Photo by Ali Tareq on Unsplash
unpolished thoughts 12/31/2018
Slowly, I’m getting to know myself better.
A theme that has come up a lot recently is what happens when you allow yourself to be spontaneously creative.
There’s a fairly good chance that you will create ripples in the water around you. The other fish may or may not like it, but either way they will likely notice.
How do you feel about being noticed?
If you don’t like being noticed, you have the option of keeping your creativity hidden.
Be as creative as you like – just don’t let anyone see you doing it. Be secretly creative.
How does it feel to walk around like “normal” when inside you are “secretly creative”?
Does it help you to feel more connected to the people around you (both the “normal” ones and the “creative” ones)?
Maybe it’s similar with your opinions. Are you comfortable sharing your opinions? Do you have public opinions and secret opinions?
Political views, creativity, sexual preferences, habits, hobbies, friendships – its worth noticing how you situate all these things in relation to the light of day.
We all know what it’s like when someone shares “too much.” Discretion can definitely be a good thing. But how often do you share just a little bit more in order to experiment with the ripples?
How would your community be affected if you showed just a little more of who you really are, what you really think, what you really like and dislike?
One thing is for sure. The gap between who you really are and who people think you are would be just a little bit smaller. Wouldn’t it?
. . . Which raises another question.
Do you want people to know who you really are – or not?
If you don’t want people to know who you really are – why is that?
Actually, I go through this every time I sit down here to write. Since I’ve decided that I will show a little more of myself each day, I always end up asking myself if who I am today is who I wish to show.
Often it isn’t.
Still, I’m making a continued practice of always showing just a little more of who I am with the expectation that it will lead to a situation where who I am is a bit closer to who you expected.
You’ll never get so close enough that I can never surprise you.
But perhaps it would be nice if you knew what you were getting (most of the time) – and stuck around on that basis rather than just some hunch you had about me.
I notice myself practicing this even in my closest relationships. I share little things, a little more, and a little more. And then sometimes I don’t.
Just today, I found myself with a story on the tip of my tongue that I decided to keep to myself.
I was editing myself.
How would she feel if I told that story?
I wasn’t sure. But it made me ask myself another question.
How do you feel when you sense that the person you are talking to is holding something back?
Let’s admit it: we feel things. We feel many things that no one else knows we feel, but then again, we are not always so good at hiding what we feel as we think we are.
Maybe we do successfully hide what we feel – but do we also succeed in hiding that we are hiding?
What each one of us feels can stretch far beyond the boundaries of our skin. Sometimes showing what we feel helps others give themselves permission to feel as well. We can help each other come out of hiding.
Today is the last day of 2018.
This could be an interesting idea to revisit on the last day of 2019, and compare notes.