Happiness and memories.

I've noticed there are two types of people: those who see a happy picture from long ago and feel happy, and those who see a happy picture from long ago and feel sad.

I am one of the latter. The difference between myself and those who see old pictures with happiness is that the happy ones are the ones who know that those times will come again. Me, I don't. The future terrifies me.

Why? Because I know something other people don't. I have discovered that when people have a good group of friends, they don't look for more friends. They don't care about friends that have gone before them - at least, not in any real conscious, present way, just in the abstract "I hope wherever they are and whatever they're doing, they are happy." As long as my friends have plenty of other friends, I am disposable. The only way it is ever different is if I do something to make them feel guilty - or their other friends leave them. And neither of those are solutions that interest me. This is the truth.

My time is over. It has been long over, in fact. My senior year of college was two years ago, and now I am all washed up, even if am still a student - a graduate student, but a student nonetheless. I look around me and see happy people who were first brought into this community by my class - some of them by me personally. It has never really seemed to matter. So long as they are happy, they could care less how lonely I am. They can certainly pretend to care - they have to in order to feel OK about themselves - but in the end, if I never reached out and asked people to spend time with me, I would probably talk to people a couple times a year. There are a few out there who are legitimately busy - I understand that very well, indeed I do - but there are others who have their band, their group, their "one from many" of which I can never hope to take part. I'm too old - even when I do somehow spend time with people here, I feel like an outsider. I belong to a group of people who have already left me behind.

The times I've been happiest in life is when I really felt a part of something greater than myself. The times when I wasn't just a friend, but part of a group of friends. Those were the best. And now, I am on the verge of leaving behind every good thing I've had on earth. All that I ever really had was here, at school. If I couldn't make friendships that last here, what hope do I have out there, where it is so much harder?

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of constant memory.

The world has moved on.

"The world has moved on. Bad times are on horseback."

I am re-reading the Dark Tower, Stephen King's magnum opus of an adventure about Roland Deschain, gunslinger, last of his kind in a world that is dying, and about his last ditch attempt to save it and all of existence itself from eternal darkness.

Epic.

There is a saying that reappears in every book (there are seven) and multiple times in every book. It's "The world has moved on." The first time I read the book, years ago, I never really understood the phrase. I thought I did...I took it to mean "times have changed." But that's not it at all. I get it now. I get it now because I'm a little older and I've lived it.

"We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up."

When I think back to the time when college was new, and I had all the time in the world?

The world has moved on, gunslinger.

When I think about the times I always had someone else to consider if things didn't work out?

The world has moved on, gunslinger.

When I think back to when I didn't need to worry about whether I was doing things right?

The world has moved on, gunslinger.

When I think back to the times I could choose among almost any club, school, community, etc. activity as a place to have fun and meet new people?

The world has moved on since then.

I get it. What an interesting phrase - it doesn't mean a change in time, because time is really only a figment of our imagination...it means an entire change in the world. My world has utterly changed, and I'm still adjusting. I keep wanting things to be how they once were, but everything around me reminds me it's different now.

In the interest of not sounding so depressed to the point of self-absorption, I know I have other things to look forward to. But true to my fashion, I'm not as interested in them as I am to the things that I've "passed by." I need not repeat them. After all, I understand as well as anyone else reading this blog how I must sound. Still, allow me this guilty pleasure.

I guess I am just frustrated that at my sixth year of leaving home, other than a degree under my belt and another on the way, and a little maturity, I'm really no better off than I was before. I think at one point I actually thought I would be married by now. What a riot that is to think. The world has moved on.

Something positive (because I really am trying, I promise): I think I would be very happy, even if I was moving on from this community alone, if I got a job where I intern at. And moved to this nice little town with a Catholic church the size of a cathedral. I'd cry...that would be lovely. We'll see...we'll see exactly how much the world has moved on.

There was a dream that I dream, a dream for a world that has not yet moved on.

The levels of self-awareness.

I have a theory about people. Well, I have lots of those, but here is one of them.

One thing I've noticed about college-aged folks is that there is a wide variety of maturity among them. I do not wish to speak of vices and poor habits, but particularly the part of maturity I call "self-awareness."

To be "self-aware" in the particular sense that I refer to it is not the same as sentience, the difference between humans and other animals, but the amount someone is aware of their true self.

I believe this manifests itself in a few levels: the amount someone is in touch with their own feelings. Feelings, in this sense, goes beyond just emotions, but also opinions and thoughts about the nature of who they are and what they do. If you're confused, just keep reading.

The first level of self-awareness is "I feel." At this level, the person is just self-aware enough to express something. You begin at this level as a baby.

The second level of self-awareness is "I am feeling." At this level, the person expresses feelings and is aware of them. Usually some time after a person starts talking they are able to reach this level.

The third level of self-awareness is "I am feeling because." At this level, the person is aware of their feelings and is aware of their source. Much like the second level, some time after a person starts talking they are able to work at this level, perhaps less frequently.

The fourth level of self-awareness is "I have felt." At this level, the person is able to reflect on past feelings and see how they have felt certain ways over time and see some level of a pattern.

 The fifth level of self-awareness is "I have felt because." At this level, the person is able to reflect on past feelings, see how they have felt over time, see a clear pattern and understand their feelings in a larger context.

The sixth level of self-awareness is "I feel because." This is the highest level of self-awareness in which the person is able to achieve all of the aspects of the fifth level but also integrate this awareness in every day life and relate it easily and clearly to him or herself and others.

If this idea is confusing, let's make an example. Let's say a person were asked about being bullied at a young age. Someone in "I feel" would simply cry. Someone in "I am feeling" would tell you they feel sad. Someone in "I am feeling because" would tell you they feel sad because you brought up that memory. Someone in "I have felt" would tell you that being bullied made them sad but they eventually got out of it and it only upsets them when people bring it up. Someone in "I have felt because" would tell you that being bullied made them sad, that they eventually got over it, that it upsets them when people bring it up, that they are sometimes insecure because of it, and this causes them to sometimes react very strongly to gossip. Someone in "I feel because" would tell you everything in the previous sentence without having to think about it for very long.

People with higher levels of self-awareness don't wear masks very much. They are more genuine, more real, more in touch with themselves. People on lower levels of self-awareness wear masks a lot...even lower, they may not even realize they're wearing one. People of higher levels of self-awareness are better able to understand others with lower levels. Ever watch a little kid do or say something and think "I know what he's thinking, and furthermore, I know he doesn't realize I know what he's thinking." That's what I mean.

Most people I meet that are a little younger than me are functioning somewhere between the third and fourth level of self-awareness. Sometimes I wonder if they realize how obvious it is to others functioning on a higher level of self-awareness how much about themselves they're hiding, and how unaware they are of how they are acting. They're pretty easy to manipulate, too.

I can always tell when I meet someone who's on the fifth or sixth level. They're very interesting people and fun to talk to about living life and talking about "deeper things." I feel like when I'm talking to someone on the sixth level, we just sort of "connect" in such a knowing way.

All of this is really hard to describe. I'm pretty sure this blog post doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Oh well.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for greater self-awareness.