it on account of complacency.

I sometimes worry a bit that I don't provide myself with a believable reason to justify my involvement in the things I do. What if things go wrong, and I lose the motivation to continue spending time on the activities I've continued for a long-time? For example, what if I wake up one day and think that exercising or playing the piano is useless and I will stop spending my time on that? I will inevitably go through a process of rationalization, where I will at a conscious level negotiate with myself and try to reach a logical decision. It's obvious to me now that the completion of these activities provide some sort of meaning to me, which is why I do them. But this in itself is a very vague statement. It's not sufficient to constitute a persuasive argument that I can use with myself.

I'm sure that you, the reader, are familiar with the negotiation that goes on between a parent and a child who doesn't want to eat broccoli. The parent and child are two different people that must rationalize each of their arguments. The parent must know why they are making their child eat broccoli, or otherwise they will get outplayed. And often times, saying "It's good for you" is not a good enough argument to convince the child (or even the other parent) that the child should eat broccoli. If, however, the parent knows what they're talking about, I imagine they would easily convince the child because they already have themselves convinced. They know based on their own personal experience that if they keep letting their child eat the junk food they like, their health consequences would be detrimental. They don't start to doubt their own argument, and that sometimes might even show on their face or their tone.

In a similar fashion, the long-term drive required in the sustenance of a habit is necessary to rationalize and explain when negotiating with oneself, such as when figuring out the best decision to make. I've failed to undergo this process for the past few days with respect to my habit of posting regularly on this blog. I've also succeeded in applying this process of rationalization in other places, such as today when I chose to exercise before my Physics midterm review session, rather than after. I think that was a good choice. I killed the scorpion while it was still small.