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Ritual and Repetition
The entire output of my 750words for yesterday consists of ten words, repeated a hundred times.
(And two lines with an additional seven words, just to round it out.)
In some unrelated words, a space where I am supposed to be strong and intelligent and sensible, I was beginning to talk like I wasn't. Like maybe some of the bad things that other people do are my fault, and I should feel guilty for them.
And yes, it's punishment, and I am not the person who should be receiving punishment for them, but sometimes my brain works very very poorly, and sometimes simply the best answer is to present myself with a ritual. I have always responded very well to ritual, and I feel it's a thing that sets me apart from the rest of the world. Certainly, there are things I'm reluctant to talk about with people, because I feel they'll make me look foolish.
Let's be honest, because I am not sure they would understand. Even if I do not look the fool, I don't know that they will interpret the meaning and import of my explaining what I did. In part because I don't always know how to explain it myself --what makes one hot shower just a hot shower, and another ritualistic?
But repetition can easily have a ritualistic component to it, and it's a thing I have been using more often than usual lately. There were the *hugs* to Harena the other night1, and there was that entry into my commonplace book, in which I filled a page with script2, and now there was this.
And of course, part of it is doing it right. Writing each and every word myself. Copypaste is incredibly good for winning arguments or for being silly, but some things must be done fully by oneself, or they don't...they don't count. I could easily fool the website, fool anywhere, and the output would be just as pretty to look at. But I wouldn't fool myself, and cheating thus would take away some of the import of writing the words, over and over and over again.
It is important to write the words over and over and over again. That's what makes them true. Oh no, not for everything of course --you can write "the sun rises in the west" until your hands fall off without changing a thing. But for thoughts, for feelings, for emotions? For subconscious ideas that are not right and need to be changed?
Sometimes the only want to change them is to acknowledge them, and insist that you simply will not take their shit any longer. And so you say the words --and sometimes you can't, sometimes your brain simply will not let you (I deserve happiness, and it takes a deep breath and a pause to admit that) and so you find a form that your brain will accept. And you use the compromise until you believe it, and then you take a step closer to your goal.
And a step closer.
And a step closer.
Until you can write the true words, the words you need to say in the form you need to say them. And admitting that sort of thing from deep inside you may hurt and be hard, but every time you say it, it becomes a little bit easier. And that's why I had to type the words myself. Because it's a phrase I say often, and a hundred times is somewhat of a pittance, but the trap I'm trying to avoid has sprung at me again, and that means I have to take slightly extreme steps to _shut that mental fucker down_.
Also, a hundred is such a pretty round number, and the phrase conveniently has ten words, and I *have* been trying to hit a thousand with my 750words account. The math just adds up so pretty!
Words are important. Ritual is important. And if I tell myself enough that I am not at fault, perhaps one of these times it will actually stick. Actually seem true.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Harena was having a bummer of a night, and I was worried I'd upset her, so I made reparations with a hundred hugs, each typed out, in her IM window.
2: Writing in cursive has been my creative meditation of the semester. It's a dying form, and that's a shame, because it's such a *pretty* dying form. Just perfect for writing diary entries, little bits of joy over the boys I love best, but yes, just perfect for writing secrets as well.
(And two lines with an additional seven words, just to round it out.)
In some unrelated words, a space where I am supposed to be strong and intelligent and sensible, I was beginning to talk like I wasn't. Like maybe some of the bad things that other people do are my fault, and I should feel guilty for them.
And yes, it's punishment, and I am not the person who should be receiving punishment for them, but sometimes my brain works very very poorly, and sometimes simply the best answer is to present myself with a ritual. I have always responded very well to ritual, and I feel it's a thing that sets me apart from the rest of the world. Certainly, there are things I'm reluctant to talk about with people, because I feel they'll make me look foolish.
Let's be honest, because I am not sure they would understand. Even if I do not look the fool, I don't know that they will interpret the meaning and import of my explaining what I did. In part because I don't always know how to explain it myself --what makes one hot shower just a hot shower, and another ritualistic?
But repetition can easily have a ritualistic component to it, and it's a thing I have been using more often than usual lately. There were the *hugs* to Harena the other night1, and there was that entry into my commonplace book, in which I filled a page with script2, and now there was this.
And of course, part of it is doing it right. Writing each and every word myself. Copypaste is incredibly good for winning arguments or for being silly, but some things must be done fully by oneself, or they don't...they don't count. I could easily fool the website, fool anywhere, and the output would be just as pretty to look at. But I wouldn't fool myself, and cheating thus would take away some of the import of writing the words, over and over and over again.
It is important to write the words over and over and over again. That's what makes them true. Oh no, not for everything of course --you can write "the sun rises in the west" until your hands fall off without changing a thing. But for thoughts, for feelings, for emotions? For subconscious ideas that are not right and need to be changed?
Sometimes the only want to change them is to acknowledge them, and insist that you simply will not take their shit any longer. And so you say the words --and sometimes you can't, sometimes your brain simply will not let you (I deserve happiness, and it takes a deep breath and a pause to admit that) and so you find a form that your brain will accept. And you use the compromise until you believe it, and then you take a step closer to your goal.
And a step closer.
And a step closer.
Until you can write the true words, the words you need to say in the form you need to say them. And admitting that sort of thing from deep inside you may hurt and be hard, but every time you say it, it becomes a little bit easier. And that's why I had to type the words myself. Because it's a phrase I say often, and a hundred times is somewhat of a pittance, but the trap I'm trying to avoid has sprung at me again, and that means I have to take slightly extreme steps to _shut that mental fucker down_.
Also, a hundred is such a pretty round number, and the phrase conveniently has ten words, and I *have* been trying to hit a thousand with my 750words account. The math just adds up so pretty!
Words are important. Ritual is important. And if I tell myself enough that I am not at fault, perhaps one of these times it will actually stick. Actually seem true.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Harena was having a bummer of a night, and I was worried I'd upset her, so I made reparations with a hundred hugs, each typed out, in her IM window.
2: Writing in cursive has been my creative meditation of the semester. It's a dying form, and that's a shame, because it's such a *pretty* dying form. Just perfect for writing diary entries, little bits of joy over the boys I love best, but yes, just perfect for writing secrets as well.
no subject
no subject
no subject
And to wake up in the morning and see that waiting on my computer was the bestest thing in the whole entire world especially knowing that i am only the teeniest part of your life! You are the mostest darling Sor in the entire world and i swear i shall try to never ever make you feel like you have to type out one hundred hugs again!1 Only if you want to. ;)
*hguglebugglewuggles Sor againgain* :')
1: Which is not to say i did not/would not love 100 hugs from you, just, well, y'know. *hgugles*