Total Read Time: 6 Minutes
“I thought they were another Buzzfeed quiz. You know? Those clickbait type quizzes to learn what kind of Pokémon you are?”
Don’t touch
See yourself in your Lover’s eyes
Painted holy and still tacky
Who am I then?
A museum piece
Preserved in a state of fallacy
For you’ll never again be
Who you were a minute ago
What if I stay really still?
And dry?
No, I’m Andrey.
I’ve been cleaning my suit of armor
Thinking with every passing day
How safe am I?
If I stare at this chest plate
Do I look away, Like I do reflections elsewhere?
Do I give this one another coat of polish?
Or
Languish and pray I never have to wear it.
-A
Welcome
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately.
Mostly introspective type philosophy, designed to bring forward a self actualizing being out of me.
It appears both kinds of fiction are capable of reaching deeper.
Mostly, I rely on these readings to habituate writing for me.
Like surrounding myself with instruments to promote music.
I want to share two moments of inspiration with you
The first is a story from Richard Power’s, The Overstory.
This is my summary:
A man commits himself to a Stanford prison experiment to earn $15 day because he had nothing better to do with 14 days.
He realizes purposelessness when he doesn’t give his blanket to save a man in solitary confinement.
He sends his previous selfishness aside by chasing purpose in Vietnam, where he loads carpet bombs and clears forests of life.
When he falls out of a shot plane, he is saved by a tree’s lush foliage and leaves the war.
He tends to horses and reads them Nietzsche through the winter, burning pages as he reads them.
When winter is over he digs up his savings and leaves Idaho, toward Oregon.
On the way he realizes how barren the forests are becoming thanks to loggers.
He commits the rest of this story to planting Douglass fir seeds in the ground by hand.
Reapplying a symbolic blanket to the earth.
When the purpose for which you act expands, as in the desired audience grows unfathomable, the act you do becomes more finite and yet incalculable. As simple as planting seeds. As infinite as the amount of seeds it takes to grow a national forest.
This thought process has helped me become a more disciplined writer.
Expand your desired audience
Simplify your daily ritual
Replicate until the end of time
The second piece I’d like to share with you is a quote shared with me by a dear friend.
“Don’t forget to practice your love language on yourself.”
Gary Chapman
5 Love Languages
Words of affirmation
Quality time
Gifts
Physical touch
Acts of service
Feel free to take the quiz and patronize Chapman for his fine work.
My lack of references are not out of disrespect.
I believe they would take away more than they provide here.
The point here, is we are all innately predisposed to be skilled in giving and receiving a unique combination of these languages.
What I’ve found is, most of the time they are different.
For example, I am least receptive to acts of service.
However I am very good at performing said acts.
They can change over time,
They sure have for me,
or maybe I’ve become more honest with myself.
Self examination
This part is quite interesting.
BUT
You have to be honest.
I’m sure you’ve already given some thought to which of the languages you’re great at; I do mean innately.
Now take a moment to think about which one (or two, but no more than two) you are uniquely horrible at doing
For Yourself
I consistently find it easy to perform acts of service and give myself gifts.
Physical touch is a much more serious topic that I aim to one day cover at length.
To summarize staunchly, I adamantly believe physical touch is a love language that solely deserves to be shared.
However, words of affirmation and quality time have always been a struggle for me.
I think it’s a self esteem thing, saying kind things to myself.
I don’t think the quality time is a loneliness issue, although that is how I’ve framed it for myself in the past.
For me, both of the love languages are a struggle born out of fear.
Recently, the best gift I’ve given myself is alone time and words of affirmation. It’s meditative and honest, creating a ripple effect of confidence throughout the week.
Fear is more present than I’ve ever believed.
And facing that fear by being alone with myself, listening to all the negativity, and realizing it’s all bullshit has been a beautiful shedding of armor.
I feel most things have to come naturally to someone.
So I can’t just say, you need to follow your fears and all of your questions will be answered.
I do think you can follow your fears and you’ll learn they’re not so bad.
You’ll learn you’re not alone.
You really find your true self down there.
I picked myself up down there.
Before you call me a stoic, I do think there’s validity in the cold shower. You can teach yourself, by exposing yourself to homelessness that it would be okay to take the big investment risk and have to shower in a puddle.
While it didn’t get quite as extreme for me as sleeping under the Fullerton bridge, it was as scary for me to make no plans with anyone and sit at home alone.
And yes, it was as simple as giving myself a pat on the back when no one was around to see.
For questions, and so I don’t feel so alone…
Email
(Yes, I respond and read every one)
Andrey@andreystarostin.com
Instagram
a.o.starostin
Thank you for reading this far.
You mean the world to me.
I write for you.
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