Captive of conceptualization

Instead of dedicating your life to actualize a concept of what you should be like, ACTUALIZE YOURSELF. The process of maturing does not mean to become a captive of conceptualization. It is to come to the realization of what lies in our innermost selves.

— Bruce Lee, Jeet Kune Do

The hard lesson I've learned the past few years: most impressive things in the world are not all that clean or rigorous underneath. I hear this a lot in inspirational quotes: the moral is supposed to be how far you can get with grit and never giving up on your dreams. This is pretty true. I think it contains a far more important lesson that tinkering and experimentation ends up becoming more important than design and best practices in many cases.

At the same time, how much of feeling like a winner depends on what you choose to undertake? I think that's been another hard lesson. If you're doing stuff that's pretty different, where you don't get positive feedback from society--in the form of rewards, prestige, or acceptance--it could be tough going.

I'm not very good at this. I follow my own set of peculiar interests and methods, but at the same time I've never been able to just not care about what other people think. I have trouble feeling content following along with the community. A lot of my anxieties pop up along these lines. I want to be able to have something to show when they ask why I didn't follow the same pattern that everyone else followed.

Often, my reaction contains a different kind of narrow mindset. I want to assert my own self-image against the criticism of others.

I still need to parse this lesson: you can't win this kind of argument. If you become a teacher, they will ask why you didn't study to become a scientist instead. If you become a scientist, they will ask you why you didn't become a doctor or go into software. If you live in apartment, they'll ask why you aren't putting that money into a house. If you own a house, they'll ask why you haven't quit your day job to play poker and travel SE Asia. If they ask you what you actually want to do, what you actually value, they're usually not really listening. But it's not just other people. We do this to ourselves, too.

I've thought of two things that seem to help with this:

One appreciating the stories of others. Appreciate, and understand, first without the desire to "fix" or "vindicate".

Two is harder for some of us: it's being able to talk about what we actually value. It's something I've struggled with for a long time. It's something I'm working on. In the coming weeks, I hope to become more honest about what matters to me.