There is No Box

I'm doing a bit of mental cleaning these days.  Over the past few years I feel that I have gotten of track on my own personal path of self growth, understanding, and success.  So, I want to document the things that I wanted to focus on and possibly share it with others.  Please, feel free to comment, discuss, and share your own experiences.  I will be adding motivational posters that have left a deep impact on me, as well as songs to the picture captions.  >^.^<

I want to start with something way back in 2002 (my senior year of high school).  I was a member of the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps.  I could not give enough props to Chris Previc our Visual Caption Head.  As another corps member pointed out to me, he was a genius but he was before his time and was not appreciated the way he should have been.  He said many influential things but the most important was, "I'm not going to tell you to 'think outside the box'.  That is too cliche and it is inaccurate, because there is no box.  The box is of our own design, based on our own limitations and experiences.  Now, go think and reflect on what that means."  And I did, a lot, because, at the time, I didn't understand what he meant.  Finally many days, and a few months later I figured something out.  Mostly that I didn't truly believe anything.  I just took everyone's word that what they said was the truth.  This was pretty life stopping for my 18-year-old self.  I patched up some of the walls of my box, so I could go about my regular business.

"More Than What I Am" by Mankind is Obsolete. The answer to her question, "How can I rise from this place that I'm in if I can't be more than what I am?" that I found was "others".  From friends to family, to random people we meet along the way.  This was a hard lesson for me to learn.  As my mom puts it I am "stubbornly independent."

Jump ahead a few years.  As I start to rebuild myself and I stumble upon "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers" by Deborah Ford.  This is so understated.  The amount of things I have taken from this is invaluable.  At the time I read this I was a perfectionist for all of the wrong reasons.  I did it to hear people tell me I was a good girl, and be praised.  Nothing more.  I thought people wouldn't love me or be my friend if I wasn't perfect.  I was a Light Chaser.  I will focus on two things that Deborah brings up that I contemplate on a lot.  The first being a mental exercise start with an outcome, something you could never see yourself doing.  Let's for the sake of the exercise, say something small like running a stop sign.  Now think of any possible reason that you can come up with why you would have done that.  You didn't see that stop sign, a loved one was injured and you were rushing them to the hospital, etc.  But that is how the exercise works.  It expands your perspective of the world.  And made for a wonderful foundation of my life without a box.  The second thing she points out is a story about a mansion with hundreds of rooms.  Each room is well lit.  The mansion is our mind and our talents.  We are born capable of doing anything.  Yet, as we go through life we start shutting doors and not developing talents based on others' opinions of us.  It may not be direct insult but even someone saying, "What a cute cow you drew," when in fact you drew your dog, could have left a big enough impression that you shut the door to your drawing talent/room.  So, by the time we are adults we only live in say 2-4 rooms.  Deborah challenges to think of what our lives would be like if we kept all of the rooms open.  (This is why I support all of my friends, and all of their many talents.  I don't want you to close your doors.  Live your life to the fullest, develop, and grow.  :D)

"Try" by Pink.  The lyrics that had the most impact on me where "Where there is desire there is going to be a flame.  Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned.  Just because you burn doesn't mean your going to die.  You've got to get up and try."  There are a lot of things in life this can pertain to, but pretty much the thought of failure and pain should not hold you back from your passions.

More recently I met a Korean woman.  Here in the United States where I live people have a stereotype about Asians being good at everything.  This woman felt obligated to have to live up to that expectation.  The level of effort she went to live up to this was astounding to me.  Yet, it was also a big eye opener for me.  Motivation.  People have a good level of motivation do to the things that they love.  I had lost mine.  I had forgotten the amount of work that it took to get me to the places and level of skill that I had once achieved.  In short I was slacking, and not living up to my own level of effort to achieve my own life goals.  And to be quite honest the cultural differences in the mind set of people in the United States and Asia are quite different.  Some times it is a matter of what you stand to loose if you don't achieve the level of skill mastery, or grades, or job that you are working for.  This is when I started to do things like have pictures or strong women and motivational quotes on my computer desktop.  They are there to constantly remind me of the fact that I am strong and capable of achieving my goal at my set level of mastery that I have for myself.  And don't be afraid to raise your hand, say I made a mistake, and doing it all over again.  (Another thing from Chris Previc.)

"Victory" by Mankind is Obsolete.  This whole song pretty much hits home to me.

That pretty much sums up what I wanted to put down as the backbone of what I am going to be doing over the next little while.  Just a last touch that through everything you do make sure you have fun.  Sometimes you need to create your own fun.  I have a book that I have never read, but I keep on the shelf so I can read the title "Life Doesn't Have to be a Struggle".  That is all I need to read to be reminded that "struggle" is optional.

My Two Bits on Fandoms, Cosplay, and Cons

There has been a bit of negative feed back about cosplayers and congoers in general.  I write this as a general response to explain what cosplay is to those that are not familiar with the term.

Most people would agree that everyone has a hobby, past time, or thing that they enjoy.  From collecting stamps, to studying history, to watching your favorite sports team.  People will have varying degrees of how "into" their chosen activity (fandom) that they are comfortable with.

My first example:  I had a coworker that loved to collect stamps.  As a stamp collector you can either collect the themed stamps like Looney Tunes or you can collect rare and valuable stamps like ones that were misprints. People will either stay at home and causally collect stamps.  There are people that will run their own stamp selling businesses.  My coworker owns his own store on ebay to sell stamps and once a year he is the head of security at the stamp emporium held at his home town.  May I point out that the stamp emporium is a three day long event held over the weekend, is at a convention center, and you can attend seminars about stamps.

My second example:  I'm fairly certain that we have all at least one point in time ran into a history buff.  (Yeah, I know I'm making an assumption here.)  Even here you will run into varying degrees of fandom.  You have people that causally study history in their free time, you have people that study history in college, you have people that will go out and dig up artifacts, and you have people that will get together in costume and reenact particular battles or time periods in history.

My third example:  This will hit a little bit closer to home for must people - sports fans.  There are even varying degrees of sports fans.  You have the people that will sit at home and watch a game every now and then, you have the people that will invite their friends over to watch a game, you have the fantasy league players, you have the people who play on company teams, and you have the fans the dress up to support their favorite team/player.  Just check out this web page if you don't understand what I am trying to say:  Crazy Football Fan Costumes.

As you can see there are plenty of examples out their.  I could do the same for any hobby or as I have been calling them "fandom".  Because, no matter what you call it the activity is the same.  My hobbies are watching anime, playing video games, sewing, crafting, drinking tea, and many other things.  But I can also call them my fandoms, because they are the things that I am a fan of.  People don't call the people that what to share a piece of history with you be total immersion (Renaissance faires, Medieval Times dinner joist, Civil War Reenactments, etc.) freaks.  And most people wouldn't say that they are "just looking for attention".  The same goes for the extreme sports fans.  Most people just say that they are "huge fans" and "really into the game".  So, I ask why do cosplayers get this negative feed back?  All they are really doing is enjoying their fandom to the extremest way they can, and most often or not they also want to share it will you.

And now my bit about cons.  There are a lot of different types of conventions.  From the anime, sci fi, comic book, and gaming cons, to things like stamp collecting, cosmetics, yoga retreats, business, information technology, stamp collecting, and many many more.  Pretty much if you are a fan there will be a way that you can share your fandom with others, and be able to learn more about your fandom.  There really is not need to point at one particular group or level of fandom, and start poking fun or name calling.  We all have our own interests.  There is no wrong or right way for you to enjoy or hobbies (beyond staying within the bounds of the law).  I am also not about to walk into a car show and be upset about the fact that most of the people there were car and automotive enthusiasts.  But what I will do is ask them questions.  I will ask them, "How did you got your car?" "What makes your car different?" I will ask them, "What got you interested in cars?"  I will do what I can to understand why they enjoy what they do.

So, in short lets not single out any particular fandoms to discriminate against, and all just try to understand each other.  Or at least try and understand that we all enjoy different things at varying levels of personal involvement.  >^.^<