Blurry Peace

Fiddling in my old stuff I found a piece I wrote which I felt goes to show the extent one can go to, if one decides to see the positive points to a situation. This is a rather extreme example as I wrote this just a few hours before the laser operation that would rid me of my short-sightedness. Feeling inspired and somehow preemptively nostalgic of a situation I have been suffering for the past 10 years of my life, this is what I wrote:


Imagine a world where colors are colorful but shapes are shapeless. Where the very essence of an object seems to rebel against the constraints of its form and spreads into the next object in a bilateral exchange of color.
A world where light pulses every time in a different way, once spreading its arms towards the ground and another time straight up, intertwining with other sources, coming together in a world where things-that-are-not move. An unfinished creation as if god's reject had found a way out of heaven's rubbish bin, and somehow survived in our inferior world and proliferated.
These things are everywhere, sometimes moving together to form a bigger even less defined something, and then split up in a confusing fireworks of colors.
Before shutting your eyes at night, you find that, taking off your glasses, you have already entered a more peaceful world where details will not aggress you, but rather slowly guide you in a narcotic transition in to your dreams, where one will define alone how the perfect world should be.
And in the morning again when you wake, the same transition will, like a mother's kiss, greet you more subtly in the world where you cannot count different shapes anymore.
Imagine a world full of poetry, where shapes are no more and colors rule.

Compensation

Today I came to a conclusion that started with a conversation with a colleague about how job hunting for me was much like when I was first looking for a girlfriend. Fortunately this is not a daily source of anxiety for me any more now that my long searched-for second half sleeps by my side every night making my days unalterably joyful if she would just bless me with a smile upon waking up (which, unfortunately, is often too much to hope for on a normal weekday...), but job searching at this point of my life is still something pretty new to me, and the ideal job still refuses to sleep with me every night. So where is the comparison between my actual job hunt, and my previous girl hunt in fact relevant?
Well here are the main differences:
-I don't in fact sleep with my job (quite unlike my girlfriend in fact, who sometimes has a lot of trouble taking hers out of her mind)
-I don't expect my girlfriend to pay me a monthly fee for loving her
The rest is mainly the same:
-I know what I have to offer is sizable
-I know that I present it well
-I sound confident
-I know what I want and I know I sound like the person they/she needs

Ok, well, in the least I like to feel like all this is true... but in the least the similarities are striking, overall I am confident, but scared of one thing above all, the fact that the opposing party might fail to appreciate that, and reject me.
Is it not a stupid thing that one might break one's own inexorable progression in life by fearing something one doesn't even believe in... And to what worst avail?
A chance wasted you might say, but that would have been just as wasted had no action been undertaken. So the only possible negative outcome, is the theoretical blow of rejection, and how much that might affect that fragile confidence that took so long to build. Being a very positive person though, I have generally found excuses for all my failures, or decided to mostly set them aside as inevitable lessons that needed to be learned...but somehow, however positive I can rise from a fall, I fear the next fall might definitely affect my positivism.
This is something I consider a weakness and would like to change, and I think time will be my ally, but it lead me to think about these defaults that we not only have, but are extremely sensitive about. Generally I would say that any aspect of our person that makes us sensitive, is an aspect that we wish to change and certainly not accept as a part of what defines us, it makes it all the more sensitive that we probably work everyday on at least trying to hide it. So what does one do with these issues? Well there is always the option of believing you can hide it all your life and end up a very susceptible and probably irate person.
There is otherwise two other solutions one can try:
-Grow out of it. Find the missing strength or experience needed to change through small steps and probably lots of help from loved ones, and push this aspect deep into the memories of our former selves.
-I also believe one can learn to accept it and integrate it as a defining aspect of one's personality. But there is a condition to that, and that is compensation. One can generally not just say "I am like this, take it or leave it", if all were to do that, everyone's everyday life would be but a succession of meaningless battle for one's right at peace. The key is to compensate with the adequate quality, and develop it as strongly as one decides to dwell in the default.
For example if one decides that his extremely choleric approach to conflict handling is too deeply embedded in him to change, then let him compensate by developing an extreme ease of repenting and the ability to bow down in excuses. No one will in general hold it against someone for doing something wrong, if he subsequently and by himself sets things straight afterwards.
In my case, I will not surrender to my fears, and I know experience will show me how ridiculous they are.

Sa Neutritude Sérénissime (His neutral Highness)

Things are not all black and white, despite what some people refuse to accept. To take example from an event that occurred 30 minutes ago, I just learned that my current consulting mission had to come to an end. This was inevitable as I had been on it for 3 years and that is the legal limit in France. This was also exactly what I had been hoping for as I wanted to leave France, and could not do it with my current Consulting company. But I didn't want to resign either seeings that the crisis is still going strong and resigning is considered in this period as a generally suicidal behaviour. Yet as perfect and anticipated as this was. I find myself stupidly sad and unable to rejoice. Three years of my life, of friendships and of a generally perfect fulfillment have come to a sudden unalterable end. And suddenly for the first time I understand these women that are known for staying with a man that beats them, closing a big and meaningful part of your life is never easy.
In any case, during my life I have traveled a lot, and have been confronted to many a situation, and I had quite a peculiar mind set. While all my 10 year old classmates tell the teacher they want to be adults so they don't need to go to school any more, I said I wanted to be old so I could be retired. While all my classmates wanted to be astronauts or fire-fighter, I wanted to be an old wise man everyone would come to for advice. The old man from karate kid, happy with the life he has lead, and happier still to be of any help to younger people in search of the answer they have inside themselves. In any case, I will try here to post my thoughts whenever a slightly out of the ordinary situation leads to conclusions that I might want to remember when I grow old, sour, grumpy, and intolerant.
There are always two sides to a story, and empathy will get you very far in resolving a conflict. I often find that if people made an extra effort to try to figure out how the opposing party felt, they would better understand their needs, and thus figure out the best possible compromise, as, I believe, there is always one. It is important to always stay neutral, even in trying to resolve conflicts between yourself and somebody else, try to listen to your own opinions as if you were a third person, and weigh them to the other person's. If you can't make a friend of everybody, that doesn't mean they should be an enemy. Why make enemies when indifference and avoidance is generally available.
The name of this blog was inspired of a Futurama character The Neutral President, whose most famous quotes are: "All I know is my gut says maybe" or "If I don't survive, tell my wife: Hello".
His neutral highness in French loosely translates to "sa neutritude sérénissime", "sérénissime" meaning "most serene", the French version won over the English one with this extra involuntary play on words. Neutrality brings peace, peace brings serenity, serenity brings happiness. So let's try to stay that way.