calvin

i have a bible exam at 9am tomorrow, so i thought i'd spend a few moments discussing platonic forms. because i've been thinking about them. why else?

just before i posted about returning to who i used to be, i'd gone out for lunch with kevin and kat. at wendy's, of course. (where else?) ANYway, i was saying that when i was younger i wasn't so focused, but i was happier. coincidence? mmmm . . . maybe not! i played euphonium and did math and debating and writing and i loved it all . . . and i think i knew who i was. well, kat said, "yeah, but you aren't math and euph and debating and writing . . . those are just things you DO." they're things i participate in and they may describe me, but they're not me.

then stu - oh, stu - who was sitting at another booth, made some crack about what we choose to talk about - like love and life and why - and kev said, "it's like a socratic discourse." and then it clicked. and, man, when it clicks, it CLICKS.

forms.

what is the FORM of mara?

instead of focusing on the particulars, i should wallow in the universal. what am i about? not details, but real truths of me.

i struggle with role conflict, but i shouldn't. if divine simplicity is a reality, and i am to be Christlike, then i, too, should be more simple. not in the sense of "sell all your possessions" - although that, too - but in focusing less on having distinct attributes, and more on being a whole.

SO:

instead of thinking and planning and trying to be a good woman, a good wife, a good mother, a good friend, a good sister, a good daughter, a good residence manager, a good student, a good customer, a good neighbour, a good employee, a good Christian, a good role model, a good colleaugue, a good euphonium player, a good writer, a good debater, a good reader, a good roommate . . .

"and now you can say etc, etc" . . .

i should focus on trying to be a good human being. the rest will follow.