The danger with seeking permanence in a state of change is that you tend to get attached to everything that comes into the lens of your transition stage.
A transition stage is a kind of journey, after all - and if I am to lump the next six months of my life into an entity I term "journey," there is no reason why a transition stage cannot also be important enough to receive that term. It is literally the movement from one stage into another stage.
And Buddha had it all right, it seems - seeking too much permanence in a stage of constant flux can lead you to cling to those things. I had my first mini crying sesh over leaving the country today. Was it because I am realizing how many things (and by things I clearly mean people - yes, lack of avocados will be traumatizing, but nothing to cry about) I will miss, or is it unrelated to any tangible experiences in my life and just my way of over-attaching to things in this temporary state?
So maybe the answer to how do you create permanence when change is the constant is - accept and embrace the fact that you will not have any permanence. THANKS BUDDHA I KNEW THAT, now how do I make myself actually believe it? It's one thing to have a fact written inside your head and an entirely different animal to believe that fact, live and breathe it with your every cell.
But that is part of the journey that is this week (it's really satisfying how that sentence makes no sense, in the context of grad school applications where sentences aren't allowed to be rambly and imperfect) ANYWAY, the part of the journey that is this week is preparing myself for the next six months. The tangible is all but done, it is the mental I am still struggling to figure out. See above with permanence, belonging, etc.
The other part of mental preparation is figuring out what to pack into my virtual duffel bag. I didn't realize this until week 5 or so of last year's trip, and when I did, it was a powerful realization. But while we are all the sum of our experiences, that doesn't mean that we have to carry all our experiences everywhere we go. Think of it as a duffel bag, storage unit, two small planets, what have you, of stuff - but abstract, mental, memory stuff that adds up to all your experiences that define you as a person. You would never carry around everything you own all the time. Your back would break - to prolong the metaphor, you would get incredibly overwhelmed and feel a little nutty. So you can pick memories, experiences, people that you will put into your wallet, day pack, overnight pack, or leave behind in some deep dark storage corner of your mind.
As another example, just because you were going through a really rough patch a few years back and couldn't handle spending time with anyone to whom you couldn't constantly whine doesn't mean that today, every new acquaintance and potential friend has to pass the whineability test. Even if something was a part of your life at some point and significantly contributed to who you are as an individual, you don't have to share that something with everyone you meet for the rest of your life and have it be a dominant feature of your personality and key topic of discussion on a day-to-day basis.
So this week is supposed to be about figuring out what people, experiences, and character traits make it into my trip pack, day pack, close-to-my-heart toolish touristy money belt.
Then there are those experiences which are very current, but the circumstances of being lots of miles away (yeah geography) and sans consistent technological access (Skype is a freakishly artificial construct anyway) require them to be put on hold.
And I've figured that out to about the same degree as I have finished all of my grad school applications.
A transition stage is a kind of journey, after all - and if I am to lump the next six months of my life into an entity I term "journey," there is no reason why a transition stage cannot also be important enough to receive that term. It is literally the movement from one stage into another stage.
And Buddha had it all right, it seems - seeking too much permanence in a stage of constant flux can lead you to cling to those things. I had my first mini crying sesh over leaving the country today. Was it because I am realizing how many things (and by things I clearly mean people - yes, lack of avocados will be traumatizing, but nothing to cry about) I will miss, or is it unrelated to any tangible experiences in my life and just my way of over-attaching to things in this temporary state?
So maybe the answer to how do you create permanence when change is the constant is - accept and embrace the fact that you will not have any permanence. THANKS BUDDHA I KNEW THAT, now how do I make myself actually believe it? It's one thing to have a fact written inside your head and an entirely different animal to believe that fact, live and breathe it with your every cell.
But that is part of the journey that is this week (it's really satisfying how that sentence makes no sense, in the context of grad school applications where sentences aren't allowed to be rambly and imperfect) ANYWAY, the part of the journey that is this week is preparing myself for the next six months. The tangible is all but done, it is the mental I am still struggling to figure out. See above with permanence, belonging, etc.
The other part of mental preparation is figuring out what to pack into my virtual duffel bag. I didn't realize this until week 5 or so of last year's trip, and when I did, it was a powerful realization. But while we are all the sum of our experiences, that doesn't mean that we have to carry all our experiences everywhere we go. Think of it as a duffel bag, storage unit, two small planets, what have you, of stuff - but abstract, mental, memory stuff that adds up to all your experiences that define you as a person. You would never carry around everything you own all the time. Your back would break - to prolong the metaphor, you would get incredibly overwhelmed and feel a little nutty. So you can pick memories, experiences, people that you will put into your wallet, day pack, overnight pack, or leave behind in some deep dark storage corner of your mind.
As another example, just because you were going through a really rough patch a few years back and couldn't handle spending time with anyone to whom you couldn't constantly whine doesn't mean that today, every new acquaintance and potential friend has to pass the whineability test. Even if something was a part of your life at some point and significantly contributed to who you are as an individual, you don't have to share that something with everyone you meet for the rest of your life and have it be a dominant feature of your personality and key topic of discussion on a day-to-day basis.
So this week is supposed to be about figuring out what people, experiences, and character traits make it into my trip pack, day pack, close-to-my-heart toolish touristy money belt.
Then there are those experiences which are very current, but the circumstances of being lots of miles away (yeah geography) and sans consistent technological access (Skype is a freakishly artificial construct anyway) require them to be put on hold.
And I've figured that out to about the same degree as I have finished all of my grad school applications.
