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Nov. 5th, 2004 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valancystirlingAnd anyway, while we're on the subject--okay, we're not actually--how do you decide your priorities and what you care about in life? How do you just FIGURE OUT what things are most important to you and what is valuable?
I mean, really. How do you KNOW?
Some things are really nice on a somewhat superficial level, and you might be drawn to them or inclined to construct your life around those things. But sometimes I wonder if you're really supposed to be entirely comfortable all the time, and that some of the best and most important things in life are a pain in the ass sometimes, but ultimately worth far more than the really nice things that lure you with their surface niceness.
Example.
I would really love some ice cream right now. A gigantic lemon ice cream cone, in fact. With SPRINKLES, even. And if I didn't live in the land of no-lemon-ice-cream, I could easily get it. I might even settle for chocolate chip ice cream. Regardless, I can get ice cream with little effort, and it would be GOOD. And I would enjoy it, and the world would seem like a happy place.
But then I would get really fat and get that sugar rush feeling, and feel guilty, and ultimately, it wouldn't be worth that momentary bit of bliss.
I don't feel especially wild and passionate over the idea of spinach right now. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE spinach and have all kinds of spinach-related fantasies, but somehow it just doesn't seem very exciting to me right now. Not when there's ICE CREAM to be had.
But if I skipped the ice cream and went for the spinach...I'd feel healthier, less guilty, and would remember how much I love spinach. And in the long run, my life might be better because I chose spinach over ice cream, especially if I made the same choice frequently. Long term, it is definitely the best choice.
Okay, wow, I am dazed and don't know how I got here. I think I was trying to create some kind of food-related analogy for some philosophical idea. I do that too much. Anyway, so I have no idea if I achieved my objective, or what the objective was. Maybe I should just post and stop writing now.
I mean, really. How do you KNOW?
Some things are really nice on a somewhat superficial level, and you might be drawn to them or inclined to construct your life around those things. But sometimes I wonder if you're really supposed to be entirely comfortable all the time, and that some of the best and most important things in life are a pain in the ass sometimes, but ultimately worth far more than the really nice things that lure you with their surface niceness.
Example.
I would really love some ice cream right now. A gigantic lemon ice cream cone, in fact. With SPRINKLES, even. And if I didn't live in the land of no-lemon-ice-cream, I could easily get it. I might even settle for chocolate chip ice cream. Regardless, I can get ice cream with little effort, and it would be GOOD. And I would enjoy it, and the world would seem like a happy place.
But then I would get really fat and get that sugar rush feeling, and feel guilty, and ultimately, it wouldn't be worth that momentary bit of bliss.
I don't feel especially wild and passionate over the idea of spinach right now. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE spinach and have all kinds of spinach-related fantasies, but somehow it just doesn't seem very exciting to me right now. Not when there's ICE CREAM to be had.
But if I skipped the ice cream and went for the spinach...I'd feel healthier, less guilty, and would remember how much I love spinach. And in the long run, my life might be better because I chose spinach over ice cream, especially if I made the same choice frequently. Long term, it is definitely the best choice.
Okay, wow, I am dazed and don't know how I got here. I think I was trying to create some kind of food-related analogy for some philosophical idea. I do that too much. Anyway, so I have no idea if I achieved my objective, or what the objective was. Maybe I should just post and stop writing now.
