#125 - XKCD #1027: PICK UP ARTISTAlthough I am not perfect, I have come to understand that I am who I am. I can try to make changes, some large and some small, but I understand that there are limits to this for me. It was an evolution to understand this. In the past, I kept trying to define points of change: "Aha! I have learned: From this day forth I will no longer do this stupid thing!" And then, two days later, I would do it again, that stupid thing. And I would wonder why I failed; why the epiphany of learning hadn't taken root. And then I would learn something new. And swear again, that I had learned something, anything, and that I had changed - I was a new and different person. But I didn't and I wasn't. Epiphanies were necessary. There was no such thing as gradual learning. You had to find the one error, and correct it, and perfection would follow. Wouldn't it? As I say, I evolved past this need of epiphanies, without even consciously realizing it, until somthing crossed into my perception. This damned XKCD webcomic. This thing I find so often funny, and occasionally insightful. But this, this was different. This brought to my conscious mind the realization that my failure was quite like other people's failures. Not all people, but obviously more than one. At least two...
You look like you're going to spend your life having one epiphany after another, always thinking you've finally figure out what's holding you back, and how you can finally be productive and creative and turn your life around. But nothing will ever change. That cycle of mediocrity isn't due to some obstacle. It's who you are. The thing standing in the way of your dreams is that the person having them is you.I try to avoid being mediocre. I try to do better than I have done in the past. But I've given up learning in epiphanies. And that's a good thing. 'Cause if I still used epiphanies, the one above would be totally, absolutely and completely crushing.
28 March 2012 AD
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