Lessons about myself.

I have quite enjoyed today as a whole, as it has tickled all kinds of fancies from the creative to the laborious, but have truly round the day's icing on the cake in this TED talk that I incidentally stumbled into on my facebook newsfeed:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

It is nothing too fancy or incredibly earth-shattering in its presentation or information.  It goes a long way in describing much of the way I operate as a human being, though, and I've never heard it put so succinctly or clearly in this way before.  I have never been able to give it this much clarity for all my best efforts to do so over the years.  And I consider it a great blessing to have found it at all.

There is a great deal of high quality ideas to be had in this talk.  I would only like to address a couple of them in this particular entry.

I have long felt the importance of vulnerability in my life though I have never quite recognized it as such.  I regularly do things to express who I am as openly an honestly as I feel I can do because I think it allows others to know me better, thereby allowing a greater connection to be formed between me and them.  If you have read any of my past writings on the topic I am sure none of this is any sort of news.  This is apparently one of my ways of expressing my vulnerability.  It seems to be intricately connected to my ability to love and appreciate others, however, which is something I never before supposed to be the case. How enlightening and motivating just that piece of knowledge is!  It also validates much of my reasoning for doing much of what I do in this regard.  Something that I certainly have not needed(as I have not received very much of it anyway... at least in the setting of my blogging endeavors) but something I nonetheless appreciate.(Fun side note - I just noticed that the opposite of "nonetheless" is "all the more" the other day.)

Another thing this talk helped me recognized about myself was the role of shame in my inability to connect with a girl in my attempts to form a meaningful relationship.  I have never really understood it specifically as shame and thought of it more as a fear of hurting others.  I have recently(the last three or so years maybe) begun to move beyond this fear/shame and have still not made any significant connections.  I might be on a good track but it's somewhat difficult to tell.  I guess I just need to keep on pressing forward, continuing to share myself as an expression of my desire to connect, hoping that my worthy, imperfect self will one day be recognized as someone desirable and worth giving a chance to.  That is really all I have ever wanted in the first place anyway.

I hope some of this has been enlightening in a way that helps people understand me better(ALWAYS one of my biggest motivating factors in my writing efforts), but also in a way that helps you understand yourself better!  There is a great deal of highly valuable ideas which are directly spawned of actual principles of truth that anybody can learn to benefit from.