I think I need to start a new practice whereby every blog post I write must have an “anti” post that comes after it. Because I adore contradiction.
Plus, flipping things around can be a sneaky-useful practice for making connections and gaining clarity. (It’s super-helpful in dream analysis.)
Anyway, I got lucky on this recent post and a bunch of smart people stopped by to hang out.
Elizabeth (who is a supremely soulful observer-of-life and up-and-coming energy magician) mentioned how she felt like an outsider amongst people who did energy work. Even though she feels drawn to practice reiki.
She described a similar feeling to what I felt at the Jung seminar.
Which helped me go a little further with the idea of Intersections. (So I guess this post should really be called “Anti-Intersections”. There’s some sort of mathematical term for that, right?)
Essentially, that whatever you don’t like about what you like is a string to pull on. It can help you discover more about the color and shape of your filter.
So, I love Jung’s philosophy but I don’t like the academicky-ness of Jung studies.
Why?
If I flip that uncomfortable, outsider-feeling around I get: I approach it in a more practical, personal way. The opposite of academic and theoretical.
That’s what I bring.
To use another example, Briana is not going to fit in with your typical “fitness coach” type people, because she doesn’t believe diet and exercise is all about willpower. (Plus, she’s awesomely smart and thinky about the topic.)
That outsiderness is her gift.
Did I mention “uncomfortable”?
Yeah, I did but I feel the need to repeat myself. It’s not easy to find this thing you love, this thing that speaks to you and fascinates you, and realize that you’re not the absolute ideal best-person-ever seamless fit for it (as it exists now).
It’s hard to create a new version for yourself.
I’m right there with you. Let’s keep each other posted on how it goes.
Wrapping up with the Obvious
What don’t you like about what you like? What makes you feel like an outsider when it comes to the thing you love the most?
Related posts:
Canyons
Intersections
Postcard from the edge
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I’m actually a couple of blogs behind…still thinking about the previous two. I’m a little slow some times…don’t touch that!
I don’t like that the elements involved in my thing don’t work the same way for me that they do for everyone else. That messes with my head and makes me feel wrong (but I’m not…I think, lol) and THAT makes me feel like an outsider.
ha! i love that your posts have an anti-post. and i love your contradictory goodness. seems like the things we don’t like about the things we like are what make us uniquely us, yes?
Twitter: SquarePegKaren
January 20, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Oh yeah! I adore contradiction too. And feel the same way about Jung.
Love the idea of exploring what we dont’ like about what we like – I’ve often talked about the opposite – finding out what we like about what we don’t like.
Wow. What a wonderful idea! Contradiction is fantastic… and figuring out the things we don’t like about our passions, and using them as a diving board?! Just coolness incarnate.
Twitter: intuitivebridge
January 20, 2010 at 3:56 pm
This is a great idea. The idea that it’s a string to be pulled. I feel that way about woo-woo people sometimes. I mean, I’m woo-woo, but there is a lot of woo-woo that just bugs me.
Contradiction is indeed coolness incarnate.
Twitter: copylicious
January 20, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I don’t like the word “copywriting.” UUUUGGH–even just typing it piles bricks on my chest. I’m pretty sure I love it since I love everything about doing it. I just hate the word. I hate the expectations associated with the word. I want to call it something else, like yarn-spinning or hiking or marshmallow-roasting. Anything, anything but copywriting. I don’t like knowing that everyone thinks a word means one set of things, but I don’t think of it as meaning those things. So I kind of want my own word. But don’t want people to say, ‘oh, she’s trying to be cute and clever, why doesn’t she just say it?’ Honestly, every one of us should get our own made-up language, and we should all become fluent in each other’s languages. And no one will ever quite know what the other person was actually trying to say–instead of now, when people assume they all understand words the same. That would be fantastic.
Twitter: evalazza
January 20, 2010 at 5:38 pm
@Wulfie Hee hee, no worries I’m not touching that
…Oh! and I love what “doesn’t work” almost as much as what you don’t like, awesome angle 
@Leah Totally! *smooch*
@Karen Oooh, love “what we like about what we don’t like”– love how everything can be turned over and back on itself again
@Romilly *grin* (*waves hi! to the belly dancing knitter*)
@Bridget Oh I can totally see the anti “woo woo” aspect as hugely important. And how it would be sort of uncomfortable in certain circles.
@ Kelly OMG yes! You are awesome–you’re like the “COPYWRITER” who really and truly cares about the meaning of words, who just doesn’t label things for expediency. I mean, hello! What an integral part of *your thing* as defined and created by Kelly alone. Love.
Twitter: brianaaldrich
January 20, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Maybe someday soon I’ll stop being surprised by the way you read my mind. Which I have a hard time imagining. Because I totally had this huge brainstorm where I decided I was going to write a series of posts that completely contradicted each other, one right after the other, because I feel two ways about *everything*.
So hard to create the new version of your thing for yourself. Seeing the outsiderness as a gift is so tough, much easier for me to see it for other people. And… thanks for the kind words, my dear. Blush.
Twitter: elizabethhalt
January 21, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I love the anti-theme. And the idea of it being a string that you can tug. I don’t have to tug it all at once .. very slowly is fine.
What don’t I love about energy work? I don’t love the weirdness of it. Well, not the weirdness of it exactly – I am fond of wacky – but that the weirdness is always presented as if it isn’t wacky and of course I won’t think it is. And that is very hard to get past when you do think it’s wacky, at least in the beginning when you’re trying to decide if this is even something for you at all.
And thank you for the kind words, my dear. Can you see me blushing?
elizabeth´s last blog ..the journey begins
Love the anti-post! I think our basic truths often lie in our paradoxes.
I am aiming my blog in a “personal development” direction.
But, I find this concept and words connected with it to be so loaded down with crap, that I might prefer to be known,like Kelly, as a marshmallow-roaster.
Sanford´s last blog ..Haiku-esque