To use this site to accomplish this goal of “use this site to help me focus on my goals rather than distract me with socialization” it means I need to be on this site, but I haven’t been on this site, so I haven’t been using this site to accomplish this goal.

At some point in time I’ll need to figure out how to incorporate this site into the accomplishment of this goal, but the social nature of this site makes it tempting to use it in a social manner.

I wonder if there would be a demand for an anti-social version of this site….

The book chapter was published, but I still don’t have a copy yet.

As for getting published in something outside of an academic journal, that is still a goal, but not something that is active for me within my life right now. In other words, I am not actively attempting to pursue that goal. Thus, trying to trim down my goal list to things that are bigger than my current to-do list but I intend to have some degree of active pursuit with regard to, I’ve decided to mark this goal as “done” although kind of not quite done in the way that I originally envisioned.

When I am no longer emotionally swayed by the memories of unfortunate events that I can not change then perhaps I can consider myself at peace with my past. But there is the peace that is born of compassionate detachment and there is the peace that is born of apathy. I strive for the former, but sometimes find myself in the latter (fortunately, that is not the usual case). I must remember to strive for the former, but in the striving, I am not at peace.

What is it that I want from being at peace with my past? When I am, I should have internalized Something about who I choose to be when I can be what I choose to be. Something about what my priorities are when the opportunity to test them comes along.

When I know those, and am sure of them, and they are unchanging because they are right and I am confident in that in ways unlike how I’ve ever been before, then, perhaps I will be at peace with my past.

In the youthful past, I engaged in experimentation, that is risks I am willing to take in the name of fun and while this resulted in me learning, I only learned more fully the futility of such things.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and a striving after the wind_{(that’s the text of the RSV which I wish was present on biblegateway)}

I’m not immortal. I must now tend to my health.

I’m not as desperate. I must now tend to my reputation.

I’m not as selfish. I now tend to my friends.

I’m not as independent. I now see why I should value friends.

I can not be sincere in conveying my feelings if I do not know my feelings, and I can not know my feelings unless I take the time to figure them out. This is something I do not often do, for often I act out of obligation rather than feeling. A promise matters more to me than a desire, and this can lead me to suppress passions and enjoy life far less than I perhaps ought.

There is the enjoyment of life that is rooted in carefree doing of whatever strikes one’s fancy, and there is the enjoyment of life that is rooted in the satisfaction of deep needs for great fulfillment of one’s self and others. These are different. Though I know the former, I must cling to the latter.

I’m not who I was – but I’m not who I am. Whatever I think I am, I seem to be different – when I give up, I have the strength to carry on; when I am over-ambitious, I discover it soon enough. I’m not who I am, because the me that is the present is not something that I can even surely say that I know, because when I go to act in accordance with myself, I find I do something different.

To act is to choose an action. To choose an action is to choose to not take the other actions. Thus, there is a “yes” to one action and a “no” to another action(s). To be who I choose to be – to do the actions I choose – I must be firmly able to say yes and to say no and to stick with it. It is not merely enough that I mean yes when I say yes and that I mean no when I say no – it is that I also must back up the yes and no with my actions, and display conviction in executing them.

I can’t make peace with my past if I can’t even make peace with myself. And it is in knowing myself, and holding true to myself I may perhaps live out that adage: to thine own self be true.

More clearly than anything, I see I must see the past not as that which made the past, but as my memories of it, and so must deal with them as such. This is not how I prefer to deal with such things, for by relegating them to be “just memories” they seem less sacred. They were special to me. But it is in realizing the truth – the reality that what was is not and nevermore shall be – that one can accept reality, and acceptance is a necessary part of carrying on.