( My memory isn't what it once was. )I've always enjoyed having good record of my life; this journal, class notes, textbooks, GMail archives, instant message logs, even install files for previous working versions of programs I regularly install on my computer. As a result, I have become less reliant on my own memory, when I have a reference for everything, a Wikipedia of my life. I wonder (though perhaps it is no wonder) if this might be a primary cause that nowadays I find myself forgetting things that should be important: pay the bills, call that reference, the memory of my first date with my girlfriend... Even though I don't have explicit records of these things (short of, in each of these given cases, someone else's memory to which I will someday be held accountable), I have brought myself to this general complacency that if ever I should need to know something about my life, there is -usually- a record I can depend upon.
Usually isn't always, and that is the problem. In particular, I rarely make record of my intentions when I stand up and exit the room in search of ... what was it? food? socks? a toothbrush? DVDs?, and quite often now I find myself walking back and forth between two rooms, returning each time with a different item acquired or task accomplished, in the hope that eventually, I will realize what it was I had set out to do in the first place and be pleasantly surprised to discover that the mission was somewhere inadvertently accomplished.
( Incidentally, this is also how I tend to approach the construction of mathematical proofs. )Take this essay, for example. I opened this writing tablet with the intention to discuss my
( mixed feelings over my birthday. )But thinking consciously of the problem I realized that its roots may lie deeper in my personality than just superficial worries. I realized that a primary cause of those worries is my same collective nature. I simply have too many friends. I can't get rid of them, and I really don't want to. The problem is, sometimes I don't feel like my friends are really my friends. This doesn't have anything to do with how people treat me, how often they call, the quality or quantity of presents they give me, etc.—that's all great (quite often, better than I feel I deserve, given how rarely I generally call and the sparsity of gifts I give). It has to do with acceptance.
I love a lot of people. It's who I am, and how I roll. I am up front and honest about myself to the best of my ability; the sole exception ironically being with my best friend and brother who I'm pretty sure still thinks I'm joking when I talk about being attracted to dudes. When I make a friend, I choose to accept that person and all that comes with them, no matter what. The problem is, I secretly expect the same in return. That's an oxymoron, following "no matter what" with expectations. So in order to avoid the logical paradox, I've had to change my own behaviour to ensure that that expectation is never tested.
Mostly this means taking "all that comes with [me]" and setting it aside in a magic box that my friends will never have to see (and thus, never have to accept). Sure, I'll still talk about what's in the box, but as long as it's not jumping out and clawing them in the face, they'll be fine, my hypothesis will never be tested, and my resolution will remain unbroken. So even though I'm happy to discuss all matters of my personal life with just about anyone, the fact of the matter is that I—the real me is still locked up in the closet, in that magic box.
Worse still, is that in that magic box, with the real me, are all my other friends, for whome each individually I have constructed a separate magic box containing all the areas of my life which might be objectionable to them, again, to be heard of but not seen. Sometimes this happens simply because I haven't introduced my friends to each other, but sometimes (and increasingly often as I collect more friends) it happens because friends who do know each other have fallings-out of their own, apart from me (or, in the case of some romantic rivalries, because of me). The more close friends I have in each others' magic boxen, the harder it is to have big celebrations with all those friends without opening them up and putting my expectations to test.
And so, every year at about this time, a crowd of people starts bugging me, reminding me that yes, indeed, it is my birthday, and what am I going to do about it? Rather than tell them the truth (which I guess I hadn't even figured out for myself until now) which is that I'm certainly not going to be hanging out with them because if I do then I won't be able to hang out with any of my other friends who happen to be in their magic Pandora box, I just tell them that it doesn't really matter to me that it's my birthday; it's just another day, after all.
It's not just another day.
I'm tired of having to censor my life for people I love very deeply. They're not making me choose, but they're
making me choose.
It hurts.
A lot.
So if you glossed over this entire post and just happened to notice the word "birthday" and want to know what you can get me, how about this: get over your petty high school disputes and learn to love your fellow man so we can all go to a big party together and have a great time.
If everyone can just do that one simple thing, then drinks are on me.