Only one more blog after this...

Ok, so listen to this---for the past two weeks i've been kind of worn out, down, depressed, etc, etc because i wasn't getting enough sleep ( or so i thought). while i realize that lack of sleep causes depression (perhaps sadness would be a more appropriate term) and that there's a cycle of the two.....no sleep, sad thoughts, followed by more sad thoughts, then no sleep again, and still more sad thoughts. I've been battling these thoughts of not being good enough for two weeks and today i finally realized that it wasn't the lack of sleep (i got enough over the weekend for once) but it's my never-ending quest for perfection. I'm so caught up on getting it right, that is, living right (or atleast my idea of it). this includes being a student, a son, a brother, a friend, an employee, a volunteer---i feel like there isn't enough time for all of this and that if i can't manage to play all of my roles well, then i'm a failure. again and again i try to give 100% of myself to each role and end up failing to some extent. I feel like some day, i'll get it right and just go on from there---getting it "right" day after day. well, sure enough my one class today was not on topic (again) and my professor started talking about how our culture/religion has this concept of perfection built into it even though it is impossible for us to achieve. i'm sitting there in class, as usual, wondering how we got so far off subject (yet i'm still interested) and thinking it's as if my professor was talking directly to me. YES---i wanted to scream. i know what you mean. i'm striving for this 'perfection' and inevitably continue to fail which makes me feel like a failure (sadness) and just perpetuates the cycle. so, enough is enough----and good enough will be good enough. sorry for rambling on there but i feel so strange right now typing this because i swear that lecture today was meant for me to hear. of course then the question is: How? i don't know. the best i can say is that it was creation. and that's all i've got for that question right now. the good thing about this is that soon i'll internalize what my professor was saying today and stop being so hard on myself---for now, they were just words and it was just kind of a weird thing to listen to knowing that i would benefit from having heard it later on down the road. On page 68 of Hughes (incubating the idea) he discusses the stages of the creative process. well, i think today was 'illumination' and at some point in the near future, i'll "get" it---or according to Hughes 'verification' will occur. i think i have some nice, peaceful sleep coming my way shortly. Pearce refers to my happening today as, "the kind of looking we can do is itself determined by and limited to previous interactions between forest and clearing" (133). the thing that will eventually save me from my misery of attempting perfection is what i choose to see it as---that is, what i decide to 'see' or learn from the event today.