Passing Phases
I won't lie, when I feel even the slightest bit of sickness clumping in my throat, I chug orange juice for days. Surprisingly easier to down the acidity of Vitamin C when I fear the burning sensation in my esophagus (although really, it'll only reduce the amount of days I'll be sick).
Today's post is devoted to transitions--wherever may we be, I hope that we can adjust to the circumstances dropped onto us.
Who else hates Helvetica as much as I do? Hopefully, the rest of the continent, but I won't blame people for preferring loose fonts that stretch out. I take a liking to narrow fonts, smaller ones. Something about the cluster is better for watching my written narratives unfold.
Still, I often think about the way we choose favorite fonts and adjust our personal choices over time. I was a huge fan of Courier New when I was a kid, even of Hightower Text. Now I love Alegreya & Garamond, and it is a bit pretentious to love Garamond as a reader who sees it so often, but the curls of Garamond letters are comfortable and familiar. As for Alegreya? Well, Google Docs wouldn't be the same without us.
I've come to realize that the sooner I acknowledge my own pretentiousness, the easier it is to deal with regrettable encounters. Self-awareness is a key for modifying our lives based on self-reflection, but I still have to learn with the increasing doubt that comes with evaluating our lives in the middle of the night.
Today's post is devoted to transitions--wherever may we be, I hope that we can adjust to the circumstances dropped onto us.
I. Transformations
Who else hates Helvetica as much as I do? Hopefully, the rest of the continent, but I won't blame people for preferring loose fonts that stretch out. I take a liking to narrow fonts, smaller ones. Something about the cluster is better for watching my written narratives unfold.
Still, I often think about the way we choose favorite fonts and adjust our personal choices over time. I was a huge fan of Courier New when I was a kid, even of Hightower Text. Now I love Alegreya & Garamond, and it is a bit pretentious to love Garamond as a reader who sees it so often, but the curls of Garamond letters are comfortable and familiar. As for Alegreya? Well, Google Docs wouldn't be the same without us.
I've come to realize that the sooner I acknowledge my own pretentiousness, the easier it is to deal with regrettable encounters. Self-awareness is a key for modifying our lives based on self-reflection, but I still have to learn with the increasing doubt that comes with evaluating our lives in the middle of the night.
II. Circular Narratives
We fall into the same mistakes no matter how many times we're warned of the dangers. Sloth is a particular but predictable cycle of repetition, and once we start defining productivity as catching up with a TV show, it's a dangerous slope. (On that note, I caught up with The Good Place and am currently watching Timeless when I have the free time--modern marvels in alternate landscapes.)
As the year rolls on we might fall into the same routines, or we might improve ourselves for the best. Some parts of us might bloom into the best version of ourselves, whereas our relations with other people remind us that we have so much left to go. There is no easy way to stop this cycle, especially when you look at it from a historical perspective of global phenomenons repeating the same mistakes over and over, but so long as we wake up from the familiar routine, we can fight the predictable cycles that trap us here in the first place.
Help yourself to a better you.
III. Liminal
Our existence may be a momentary affair with Earth, but at least it is a visually wondrous journey on our way to the unknown. We see our unknown future in the oddest of spaces--gas stations late at night, the push of a meteor through the atmosphere, an all-too-quick shadow out of the corner of our eye--and while we have every right to be afraid, we have every right to be brave.
Transitions open up new opportunities and tragedies in our lives. We should toast to them as often as we can, but like most people, I'm all too often afraid of what the next transition will bring. Will ideological freedom find me? Will anxiety fade with experience? Will the world be different after every sleep cycle? (Of course it is, it always is, and if you think your world hasn't changed from day to day, you aren't seeing enough of it.)
It's all right to be terrified of transitions. We will never find it easy to step out into the unknown; at least, we won't unless we encourage reckless abandon.
So maybe it's fine to embrace the reckless abandon we chide so many others for. But it's perfectly all right to plan, too.
Remember to resist.
Yours Sincerely,
Dianne
