Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

You can follow the summer's blog posts here.
You can read my experiences trying to learn to fly, which is here.

Let it go.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 7 comments link this post

"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever.
If it doesn't, then it was never meant to be."

I remember reading that over-wrought and over-used faux-philosophy gem in a book in high school which involved some guy releasing an eagle or something. In that context it made sense and so I evidently filed it away in the "always true" folder of my mind.

I was thinking about it again recently, for some reason, and decided it's a lot of crap.

It might make people feel better after a break-up (and I certainly can't fault them for that), or find a way to categorize plain, old being dumped into something Shakespearean, but that's about it. Really, it only works perfectly well in a wildlife catch-and-release program sense.

Instead, I find the concept a way of giving passive people the excuse for doing nothing difficult. It leaves everything up to fate, including blame and responsibility. It's a form of pride, too, which chooses to let things fall to the wayside rather than fight for them and perhaps eat an apology or two in order to hang on. Christian guys have the added annoying habit of using the excuse of biding time and letting the good thing slip away all in the name of making sure it's "God's will." "God's will" is almost synonymous for inaction, the ultimate religious guilt-free excuse.

"It wasn't meant to be, I guess. She wasn't meant to be mine. I'm just not the one for her. I had to set her free. She needed to go onto better things." Please. Just shut up. She would have stayed if you could have put a stop to your own self-hating pity party and just been honorable instead of pathetic.

As my friend GirlFriday wrote in a comment on a blog post, there is distinct value (and difficulty) in knowing a good thing when you have it. Perhaps it comes with age and experience, this recognition of a good thing.

Stop all this "letting things go" nonsense. Hang onto it. Grab on tight and quit letting people and things slip away because of what's unimportant or the silly notion that life is Las Vegas and good things are worth tossing away in a gamble to see if they'll come crawling back and make you feel good about yourself. Don't fool yourself into thinking there's a never-ending supply of equivalent good coming down the pipe.

And don't fool yourself into thinking that it'll come back to you and then you'll know for sure it's yours; few things come back to the passive, particularly the good things. In fact, if you set something free and it comes back to you, there's a pretty good chance you have a stalker on your hands. Get a lawyer on retainer. In reality, the person who can't hold onto the good things he only sees in the rear view mirror will find himself eulogizing his regrets with bad poetry and little else to show for it.

I would like to note that the eagle never came back to the kid in that book. There was much purple prose about it, but the essential point that I pull from it now is that when you set something free, it tends to take that as a message to get the heck out of Dodge and not as a message to stick around. Take that for what it's worth.

Do you recognize the good thing in your life? Hold on like there's no tomorrow, because there might not be. Especially if you let it go.

Labels: essay, relationships

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The gift of hospitality.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

::Part of this was in an email I wrote to my parents, regarding my difficulty in finding an apartment or other housing after my initial plans went sour.::

"To welcome the stranger is to acknowledge him as a human
being made in God's image; it is to treat her as one of equal worth
with ourselves - indeed, as one who may teach us something out of
the richness of experiences different from our own."

-- Ana Maria Pineda

The Bible is filled with passages talking about taking in the stranger. God's own people were strangers and refugees. I got to thinking about my current situation (no place to stay as of yet), and how much I don't like asking people for help; it made me think of the passages in the Bible regarding hospitality, and how the disciples and Jesus had no home and relied upon people putting them up.

I wonder if that would happen today?

The American ideal is that God helps those who help themselves; our general state of hospitality can be keenly seen in our dialog on immigrants and others having a difficult time making it. Immigrants are fine if they can pull their own weight. We'll send money to help the refugees somewhere in Africa, but damned if they start coming over here and not learning our language or becoming like us. "Those people" can go to Lutheran Social Services or some other government agency to get help; that's what they're there for. I've heard that many times. It's echoed, in a softer version swathed in some sort of Biblical apologetic, by many Christian and right-wing leaders.

Build soup kitchens, homeless shelters, group housing. Put them there.

But not in my home.

My home with ample space, where I have all my stuff that I like just so. Don't ask me to give up my good stuff; I'll give you the old stuff I don't want anymore.

Romans 12:13 says hospitality is something that must be practiced, which suggests it doesn't come easily or naturally to our greedy, selfish natures.

I know that after 29 exchange students through the years of growing up, I was tired of sharing my clothes and shower and bathroom and time with these guests, though I hid my reasons for wanting my parents to stop hosting them in much more diplomatic and reasonable language. Essentially, I grew tired of practicing hospitality, for hospitality requires relinquishing personal space, my stuff, my time, my rights, my habits, and my comfort for the sake of another. It requires efforts at making conversation and attending to needs and not expecting a return. Hospitality can be dangerous; you don't know what might happen when you invite people into your home. Hospitality isn't just helping out your close friends and families, but involves the stranger or the one in need. And, it requires humility enough to ask for and accept hospitable help, and the generosity enough to keep offering it above and beyond what our culture tells us "is enough." This is hard work, and must be practiced.

To my parents, in an email this morning, I wrote:

It is starting to seem that people will say "let me know if you need any help" but when they are pressed for something that would inconvenience them, they put limits on that. I was thinking about how you guys gave George* and his family a house for a year when things weren't looking good for them, and let them have their dog there and everything. Repeatedly, you have gone out of your way to help people with furniture, money, clothing, housing -- even helped people move. Rarely was it convenient. Yet that isn't the normal behavior of people. I guess it's a good lesson to learn, the contrast of the two behaviors.

My parents have been excellent examples to all of us kids in regards to what hospitality looks like. Often, we shake our heads and tell them they are being too patient or too lenient, or getting to involved. Yet, I can see as I look back, that being generous is not the problem. Greed is.

And it is greed, a greed of convenience and space and autonomy and personal ease. A desire to be accountable or answer to or be required of no one.

People are so lonely and unhappy in our "independent" and self-removed lifestyle in the West -- we have our own space and our own stuff and it's very little hassle if it stays that way! -- but we don't see how it makes us unhappy in our greed, or creates selfishness. We make excuses as to why helping someone wouldn't work or wouldn't be a good idea because it would mean someone would intrude on our comfort level. "They got into this mess. They can get out. It'll be a good lesson," we might say, and it sounds good and responsible and very much like tough love. "It's time they took responsibility."

We offer to help but make sure it is help that doesn't require much commitment or undue loss of time or resources. What we don't understand is that, not only would it be good for us to go out of our way and "responsibility" to help someone in the long run, but it is required. The Bible doesn't suggest we be hospitable. It tells us to be hospitable. It does not tell us to tell people that it is their responsibility to take care of themselves. We are to take care of each other, as God has taken care of us.

Matthew 25:35 is often used for reasons to help the poor and needy, but lest we get locked in our minds that the poor and needy are a certain set of people, we need to remember that the poor and needy can come in many forms and fluctuate from previous states. Two weeks ago, for example, I was not needy. I did not need a place to stay. Today, at this moment, I do. This passage, however, addresses more than just the person who needs food or clothing. It says: "I was a stranger and you invited me in."

One thing I appreciated about Shane Claiborne and the things he promotes in his writing, is this very unusual idea (in the western culture mainly, not most of the rest of the world) of serious hospitality. When he travels for speaking engagements, for example, he asks to stay in the homes of the people of the church he is speaking at, and not in some impersonal hotel. I'm sure some people would rather not be bothered, and it would be easier to relegate the stranger to a hotel.

I understand Claiborne's personal policy on many levels. I am tired of impersonal hotels. I've stayed in enough of them in my meager travels over the years, and I don't get a lot of joy out of staying in them anymore. It's not exciting. I am starting to understand and appreciate what Claiborne is trying to say about hospitality and relationships and community.

Whatever the case, my little experience is a good reminder to be hospitable and helpful all the time, not just when it's easy, and not just to throw the words around suggesting you'll help but not follow through. It is difficult for me, not because I don't want to help, but because I am shy and have a fear of offering to help and being rebuffed.

My experience has been mild. A week in duration. I have a computer for communication and family that checks up on me. If all else fails and I can't find a place to stay for my 3 months of class, then I will simply have to end the instruction and go back home and try again some other time. It's all easy enough -- I, at least, have a home somewhere.

Just not here.

*Name has been changed.

Labels: essay, family, relationships, religion, summer 2008

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Honorable men(tion).

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 8 comments link this post

::I'm always glad I can call her a friend; with writing like her most recent blog post, I am more than just glad, but grateful. I felt a weird kind of "yes, exactly!" and kinship and Jane Austen-y and maybe just a little less a loser.::

What about the honorable men? Girl Friday asks in her post (which you should read in full).

After reading it more than once, a particular paragraph stuck in my mind:

We mistake clever, sensitive men for honorable ones. We even fall into the trap of believing that nice, "red-blooded" American boys are honorable. Niceness should not be the standard. When we set the bar higher, we're derided.

I had never made that connection before, the one about mere niceness. Every woman is just out looking for a "nice guy", and every friend who's trying to play matchmaker is describing the potentials as a "nice guy."

Nice guy?

Women are derided and blamed and fed excuses for wanting, hoping for, and expecting more than niceness; wanting honorable, instead.*

Many times, over the years after something went sour in the peculiar non-event, not-many-know, reveal-little-to-anyone personal brand of concealment I specialize in, I would find myself saying to a close friend who asked for details (and probably said it with a lot of guilt and confusion to myself just as much): "...but he is a nice guy, despite all of this. He's a nice guy. Don't say anything bad about him. He's a nice guy. He means well. He's just too busy. But he's a nice guy."

That niceness is a trap. It leaves a woman feeling like she must really be awful for such a nice guy to still be considered, to still seem, nice, while she somehow feels like a truck ran over her heart.

All that nonsense about women preferring bad guys and nice guys finishing last? It's the wrong argument. Straw man. Red herring. Sour grapes. Whatever you want to call it.

Niceness should not be the standard.

I got to know a nice guy, last year. The year ended like the Hindenburg (read any post here from 2007 to get your fill). And this? He still is a very nice guy.

So. What.

*In many of the "relationship" posts on this blog, you'll find comments with far too many guys saying "yeah, but you women are this, this and this so what can you expect from us men?" Then it gets into the usual arguing back and forth of how women want too much or too little, or do this or that, or are somehow responsible (either passively or actively) for the behavior of men. Far from anything honorable. And it never occurred to me until now why that response rather repulsed me and seemed weasel-y, and why it annoyed me to have to wade in and debate and say, "oh, you're probably right, women should do this so men would do this." Many of these fellows seemed nice, so what could I say? They must be right. It never occurred to me to expect men to be honorable, and to be men. But it does now.

Labels: links, relationships

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The theory of 180.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 12 comments link this post

Every so often I realize with a great deal of pain that I forgot everything I told myself not to forget. This, for example. Or this tidy little summation. Or, maybe this, which I didn't really write but latched onto in a later post. Or maybe I ought to remember just about any and all things I've written here.

But I don't remember my own writing, my own ideas, my own admonitions. I'm all or nothing, even in remembering and forgetting.

I was doing my usual archiving and computer cleanup a few days ago and I realized I'd sent one person 175 emails to his 75. 70 percent of the communication, the effort, was mine. Staring at the numbers, which are facts that can't be shushed even by all my best intentions, continued acquiescence, or excuses for all of the allowances I repeatedly made, I finally saw the real picture.

175 emails.

"I think I need to set up a quota at 180," I said lightly in an email, though I didn't feel light about it. That, by the way, raised my tally to 176.

180.

Half a sphere. I need to find some new spheres: new friends, new places, new direction. The sphere I'm in is apparently not holding what I am looking for.

I've done borrowed; I'm familiar with being blue. I'm tired of the old; I want something new.

180.

A stop. A change in direction. I know what I want and I see that my current direction isn't getting me there. Instead, I feel stupid and embarrassed and left hung out to dry from nothing but my own refusal to see a dead end. Repeated rejection from various sources for over a decade doesn't numb as well as you think it would. Not to mention, I didn't even follow my own strong suggestions about not pursuing, about not being a stationary object, about struggling with silence and pretending it was OK -- all of that. Not only am I rejected, but I am so foolish that I failed to understand my own writing.

180.

How long do you need to know someone before it finally becomes clear that nothing is ever going to happen? How strong of a message do you need before you finally see the obvious?

For me, it hits somewhere around 180 emails.

Sometimes, its time for a 180.

Labels: personal, relationships

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Look up at the good parts.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I read my friend Sarah's blog post with slight amusement, only because I know her and because the two lists she ends up making in the post are spot-on.

Bar hopping.
Cigarette smoke.
Chit-chat.
Kill me now.

Sarah and I used to hang out in college. We'd spend at least one afternoon/evening a week at Sarah's house watching Pride and Prejudice (the six-hour version), she working on her zinc plates for printmaking, and I drawing in my sketchbook. We'd watched that movie so much that it would just sort of run in the background, memorized, and then we'd both look up, almost synchronized, at "the good parts."

The funny lines. ("Let's hear no more of his partners! Would he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!")

The dance scenes.

The witty barbs from Miss Elizabeth Bennett.

Anything with Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth).

That was what a wild, fun and crazy evening was for me. I can't speak for Sarah, but I haven't changed much. An evening out at a restaurant with anyone short of close friends sounds like torture. It had better, at the end, at least include desert, preferably cake*.

I don't know.

I feel like keeping on doing what I keep on doing in life, and only looking up for the good parts.

* I. Love. Cake. I do.

Labels: friends, movies, my life, relationships

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Dating out of fear of ending up with no teeth.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

Nothing sells like desperation and fear. And nothing moves a dating service into high gear like using a photo of a very old woman (man?) from...India? ...missing a considerable amount of teeth.

This is an ad I saw on Facebook today.

"Hurry! You become old and alone much faster than you think."

Yes, because the time/space continuum speeds up when you're not married.

Apparently, being over 30 and single means you're on track to toothless joy in a third-world country. 29? You're safe. Over 30? You look like Keith Richards via Bombay.

Usually, such ads feature hot, sexy, airbrushed people, but someone is trying a new concept: blatant fear. Or something.

I don't know.

It might work.

Labels: facebook, humor, internet, relationships

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To not be understood.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 5 comments link this post

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
-- Aesop

A few nights ago I attended the family service for a high school/college friend's mother, who had passed away rather suddenly. In the program was the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

I'd forgotten about that prayer. I've read it before, but as I sat there, feeling sad for my friend and thinking about myself very little, the words seemed to at last stick in my mind and an understanding for a source of great frustration set in.

I waste a lot of time trying to get people to console and understand and love me. They never seem to do it to the degree that I require, and I end up angry and feeling sorry for my poor, abused, misunderstood self. This is a self-centered world, where we are told to concentrate on self and work on self-help and do what's best for self. Self-focus is the way to depression and discontent and loneliness.

The world is full of people looking for someone to listen, to love, the forgive, to have faith. So very few are, instead, offering it.

If you become known as a person who will listen and care, people will flock to you. It's all tied in, hurting people and self-focus and needing someone to understand and care. This world is brutal, and offers very little consolation. No one seems to like you, perhaps? Well, do you make an effort to care about people or do you only think about how others have done you wrong and don't love and understand you?

I know I am happiest when I forget about myself and am able to help another person. There is a kind of indescribable pleasure in being able to listen and console or bring brightness to a person's day. It's not always easy, but the reward for myself is almost greater than the other person. You know, even simple things like smiling at the cashier. Opening a door. Being with a friend and not waiting for her to stop talking so you could tell her all the things you want to say or want help with.

I sometimes fumble in the execution, my efforts being mistaken for something else, something more than caring about another person. I'd rather have the ball, though, even if I fumble, than not.

Last year, in Nicaragua, I was standing on the beach when a member of our team came up to me. He was upset about something and I barely had a chance to ask what was wrong before he unloaded, almost without stopping for breath, what was bothering him. I didn't say much, and when I did, it wasn't to talk about me or even make statements, but to ask more questions to get him to say more. When it was all done, he turned to walk away. Before leaving, he smiled and said he felt 100 times better than he had earlier.

It's not hard to be a listener as long as you forget about your selfish need for someone to understand and console you. As long as I can put that aside and offer to do it for someone else, I'll be able to bring the joy into that sadness that St. Francis spoke of.

And that's no small thing.

Homework assignment: Forget about yourself and your own misery today, and -- even if it is just a "small kindness" -- bring joy to someone else's day. Be purposeful about doing it. Don't wait for the opportunity to arise, because it won't. Make it your purpose.

Labels: essay, relationships

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Patterns and systems and the grump within.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

Patterns and systems fascinate me. Patterns especially, since systems seem to develop out of recognition of an established pattern and are more a way of functioning with patterns.

Associative barriers
I never did well on those spatial tests that we took in school (which is why I absolutely can't estimate), but I can pick out a pattern quickly. I have an associative barrier that is on the low side, though not on some "creative genius" level by any means. Essentially, I make connections fairly quickly between seemingly unrelated things. This frequently makes things I say and do seem very bizarre.

A person with extremely high associative barriers, on the other hand, is fairly locked into a traditional, cultural, or learned way of thinking and is unable to "think outside the box" and see how things might connect that they aren't accustomed to seeing as connected. They seem a bit more stable and perform and react in more predictable ways and are probably better employees as far as the "obedience" factor. On the other hand, the higher the barrier the less a person is able to think on their feet. They definitely need a structured system to help them function. (This is why it is notoriously difficult for me to order a Diet Coke to go at the local McDonalds.)

I suppose this could tie into what I clumsily tried to say in a recent blog post; after X number of events or occurrences in life that may seem unassociated I suddenly see a pattern and begin forming some kind of understanding of the what and why behind the pattern. It would be impossible for me to stop looking for patterns since it is almost unconsciously done. And, of course, discovery of a patterns means I must find an interpretation and reason for its existence.

Blogging about such a pattern, however, often causes consternation among those involved and they wonder, perhaps, how in the world I can also include the rest of my theorizing along with what I'm describing that they recognize. They didn't have the opportunity to see the rest of what created the pattern, or, if they did, don't recognize the connections I'm making. To them, I took a little situation and created a monster out of it.

Or, as an example of what I'm familiar hearing as a reaction to such pattern recognition and theorizing:

That's a far leap/jump in logic.
How in the world could you ever come to that conclusion? It wasn't about that at all.
You are completely reading into what I'm saying.
You've completely misunderstood me.
You're way off base.
You're making this far too complicated.
I think you've gone to far.

Having a lower associative barrier means, for example that if we're in an airport and you have a cup of coffee and we're standing in front of a book store with a novel about China and a guy walks by with dreadlocks, I'm going to somehow come up with a one-liner or comment that works to encompass what I start to see as some kind of a pattern. My mind naturally starts to look for and find connections between seemingly unrelated things and the database in my head, filled with things I've read, seen, heard, experienced, know, and feel chip in and help supply the link that makes the connection.

The trifecta of the good, bad, and ugly
This means three things, the first of which is an explanation for why I am almost rabid about information and experience collecting; it's like a fuel. Must read. Must see. Must travel. Must know what's going on. It's why I'm decent at trivia.

The second thing it means is that I often make comments that seem bizarre or seriously unfunny or completely random and off-base and people do not understand why in the world anyone would say it. In my mind, it seems more than feasible and often times, logical. It makes sense. It's also very embarrassing for my family and friends and leads to lots of killed conversation and uncomfortable silences while someone tries to do CPR on the pre-Julie-interruption conversation.

And lastly, I hesitantly believe that sometimes there are no connections and I create them anyway, discerning a pattern where there isn't one. This gets me into an incredible amount of trouble, and often with good reason. I read into a lot of stuff if I see a pattern emerging.

(Unless, of course, everything is connected and there is a pattern to everything and I'm actually right. I'm not convinced of that, though I have a strong sense of a lack of coincidence.)

I often "snap" (as people put it) when a pattern is discerned.

"Settle down, Julie!" I hear, for it seems I've gone bonkers about some little thing. To me, of course, it isn't one thing, but the pattern revealed! It's actually a big thing, with a long history perhaps. It's a triumphant moment of gestalt!

Woe to you if you are involved in a situation which is the final piece and a pattern emerges and it seems as if I'm overreacting or completely missing the point, because to me, I have finally made sense of some certain set of incidents in life.

Application: Always, never, and the patterns of relationships that weren't
My friend Shannon alerted me to the danger of using the words "always" and "never", particularly in terms of relationships. It can get you in a lot of trouble, she said, using phrases like "you always!" or "you never!" This ties in to a phrase I often repeat to my girlfriends as we chat about guy stuff: "Guys have never been interested in me," I might say.

That's not exactly true, especially with the word "never" in place. It is, however, the response to a pattern. Guys have been interested in me, but it has been guys I've not been interested in, to any serious extent, myself.

So, as I was washing my hair this evening, the pattern finally emerged in my mind as to why I would say and think that using those words. Possible theories of the pattern have crossed my mind. Do I purposefully choose those not interested for my interest? Is it dis-interest that creates interest? Am I really that stupid? There is a very, very strong pattern in my life of being excruciatingly interested in guys and not having it returned in kind.

As I towel-dried my hair, I wondered at the three specific exceptions of guys I had been interested in (one as recent as now) who seemed very interested and therefore, pattern-breakers, but, in the long run, were more interested in other things (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...and their hobbies/job). Essentially, no, they were not interested. They were not like the fellows who were interested and showed it with persistence.

How would that fit into the pattern? Does "interest" equal "persistence"? Am I mistaking the near obsessiveness of those interested in me that I am not interested in, with what is normal interest? Has anyone used the word "interest" in such quantities, outside of a banking report?

You can see, now, why I a) write the posts I do about silence and how we go after what we really want despite what we claim we want, and b) I'm messed up in the head from over-thinking.

(I bet you wish I'd just shut up. Sorry, but not today.)

My hair is very clean. I scrubbed it pretty hard whilst thinking about the pattern at hand. I'm still working on the system that will allow me to function with this pattern, whether it be one that makes it a little less excruciating, one that finds a way to change the pattern, or one that has me abandon all of the pattern and its parts and not even care.

Julie gets grumpy, which is expected*
It would be far easier to more clinical about the this particular relationship pattern if it weren't for the "as recent as now" incident which has me more thinking things along the lines of "I can't believe I told him I was interested and made all those efforts at contacting him and I don't hear anything back and boy do I feel stupid and even pissed and I'm not so pathetic and desperate a person to keep giving a rat's a** anymore am I?"** rather than working heartily on a successful and objective interpretation of events.

Because really, that kind of thinking is an anathema to clarity of thought.

Which is, in itself, another pattern I've noticed.

I'll get back to you on that later. I'm too busy working on a system right now.

Summation
The quick-seeing of patterns and systems: a creative blessing and a social curse.

*This could be deemed as a bit o' talk about a specific person/situation in direct contradiction to this post. To me, however, it seems more like the apex of an annoying pattern in which I've "snapped" and seen it for what it is. i.e. what I just got done talking about above. Or, whatever.

**I swore. And, also, I wasn't, traditionally, a person who was so prone to being prone. "Walk on me! Make me feel bad! Take away my power!" I have a strong sense of having lost some of my previous spunk of a few years ago. I need to resurrect the old spunk, which was far less Eeyore-ish and more "kick your a** you don't want me? good, because guess what, I don't want you anymore-ish." This is the general thing women do when putting someone behind them: listing reasons why they're good enough as they are. Which is true and wasn't ever in question, but nevertheless, there you go. So, I might say "Not only do I not want you anymore, but I'm smart enough, nice enough, pretty enough, decent enough, whatever enough that I don't need you." Or, as Stuart Smalley might say, "...and gosh darn it, people like me." Wow. Long addendum on an off-topic asterisk.

Labels: blogging, essay, my life, personal, relationships

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All or nothing.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 6 comments link this post

I beat my severe sugar addiction to a victorious pulp, but I find it creeping back on me in the guise of Cadbury Mini-Eggs. This is greatly bothering me, and I know the best solution, since I cannot seem to control it, is to cut it completely and be thankful for an early Easter that will soon be over.

No, I cannot, in this area, have just a few. No, I cannot control it. No, I know my limits and I know. In this, it is all or nothing. I either eat the whole bag or don't even open it. I can latch onto something healthy (running, better eating) with the same tenacity. It just so happens this is not a good thing I've got latched onto me.

I've had this "all or nothing" debate before (with various people with me in varying stages of emotional distress) about my "all or nothing" personality; the conclusion reached (mainly by others) was that it was destructive.

Initially, I would agree. It seems pretty unfair and rotten to expect all or nothing from someone, or myself, in life.

On the other hand, God has a thing for us "all or nothing" people. Matthew 6:24 tells us to pick one or the other, but not both. Be either hot or cold, but not the lukewarm middle, we're told. Luke 14:26-27 doesn't sound like there's a lot of wishy-washy middle ground.

Certainly, these are directed towards Christian living. But, knowing how we humans suffer from philosophy creep, I don't doubt that the lukewarm, anti-"all or nothing" crowd tends to err on the cautious side when it comes to God stuff. A rather bad error.

My "all or nothingness" serves me well. I periodically throw caution to the wind and foolishly dive right in, full-trust ahead. I don't hold back from people in my life; I give them my all. I burn myself pretty good, doing this, but I eventually get up and do it again. I burn hot, burn out, and start up again.

Do you want a partial? No, you really don't. You want it all. You don't want half a job, half the attention, half the effort, half the thought, half the person, half the love, half the listening ear.

You want it all. The full-meal deal.

All or nothing people are happy to oblige.

Why?

Because a life of constant middling gets tiresome. Even more so than a life of constant burn. I sometimes feel as if the Middle Ground is full of people wearing helmets and shin guards and safety harnesses. It's crowded and polite and everyone is constipated emotionally, dying to get out but trying to conserve some part of themselves in case they need it later.

The Middle Ground is flat. There's no need to save your energy, if you're there! There's no climbing!

The Middle Ground is full of partials, the people who give you some of their time and some of their attention and some of their love, but keep some for themselves as a defensive measure and also "just in case."

"Everything in moderation!" I hear. But I find that most people who say that, myself included, tend to end up with nothing. Nothing, in moderation, is still nothing.

And that puts you squarely in the "nothing" category of "all or nothing."

Shoot for "all." You're bound to hit something. The burn isn't so bad, even if it ends up being bridges.

Labels: essay, relationships

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Woman as explained by an engineer.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

A friend sent me an email with images that made me laugh out loud. I quickly forwarded them to my brother (an engineer) and few other friends.

First, check out the rest of the images:

1. Doing the math.
2. Hazardous materials data sheet.
3. Charting the chances of a man winning an argument.
4. Man and woman on the same mission.

I've already gotten an email back from one of my friends regarding the last image. He had this to say: "The problem with this is no real man goes to The Gap to buy jeans. He goes to Mills Fleet Farm*."

--------------------------------

*Store name has been changed from original quote in order to protect the geographic location and anonymity of the contributor. The essence of the quote is the same.

Labels: friends, humor, internet, relationships, women

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Settling?

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Via Dawn Eden I found this excellent blog post by Louise Brosnan, which then led me to this article, entitled "Marry Him!", by Lori Gottlieb.

What Gottlieb and Brosnan talk about made me think of something I'd written on the same subject in my blog post "The Third Column", though they surpass me in depth and each approaches the subject with their own life experience and worldview inherent.

Essentially, there is a difference between the two writers on a seemingly similar subject.

What Brosnan says about the idea of "settling" is a much better understanding of it all than Gottlieb manages to express; Brosnan comes at it with a decidedly better take than just "settling" for someone, and chooses to see the root of the issue, which is love:

I reached this happy state not by "settling" for a partnership without the warmth of true love, as Ms Gottlieb advises, but by growing into an understanding of what love truly is.

[...]

Lori Gottlieb has been honest in admitting that most women still want "a traditional family" and that the current obsession with soul mates gets in the way of realising this goal. But in her desperation to get there anyway she is willing to sacrifice the very bedrock of marriage, which is true love between the spouses. The result, in her case, would not be a traditional family at all but, in her own language, a completed "construction".

If only she had been brave enough to inquire into the nature of true love and not dismiss it in a throwaway line ("whatever that is") she might have done her sisters a real service. Instead, she has tried to persuade us that love can be put in brackets while we persist in our twentieth century habit of getting what we want. Perhaps few people will be swayed by her argument; certainly, no-one will be helped.

I like Brosnan's idea of marriage not being a compromise. Normally, that would sound incorrect, but what she seems to be saying is that it isn't a compromise i.e. giving in ("settling"), but a giving up. Or, even better, just giving of yourself and refusing to see it as a compromise where I might give in and relinquish some parts of me, but retain the rest. A compromise is not enough. Love requires a full giving up.

Both Brosnan and Gottlieb's articles are well worth the read.

Labels: links, relationships

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Let me reiterate.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 8 comments link this post

One last time, Julie, lest you continue to forget:

We are all busy.
We all have time.
We all make time for what we want to make time for.
Quit waiting around.
The message is obvious.
No point in cajoling or nagging.

Keep handy for future reference.

Labels: relationships

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Just saying.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 6 comments link this post

In December, I wrote a post about John Mayer's album Continuum. On January 16, I wrote a post about John Mayer's song "Say."

I started that post easily enough:

John Mayer's song "Say" is just what I needed him to say.

Then I included Mayer's lyrics:

Take all of your wasted honor. Every little past frustration. Take all of your so called problems, Better put 'em in quotations.

Say what you need to say.

Walkin' like a one man army, Fightin' with the shadows in your head. Livin' up the same old moment Knowin' you'd be better off instead If you could only...Say what you need to say

Have no fear for givin' in. Have no fear for giving over. You better know that in the end It's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say again.

Even if your hands are shaking, And your faith is broken. Even as the eyes are closin', Do it with a heart wide open.

And then I wrote some more and hit the "save as draft" button and never published the post because some things I just couldn't say.

I had fumbled around a bit, maybe eight paragraphs of single sentences:

I always think it's better to learn to shut my mouth.
Say nothing than something.
It keeps me from having to be humble later, and tell you I'm sorry.
But in all my talking I know I say what you need to hear.
Somewhere in there.
I have to say it all to say just that little bit.
It's all wrapped up in the same box.

But I try again, you know?
That far leap.
That jump.
Close my eyes, say it, and land somewhere.

I just couldn't quite fish out what I meant, in all of the rambling. So I chose to let it drown rather than even try.

My friend Oscar emailed me a link to the video for the song "Say" and I was reminded of that draft post, sitting in my Blogger account, never really said. I went back and found it and knew why I hadn't published it.

Sometimes I don't say things because I want others to go first.

Maybe its about power, I suppose, or wanting to know that they feel the same as I do and show it by saying to me what I want to say to them. I don't want to play all my cards, which means I've somehow equated things to a game.

I still want others to go first, in some things, and find myself sitting here with the decision made to say no more.

Don't speak unless spoken to.

Perhaps bad advice.

It's what I'm following right now.

Labels: friends, music, personal, relationships

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Not your prerogative.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

Hence, as it is not within my power not to be a man, so it is not my prerogative to be without a woman. Again, as it is not in your power not to be a woman, so it is not your prerogative to be without a man. For it is not a matter of free choice or decision but a natural and necessary thing, that whatever is a man must have a woman and whatever is a woman must have a man.
--Martin Luther, on marriage

I'm guessing this doesn't fit into the "fish without a bicycle" concept.

Nor does it fit in with a couple of comments on the most-commented post on my blog, the ever infamous "Useful chick info for residents of guyville."

Comment: But [men] don't NEED a woman the same as a woman needs a man... [Women] NEED men.... I am so convinced that the relationship with a woman and a man is so complex and misunderstood mostly by women.

Me: The writer of this must have been a man... balance "in this area" surely won't be coming as long as every guy is walking around thinking he is God's gift to women. There's your trouble right there.

Comment: "every guy is walking around thinking he is God's gift to women". Here's the real trouble, in a way he IS.

Me, getting annoyed: ...men need women and women need men. Albeit, in their own unique ways, yes, but the need is bi-directional. It goes both ways. I would never be a person to think that God would create half of the human race to not need the other half. The only disproportionate need is hierarchical, that of all humans needing him. Unless, of course, you think men are higher than women.

And, after 90+ comments and about four or five different posts on different blogs and me talking in circles and arrive at a place I didn't even necessarily agree with, there goes Luther, being Luther:

God has himself exempted three categories of men, saying in Matthew 19 [:12], "There are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." Apart from these three groups, let no man presume to be without a spouse. And whoever does not fall within one of these three categories should not consider anything except the estate of marriage.

And then, once you read further and get past more than one whiff of Luther's anti-Semitism, you have this:

For this reason young men should be on their guard when they read pagan books and hear the common complaints about marriage, lest they inhale poison. For the estate of marriage does not set well with the devil, because it is God's good will and work.

This entire discourse on the Estate of Marriage was an interesting read (I use the word "interesting" to cover a gamut of opinions). Luther was very happy to write about nearly every subject with, uh, exacting detail. Upon reading this, my first thoughts went back to those comments from the post I shared above. They were comments that have grated and made no sense whatsoever whenever they come to mind: women need men, men don't need women.

I still maintain that that is a bunch of crap, whether or not Luther would agree.

(And I think Luther probably would use the word "crap.")

Labels: relationships, religion

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Make yourself necessary.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Make yourself necessary to somebody.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

That's kind of the reverse of wanting to be needed.

Instead of "I wish someone needed me" I could figure out how to become necessary.

::While it may be a sacrilege to quote both Emerson and a line from the movie Young Guns in the same post, I'm going to do it.::

In the movie Young Guns, there is a scene in which a young Chinese woman refuses to leave for safety and instead chooses to stay inside the house getting pummeled by gun fire. Keifer Suthereland's character tells her to go, but she won't. And then she replies: You have made me necessary.

Up until that point, she was little more than a plaything for the bad guy of the film.

The line always sticks with me (along with "Regulators, mount up!" and "I'll make you famous!" -- but they don't really apply here).

You have made me necessary.

The second half of Emerson's quote is equally important: Do not make life hard to any.

I suspect the key to becoming necessary to another person is that second, oft-neglected, part of the quote. The first half is about me, the second half about you.

It should never be about me. Because that isn't necessary.

Labels: essay, movies, relationships

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Let it go.

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The gift of hospitality.

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Honorable men(tion).

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The theory of 180.

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Look up at the good parts.

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Dating out of fear of ending up with no teeth.

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To not be understood.

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Patterns and systems and the grump within.

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All or nothing.

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Woman as explained by an engineer.

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Settling?

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Let me reiterate.

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Just saying.

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Not your prerogative.

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Make yourself necessary.

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