Thursday, July 24, 2008

Reinventing yourself,,,

We watched a great movie the other night, The Great Debaters, and it made me want to go learn something well enough to debate over it. We watched the bonus features, as always, and their interviews made it seem like I got such a different education. They seemed to be involved with their professors and interact with classmates and I didn't do any of that. I couldn't name a professor I talked to on more than a casual basis during class. Office hours were never something I took advantage of, never seemed like the thing to do. Maybe it was just me, because I certainly am that stubborn, but I just cruised through on my own. Maybe in grad school...



Starting this blog and trying to put music on the bottom and the topic above made me think about this process of reinventing myself. I started thinking about things that I wanted to have on the blog that reflected who I was, not superficial things but things that I enjoyed or made me laugh or were endearing to me, hence the music and pictures and almost video clips. I first made a playlist that was 100 songs long and chock-full of my favorite music ad nauseum. Reflecting on the effects on others, I decided to redo the playlist and chopped it down to songs that I thought were neat or fit on a blog.

Take 3X5 by John Mayer. The lyrics start, "I'm writing you to catch you up on places I've been..." Neat, huh? There are a couple of other songs like that in there that I thought were clever; I'll let you find the rest.

I started looking up some hilarious videos (at least in my opinion), Chris Farley doing Matt Foley, the motivational speaker from SNL; Eddie Murphy doing Buckwheat in "Buh weat sings," also on SNL; Will Ferrell doing Harry Caray, also on SNL. Guess you can tell that I grew up watching SNL. But all of the videos, unless you could find them on Google video, had links to or pictures from other videos that were just smut, and I couldn't bring myself to put them on the blog with a warning like, "This video is good but don't go anywhere else because there are a million bad ones if you stray at all." Like, it feels good to stand in the surf of the ocean, but don't take a step or two out or you might get clobbered by humongous waves. Not really want I wanted to do with a blog.

So in all of this, I've been asking myself lots of questions about who I really am and what really represents me and what I stand for. I guess everyone has their troubles with spiritual progression, but I feel that el chamuco is constanty on my back, while the Spirit calls after me to focus on what is good and important. With all that's going on, am I really as good as I want mysef to be? Is there something more I should be doing? How do I get past the point where I feel torn between the world and the spiritual? What more can I become, and should I feel scared to go down that path? Ever had these feelings?
I'll end here for now. Maybe I'll edit this post and continue the philosophical rambling, or maybe my mind will change and I'll feel differently at some later date. Thanks for reading and any comments/advice you have are more than welcome.

3 comments:

Jennifer said...

Thank you for your post. I certainly have felt that way, espcially blogging. Your feelings remind me of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." It's a little long for a post, but I got such comfort from this paragraph in the first article in the Ensign this month. It's called "Heeding the Voice of the Prophets" by President Uchtdorf:
"There may be times when we feel overwhelmed, hurt, or on the edge of discouragement as we are trying so hard to be perfect members of the Church. Be assured, there is balm in Gilead. Let us listen to the prophets of our day as they help us to focus on the things that are central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children." Then he refers us to Mosiah 4:27. That just helps me to really focus on the words of our prophet today for guidance. It has become a source of big comfort for me. Hope this helps! And I hope you know that you are probably too hard on yourself and that you are a really great person.

GrowingRopers said...

Hey! so not sure i even read it all correctly {you know, stay at home MOM thing}...
but first let me say YEAH and THANKS for choosing not to post things that would open the world of smut. thats the internet for you...its hard to stay away from it. so good choice!
I love the comment jennifer left. so i just second all of it.
we definately have to remember who we are and what we represent. i'm enjoying your blog. i love the uplifting-ness of it :) the reality of YOU that you show. I have something else i am trying to say but cant get it out right now so i'll be back :)

Jennifer said...

ALso, I tag you to fill out a questionnaire (to learn more about you). You can see it on my blog: jlruggles.blogspot.com