The Nature of my Project, Abridged

Surprise surprise, the reason for my absence lately is because of my involvement in the Project. It's finally almost over. As of this posting, I'm taking a road trip to its end result: a new home. Some very good things have been happening lately, and it's led to my finally getting the Project done. You know what that means, right? Yes: I no longer have to be secret about it.

Though, for the moment I don't want to go on and on about its nature, so in this post I'm just going to give the short version of what it is I'm doing and why it is I'm doing it, and then at a later date I'll publish a full essay I have written on the subject. It's a good thing that essay is already written, because as my Project comes to an end I am getting more and more disinterested in wanting to think about it. Simply, I just want to get on with my life. It's not that I'm trying to evade what has happened and pretend it never has, but rather I want to stop thinking about something that is ultimately not worth thinking about.

In short, the family members I grew up with have been very harmful to my life, and my relationship with these certain people have been on-and-off disputes that were objectively impossible to resolve. The disputes always arose from their irrational ideas and random feelings, and were impossible to deal with through the means of reason. Perhaps it may seem odd that I'm as open as this, but I think there's important philosophical points to be made from being open (which I'll make explicit in the forthcoming essay): My mother and grandmother nearly drove me to suicide in my youth, ignored me when I came to them for help, and then tried to stand in the way of my well-being by encouraging me to continue irrational practices after they've demonstratively imposed harm on me and which I healed from by repudiating. The "Circumstance" I speak of is my grandmother. I got kicked out of my house and moved in with her a few years ago, and disputes have been frequent. Whenever I do something unconventional (read: unpopular) or something that makes her feel "bad" she tries to convince me my course is bad through means of appeals to popularity and emotional revelations, and it's been utterly impossible to persuade otherwise through means of reason since she can't get over her emotions. The disputes have really distracted me from living my life -- I couldn't even concentrate -- so I came up with the "Project" to move out of her house and into another secret location so I'd finally be able to live a calmer and happier life. It's unfortunate, but I need to cut her off because our problems wouldn't cease if I kept her in my life in any degree. I value her none, so I'll spend zero time dealing with her. Because much of my family is aware of my blog and Facebook profile, I've been unable to speak openly and instead resorted to vague terms such as "Project" and "Circumstance."

Now you know.

For the time being, I don't think it would be the wisest thing to note my location -- I've actually moved out of state -- so for now that shall remain a secret, though it won't be one taunting you like the "Project" has. It's been a difficult journey to this point, one well-marked with setbacks, so this is a major achievement in my life, one that will allow me to more competently concentrate on my endeavors, learning, and relationships. Now my life can move on.

However, I know that some of you might be scoffing or rolling your eyes right now. Given my youth, it is but inevitable and logical that most may think me to be the typical kid who hates his "squares" of a family, makes decisions from the basis of his emotions, and acts frivolously, but that isn't the case here. My actions were well thought out and calculated, and based off the objective harm living with my family has done. This is the only solution to those problems, but I don't blame you for thinking me the typical kid. It's reasonable given the vast majority of youths today are in fact emotionally driven in that way. I'll explain the details of my problems in my upcoming essay that goes through the Project at length. Remember when I put a vague sentence in one of my weekly summaries, "Super Secret Thing"? Well, those were flag terms. I got sick of being secretive about my Project, so I created a secret blog and advertised my post in the Objectivist Roundup with those flag terms, hoping some of my readers would stumble upon it. The details are there, and I'm going to be lifting an essay verbatim.

Anyhow, things are moving forward. Now it's time to start thinking about what my next priorities are. I don't have a job lined up where I'm moving, so a job hunt is in order, though with vast more opportunity here and with previous restaurant experience under my belt. It's time to live life now, much delayed.

Chocolate Review: Dagoba's 68% Lemon Ginger

Oddly enough, my chocolate tasting has been one to introduce me to things that I've never tried before. Why not begin a trial of it embedded in chocolate? That's how I learned I like coffee, and it was also my first serious exposure to ginger as a spice, which I've now come to appreciate for its slightly tangy heat. Dagoba's 68% cacao lemon ginger was an obvious temptation then. Lemon has quite an intensity that can make the tongue tingle from the burn of its sourness, so it seems to be a perfect pairing for the heat of ginger.

To my disappointment, however, it did not work out that way. The profile is predominantly milky with a plain sweetened chocolate attribute to it (the sugar note isn't separate), and the ginger is almost entirely unnoticeable except for the grainy crispiness it adds to the texture. The lemon may or may not be there -- my tongue felt like it wanted to experience the tang of the fruit, but the anticipation just never turned into the actual sensation. What a letdown. I suspect it's because the ginger is crystallized and the lemon flavoring isn't that of a lemon oil, the latter of which I really hoped for for the sake of potency.

The mouthfeel is rather average too, with soft bites and a decent melt. The ginger pieces add a new dimension, but nothing interesting considering how fine they are. The only realm of this bar that has complexity and richness is the aroma: dried spices, flowers, heat, a faint lemon peel, and smoke. 

I was really hoping for a lot of punch from this, but only got a hum-drum experience. Ginger is quite good, particularly from the chocolate that gave me my first serious impression (which I'll review later), but my tastings up to this date seem to indicate that ginger may be just as taken for granted as vanilla is.They both have great potential, which is unfortunately neglected at large. I don't recommend this variety.

Weekly Summary: Here's the Thing

Due to recent happenings my life has been off from its regular habits, and to tell you the truth I still don't feel like I'm back in my regular mindset of studying and writing. For the next few days and part of next week my writing will continue to be disrupted, though for immensely good reasons. You'll be let know of those reasons ASAP, so don't worry about being left in the dark for too long.

Also, I think I'm going to skip next week's chocolate tasting. Due to these recent happenings I've been trying to dispose of some sugary goods, like the ice cream in my freezer, and my body would certainly benefit from a strict rest. In its place I think I'll substitute an ice cream review since, well, that's what I'm eating.

I do hope you're being patience with my continued absence. It is my intention to resume regularity as soon as possible, but much much much more important things are going on right now, okay? For now I'm going to have to forgo speaking of my explicit weekly goals since they need to be kept private for the moment. It's all for the greatest.

Happenings

Happenings have been happening, and I've only gotten free from my external obligations today on Monday, so I don't have any plans for blogging this week except for a weekly summary and chocolate review. Good things are going on nonetheless, but it's unfortunate that I'll only be able to tell you about the end product; I can't talk about it step-by-step as the events occur. It seems that my life may get a little busier in the coming weeks, which may call for a full out suspension of my writing for an extended period. We'll play it by ear, but in the end it's immensely worthwhile for my life. All I can hope is that you don't forget about me in my absence if it is indeed called for. Life is a priority.

I'll just have to roll with things as they come along. Normalcy will return in a short while, but for the meanwhile irregular and uncommon demands necessitate my attention, especially writing for other, more private audiences.

Chocolate Review and Weekly Summary Cancelled

Unlike I originally thought, I do not have time to do quality writing, so instead of just slapping up any old thing I'm going to cancel this week's chocolate review and weekly summary. This week's chocolate tasting will be posted next week, and I'll start afresh with the weekly summary.

Again, sorry about the inconvenience. I'll be back -- soon!

Writing Interruption

Due to some external obligations my writing schedule will be off this week. There will be no regular post today, no post tomorrow, and perhaps a shorter weekly summary. My weekly chocolate review, however, I'll try to construct as usual and publish without any situational alterations.

Sorry about the inconvenience.

Stress and Self-esteem

One thing I've really become fond of in my writing lately is that by continuing to introspect on articles after I publish them I tend to come up with further integrations that can lead to sort of "sequel" posts. It's really been helping me in my thinking, which is the primary aim in my writing a blog to begin with. This time I made an integration from my post on repression, and I've learned that periods of strong negative emotions can actually be a manifestation of low self-esteem. Just like how panicking over the small things in life may reveal some deeper, very important repressions of more significant issues, how one responds to stress can reveal how one estimates one's worth.

I was thinking about this during the Valentine's dinner rush at my restaurant on Saturday, when I had to take on washing dishes, stocking dishes, replenishing cooler supplies, and watching cooking items all at the same time. It was demanding, but exciting and invigorating, the stuff I live for in restaurant work. What struck me as interesting to think about during all this is to how my stress was non-existent despite the long and constant demand that I pay the utmost attention to everything. I started thinking about what it indicates of a person who would panic during such a situation. I remembered that it could reveal a fundamental stress, which the situation would add to and cause his tolerance to collapse, but I also noticed that it could reveal that a person may emotionally experience an estimate of himself.

Judging yourself has a different emotional impact than that of judging others. If you judge someone else as evil, then logically you'll experience contempt, loathing, anger, and more, and perhaps a motivation to prevent this person from spreading his evil to others (whether ideologically or physically), but if you pass that same estimate on yourself it has a different effect. Sure, one could experience the same emotions, including an addition of depression, but it causes different psychological effects and invokes motivations for different types of actions. It could easily eliminate one's motivation to foster friendships, pursue ambitious goals, take the best care of oneself, and so on. If you judge yourself as evil, then logically you'll feel as if you're not worthy of achieving these values, and in that emotional state you wouldn't be able to value the consequences of those pursuits even if you did obtain them. Judging others to be evil can motivate oneself to disassociate from them, speak out against them, and so on, but to do the same to yourself can easily ruin one's emotional health and sap all energy for value-oriented action.

In self-esteem a similar situation exists. Self-esteem is generally your estimate of yourself, and to have self-esteem means to estimate yourself as competent (in whatever context), a good person, and worthy of and able to obtain values. To not have it means to estimate yourself as incompetent, a bad (or at least "not-good") person, and unworthy of and unable to obtain values. Not having self-esteem is not as bad as judging oneself as evil, but it can really have a strong impact on one's actions and ability to cope with stress.

In my own thinking during that Valentine's rush, I noticed that being provoked to stress during rush periods may indicate that the person has low self-esteem, most probably due to irrational ideas about ability. If the person were to hold the premise, say, that ability is innate and cannot be practiced or cultivated, then an inability to perform his responsibilities properly or competently might cause him to establish a lower estimate of himself since he'll necessarily believe that self-worth is innate too. A stressful situation, therefore, would manifest to a person his "innate incompetence" and cause him to feel stressed or distressed at witnessing what he believes to be proof that he simply can't better himself to become more skilled as time passes; he believes he's stuck in that state.

I used to hold onto this premise as a small child, and it really affected my willingness to learn things. If I couldn't grasp something instantly, then I would quickly give up on it, believing it to be forever out of my grasp. As such, I quickly passed from phase to phase of trying out things that interested me, but near-instantly giving up on them when I tried them and discovered I didn't have an "innate" talent for them. Like most children, I wanted to grow up and make video games, but I never seriously pursued the course since the programming books I rented from the library were way above my head.

But this premise can easily be changed out. There's little substance to the notion that skills are innate, and while people may show an innate ability at learning and becoming competent in one area faster than others (e.g. playing the piano), in the end it's always the case that you need to exert effort to learn and develop your skills constantly. To make an emotional change in this regard, one really only needs to make explicit the premise that's irrational, refute it consciously, explicitly adapt the better alternative, and cite the new premise in mind whenever the old premise might be experienced emotionally. I believe that successful emotional change is 99% making the correct identification, which there is minor demand for altered actions afterwards.

If a person were to experience stress in the form I described above on a busy night for a restaurant, then the stress could easily be allayed by repeating over and over in one's head that one is merely inexperienced and that continued practice and exertion will lead to better skills and ability in the future. Such mantras may not help the person boost his competence right then and there, but it should do well to ease his stress, clear his head, and allow him to concentrate more intensely on the matters at hand rather than his self-doubts. Over time the new premise, that talent is not innate and can be developed, could even assist him in his endeavors by granting him the motivation to continue with his pursuits and practices no matter what his mistakes. He will then be able to earn his talent without psychological resistance.

The reason why I say that identification is the primary in changing one's emotions is because I've noticed that in my own subconscious I've been able to make drastic emotional changes just by shining a light on my premises, before I even have the chance to alter my actions accordingly. For example, I was able to cure my anxiety towards roller coasters instantly just by identifying what exactly made me so thrilled to ride them. After examining my experiences, I noticed that I was afraid that it was likely I could get injured while riding them: a beam that looked low looked like it would behead me, loops made me think we might fly off the track, and the harness felt like it could accidentally come unlocked and let me fall. I realized that while all of this can and has happened, it's incredibly unlikely that it will happen, and that accidents that do occur remain to be a rarity. Thereafter -- even before I tested myself on a ride -- I no longer experienced any intense emotion towards a ride. In fact, I've virtually lost my capacity to experience any sort of thrill on a roller coaster, and when I do ride them I concentrate more on the passing scenery, the discomfort of the shifting forces, and whether or not the ride was almost over. Even a ride that gave me an entirely new experience left me virtually unaffected, instead provoking me to contemplate what kind of knowledge and intelligence was involved in constructing the machine. Having identified what at root made me experience adrenaline, I made it so I no longer experienced intense emotions during a ride.

Just merely engaging in introspection can lead to rapid emotional changes, even before you have the chance to do anything about it. Not only can an inability to deal with stress reveal some deep repressions within a person, but it can also reveal that they have low self-esteem by fact of having adopted the premise that they can't deal with the situation a per their nature. By shining and keeping a light on this premise, the stress can easily be abated, eased, and cured. You just need to remain introspective on your premises and emotional nature.

As to myself, my best way of keeping myself concentrated on my exertion rather than the busy-ness of a restaurant as such is to treat every situation as a fun challenge to improve myself, and that as I get better I can only push myself to perform better beyond that. Besides, whatever mistakes I do make isn't going to make the costumers rebel and call for my execution, right?