Hmm...

[silveradept]

I had a pretty long talk with one of the members of the Fraternity today about office, about life, and about how much the Wings are having a bad road trip right about now. I learned something new, actually, and while I can say that it wasn't startling, it did make me think about myself again.

You see, I have this weird condition. I'm used to having answers. The War of 1812. Trotsky. The cotton gin. Stupendous Man. Stuff like that. I've been trained that there is such a thing as 'right' and that proper amounts of study and intellect will allow one to arrive at something that is 'right'. The model breaks down, however, when the subject and object of the inquiry is oneself. The craving for certainty still exists, however, right now, I'm not sure about anything. I have great respect and envy for those who can be certain of their beliefs. I'm still worried about welah, even though I've now met torakiyoshi. It's that sort of doubt that I'm striving to eliminate, but I'm not sure it goes away. Can I allow myself to live with an uncertainty, especially if that uncertainty is internal?

It was so much easier being a child. Whatever the parents said was true was true. If it wasn't for this obsession with magic and fantasy literature, I probably wouldn't have arrived where I am now. I have friends who are gays, goths, Christians, furries, feminists, of different races, creeds, and social distinctions... generally a bunch of f**ked up people. (But in a good way. Sameness was what I wanted to escape when I came to University) But they all seem so confident. What am I, the island of uncertainty, supposed to do about it?

I think I'm going to talk with the drum major again. I'm not sure how this internal debate gets resolved. And I'm not sure if resolution is even the way to go about it.

Comments

[miyabiarashi.livejournal.com]

I never really thought about confidence when I came here. The motive was to escape the awfulness that was the Ann Arbor public high school system, where people would be better.

Most of us have confidence issues at times. It's just that sometimes people aren't so open about it. Uncertainty is a part of life; once you're certain about something, you're not about something else, and so on and so forth. Example here, I got the recommendation to Todai, the top school in Japan, but I need to see whether Todai and the Ministry will accept me now. And then the election fiasco going on in Taiwan right now; we don't know when it will end, much less who's going to end up president after all of it (while I'm glad Chen's not hurt, I think he should step down, for if he takes office again, I'm damn sure he'll drag Taiwan into more craziness and possibly get himself -- along with many others, who are my friends and family -- killed with Chinese missiles).

There's no answer as to what you can do about it; you'll need to find that yourself. The closest I can say is to grow more comfortable with who you are and what you've learned while you're here. One positive aspect of UM was that its crazy, cliquey atmosphere made me cherish how I don't quite fit in and how much more of an individual I am--the friends that I have, hopefully, want to be around me because I'm me and interesting and unique. Even so, I know I'm probably in no way done, given my age and the future year abroad in Japan, there's going to be a lot of self-discovery ahead.

You can wait and go about your life; going to class, going about your activities and such, and one day, you'll find something out.

[silveradept]

I'll admit to the motive of escaping the high school.

The confidence issues you're talking about though are external factors, though... it's confidence regarding the world around. I'm stuck more with a lack of internal confidence... not being sure about myself. I'm uncomfrotable about myself right now, and the growing comfortable part only really wants to happen after I'm sure I'll like the end product.

I suppose that's part of the problem.