An Important Shift in my Social Paradigm

It really hit me today: unless I change the way I think about dating, I’m going to be a sad little single guy my whole life, or at least for years to come. First a little background. Recently, I’ve been reading “The Color Code” by Taylor Hartman, which outlines the very interesting personality color theory which, despite not having any psychometric research to back it up, is nevertheless incredibly accurate and compelling. So, I’ve been reading what Dr. Hartman has to say about my main personality color, blue, and I’ve been amazed at how well his description fits me. To sum it up, blue personalities are motivated by intimacy, and they care so much about sincerity and being good rather than just seeming good that they tend to have perfectionistic expectancies for themselves and others. Wow, that is me! So anyway, I’ve been really unsatisfied with my social life for quite some time because I can’t seem to meet people who reach the pinnacle of awesomely cool perfection that I now recognize as being an impossibly high expectation. As it turns out, if you don’t want to have friends, you can either not work to become sufficiently cool, or you can be like me and consider yourself too cool to have any friends. Neither one of those scenarios is good, but fortunately neither one is an inescapable death sentence either. Realistically, I can’t develop close friendships with everyone, because quite naturally there are people with whom I can develop friendships more readily than others, but for those people who I’ve traditionally viewed as “Yeah, he/she’s cool, but he/she’s not quite perfect enough”, I think I ought to jump at the opportunity to get to know him or her better. I used to be the guy with the childlike twinkle in his eye and a zest for life, but I feel like I’ve become a jaded anti-socialite; I’d really like to turn that around!

Some Musings

This is the first of several things I’ve been thinking about lately that I thought would be good to commit to writing.

1) Blog subject and content
As I’ve previously indicated, I am intrigued by the prospect of writing regularly in a blog, but am unsure of what exacty I want to write about. Just now it occurred to me that I ought to focus on psychology, which is what I am majoring in and happen to think a lot about. I believe that God has given each of us different gifts and expects us to use those gifts. However, He probably hopes we will concentrate on using those gifts He has deliberatey given us, rather than stubbornly try our hands at activities we are not so skilled at doing. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with a little dabbling or even persistent efforts at improvement, but we should not ignore those things for which we have natural talent, because those are areas we are probably meant to do a lot of good in. Like many people, I feel like a Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none; my interests are very broad, but my expertise in any of them is not very deep. For instance, I enjoy learning and talking about politics, but I’ve read enough political blogs to know that I couldn’t contribute much of real worth in an online discussion of politics because I just don’t have much talent, comparatively speaking. Economists might say those political bloggers have a comparative advantage over me. However, I DO know a thing or two about psychology or, more importantly, about people. This is something I’ve been learning about and thinking about all my life, and I don’t think that this has been so out of sheer coincidence. Rather, I believe God chose to give me a propensity for thinking about the inner self, mine and others’, as well as an interest in observing our varied behaviors. Thus, I will make the psyche - the spirit or soul according to the Greeks - the focus of my blog.

Philosophy of blogging?

My brother-in-law keeps wondering when I’m going to post something new on here, yet, though I am very appreciative to have such a devoted fan (surely my only one), I’ve been dragging my feet to respond. This is, in large part, because I’m still not sure what to write on here. What should I write about? I have all sorts of ideas running through my head, but very rarely do I commit them to writing because 1) I’m lazy and 2) I can’t think of a good reason to write them. I would much rather not do something than do something for a dumb reason, and at this point where my readership is stuck at 1 - my wonderful bro-in-law who I happen to see every day - I feel that writing to such a tiny albeit appreciated audience would defeat the point of a blog; if I wanted to write essentially to myself, then I’d just write in my journal. I guess the bottom line is: advertise my blog.

Bryce’s First Blog — EVER!

So, when my brother-in-law started up a blog the other day, it suddenly dawned on me, “Whoa, having a blog is the cool thing to do these days!” Quite frankly, I’ve been a little reluctant to act on that thought because, well, what really is the point of having a blog anyway?! Clearly, one of the reasons to write a blog is to help friends and family keep up-to-date on happenings in your life, but beyond that, the only other motivation I can think of is to show the world how cool you think you are. Now, I actually think I am really cool, so a little self-aggrandizement doesn’t bother me. However, I would hope that a blog doesn’t have to be so blatantly self-serving, but that the impassioned ramblings seemingly inherent to a blog might actually be enjoyable or even -gasp!- useful to others. Wishful thinking, I know, but not impossible.