Am I living? Part 2

So, my last post under this title was, I think, more about how I might be limiting myself. This time, I'm probably going to muse and ramble about how I'm not sure what I am living right now.


So, I was listening to "I've Seen a Little" by Alan Doyle, and a friend of mine recommended the Small Town Pistols to listen to as well. Found a song of theirs, "Living on the Outside". I should probably explain that I think a little oddly. I tend to be paranoid and suspicious, though some days I don't bother, yet that kind of thinking has gotten me into the habit of looking for patterns. My brain does it in really odd ways, such as pairing the sides on a stop sign to each other, as well as those on the post. I'll take notice when start wishing for a good book to read, and then shortly after that I hear about this really good book that I would probably enjoy, or I will ask the weather to let up for a little bit because I'm restless too and I just want to walk some energy off and talk to the girl I'm in to, and the weather listens.

So when I start listening to songs and I realize I'm skipping some and staying on others, I begin to look for comparisons and connections. I know that I'm often wrong, and that things might just happen in patterns because I am imagining that they are there, but there is no real co-relation.

Let's see if I can find the words to describe the point I am trying to make. After wondering if I am limiting myself and preventing myself from living, I have to ask myself, "Am I living?" Is there something I'm missing? Do I know what I would be doing if I was living? I know I'm alive, because I don't think this is what death will be like. Some people say to be living you have to break the rules, get moving, run away from what you know and see how it goes. I don't know if that's how it goes, because everyone who goes away ends up living just fine when they get home, seeing everything in a new way. Some people say "you don't know what you have until it is gone", but is that how it has to be? Are we incapable of changing our eyes without changing our address? That's ridiculous. I know people who wake up every day without ever leaving the same plot of land, and yet they can see something new in the world around them each day. So why this big hubbub about having to get away and get a new perspective? It's silly.

I've often thought about travelling, but it's not like I could just pack up and go, right? I mean sure, I could. But without a plan or at least a general idea, I might as well just buy a ticket and jump on the plane with nothing but the clothes on my back and then jump out at some random location. Maybe I could get by without money, but seeing as I live in Northern North America, it would be tricky to get home if I happened to jump out over Europe. It's not like someone would just talk to me, oh and they just happen to speak English, and then hand me a plane ticket and wish me a safe flight. I will admit, I would love to do something like that, but I would like to know I will come home again.

I haven't really travelled much. From my home near Waterloo, I have gone north into Haliburton County, and south to the border with the States, Niagara Falls. I've been to Europe, through Germany with it's green slopes, France and all it's people. Passed through Belgium, stayed a while in the Netherlands and saw the dikes. And yet, I'm still not sure if I'm living. I've seen more than some, and less than others, and I know I want to see more. I haven't seen much of my own country, and Canada is full of things to see, it's huge!! And I still want to see Europe and Australia -though what with all the critters there, I will be just a touch worried-, I think it would be something to go to Asia, Russian, Africa, South America...there is so much world, and I want to see it all. and I still don't know if I'm living.

Am I missing something? It can't be the travel that let's you see things anew. The experience then? Does that make the difference? The problem with that line of thought is that the people who will tell you it's the experience have all gone through different paths and opposite roads, so you are back where you started.

So maybe I just need to patient. So then why am I being told that boldness is an attractive quality?

Am I living?

So, here is the scenario, and my apologies if it appears confusing and convoluted. If it wasn't so, then I wouldn't be having troubles with it, would I?

I am a Christian. I was raised that way, and that is what I believe in. Heaven, Hell, and a war between them with Earth as the battleground. As part of my upbringing, I went through a program, called Cadets. The code of the Cadets was fairly simple. "A Cadet must be reverent, obedient, compassionate, consecrated, trustworthy, pure, grateful, loyal, industrious and cheerful."

I try to be a good person. But I was having a friendly argument with a friend of mine and realized that I couldn't continue the argument. It took me a bit to figure it out. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not sexist, but this particular friend means a great deal to me, and for whatever reason I have developed certain rules of behaviour for myself when I interact with her. Strangely enough, I also cannot break them. It's not that I cannot break rules, I have, I just don't bother to. Perhaps its due to lack of practice that things go bad when I do break the rules.

Anywho, I think my first issue is figuring out what these rules are. It's not like in board games or table-top where you can just pick up the manual and read what the Game Master have come up with for this version. I wrote these rules, and some of them I don't recognize until I run into them. Kinda like the card game Mao, if you've ever played it.

The way Mao works, is there is a set of base rules, and you use a regular deck of cards. They vary slightly based on how people like to play, but these are the ones I learned.

1. You can lay cards like on like. Red to red, clubs to clubs, Jack to Jack. Really simple.
2. No talking during the game. If you talk, pick up a card.
3. You win by clearing out your hand first.
4. If you win the round, you make a new rule.

Round 4 is where things get interesting. You make a new rule, whatever you like, but it cannot target a specific person or group. So no making anyone named Tim pick up three cards whenever they put one down. Girls are not forced to take off an article of clothing if they put a 10 of Clubs down. The new rule can be something like...If you put an 8 down onto another 8, you have to say "Sandwich". There is one other thing about the new rule. You don't tell anyone about it. That is the issue I've run into, I've managed to create rules about my behaviour that I do not know.

I know it's hard to imagine. How can you hide something from yourself when you can up with it, when it concerns you so directly?

I mentioned my problem to my friend, telling her how I seem to have locked myself in a set of rules, and that I appear to be too foolish to break them. Her suggestion was that I break them and live a little.

Besides the fact that I might be making this harder than needed on myself, or that it might not as simple as she make it out to be, there is another thought. Are these rules preventing me from living?