The more things change the more they stay the same

[Ms. Kensington]

do you think this is an alpha battlecry?

[Mediator Kam]

???

[Khola aka Bee]

Kam does that avvie have a vibrator or am I just perverted?

[hellothere]

bright orange microphone

[Creepy-bg]

Kam does that avvie have a vibrator or am I just perverted?

Bee needs sex

[Rubicon]

do you think this is an alpha battlecry?

Why do you say that?

[tereg]

This can be an ENFp battlecry as well, I think.

[Rubicon]

This can be an ENFp battlecry as well, I think.

What does that statement mean to you?

[Wynch]

"The more things change the more they stay the same"

This is the opposite of what is good? I think using this as a battlecry would depress an alpha. Perhaps this is more of an ILE quality, but constancy drives me insane. The idea that even change is constant would make me feel trapped.

[Rubicon]

"The more things change the more they stay the same"

This is the opposite of what is good? I think using this as a battlecry would depress an alpha. Perhaps this is more of an ILE quality, but constancy drives me insane. The idea that even change is constant would make me feel trapped.

That's exactly what I thought when I read it. Maybe the concept appeals more to rationals.

[Wynch]

Ah, a very good point, Jem. Yes, rationals would probably take to this idea much more readily than irrationals. Perhaps it is a battlecry for Alpha Rationals?

[Rubicon]

And if any Alpha Rationals protest, we might end up narrowing it down to a battlecry for Ms Kensington. :-)

[Ms. Kensington]

"The more things change the more they stay the same"

This is the opposite of what is good? I think using this as a battlecry would depress an alpha. Perhaps this is more of an ILE quality, but constancy drives me insane. The idea that even change is constant would make me feel trapped.

hm.. yes i could see that. One reason I was throwing out this idea is because i think this is something that I like about music for example. There is a near infinite way to arrange notes but they might have the same structure, so it would always stay the same. WIth every new data input, it creates something new that is the same. For me this is an example of Ti working with Fe.

I think one example of sameness (which isn't the same as consistency) pisses me off is when others just blindly repeat ideas by others. Is that maybe what you meant? haha. or like someone saying, "you like chocolate cake so you don't like anything else and i will always get you chocolate." Its a tricky example.. its more the way someone says it than actually doing it. when someone makes something more simple than it is is different than consistency, rather it's inconsistent.

[Ms. Kensington]

This can be an ENFp battlecry as well, I think.

how?

[Ms. Kensington]

And if any Alpha Rationals protest, we might end up narrowing it down to a battlecry for Ms Kensington. :-)

ah.. well it's not really my battlecry. i was thinking about that when i posted because Corinne Bailey Rae has it in one of her songs and I started thinking about how her songs come off as very Si to me (she is ISFp imo). Ni and Se, for example, to me don't see things (like events) staying the same ever even though they might be very similar concept wise. Like I might get an ESFp a chocolate cake and she won't like it either because she's experienced it before; I wouldnt like it if someone did it in a way that made me feel they were simplfying me.

[tereg]

What does that statement mean to you?

how?

Well, for me that phrase most definitely resonates with me. And I think what happens is that this phrase usually comes about as a result of a reality check. And usually I think of this phrase within the realm of like my personal development. So like, I'll be going through some sort of rut or whatever, and I'll start to feel like "Ugh, I've been down this road before." And like, I tend to repeat the same kinds of mistakes that I've made before. I find it difficult sometimes to actively put head knowledge of my mistakes into action when it surfaces again.

So, that's usually when I really feel like, yeah, the more things change, the more things stay the same. I'm older, I'm more mature, I've experienced more things, but really, I'm still doing the same stuff sometimes.

This is from my blog, which, you'll see what I'm talking about:

I know I'm beating the same old drum, but I don't know how else to release right now.

I am just so sick and tired of it... that nothing is going to change.

I'm so angry that I'm shaking. I'm so tense, I feel like I'm constantly clenched.

Let me ask you this. Has it ever taken you 65 miles and two and a half hours to go somewhere 4.5 miles away? Doesn't make sense?

It's just me taking drastic measures to do something really small.

I was invited to go somewhere after work tonight and all this week I kept gritting my teeth, making myself say to myself that I was going to go (even though I wasn't really happy about going).

"Hey Josh, you gonna be there tonight?"
"Yup"
"All right, see ya there"

"Hey Josh, you going with us tonight?"
"Yeah, I'll see you there tonight"
"Cool, see ya there"

I was going to will myself to go.... until I started to drive out there, and I just kept driving. I probably drove by the place at least 6 times. Around and way out and roundabout and back and forth. I kept half-assed looking for a parking space and kept being really passive about cutting people off to get to a spot, so I'd take the really long way around to get back to the place I wanted to get to. But I just could not get myself to park anywhere. I just let my stupid thoughts fester in my mind for hours. I didn't really say much the entire time I was in the car, just a few frustrated expletives and a stone-sour look of anger and sick-of-it-all.

Let's put it this way, I spent more time in the car than it does for me to drive from here to my family's home in Houston.

I'm fucking tired of it.

So now, I have to answer why I didn't go. I have to explain how I kept telling people I'd go (when again, I was trying to will myself to go) and now probably worried a bunch of people because I didn't show up.

It will be the first time in a long time that I will want to say to that question "I don't really want to talk about it right now." I've backed myself into a corner. And all because I'm being a wuss about nothing. Things are not changing. For me to have to say "I don't want to talk about it right now" means to me something very frightening. It goes against the basic premise of my belief in being open with my life.

I wanted to ram my car into a wall, or scream my head off or kick my car when I got back to the apartment. Nope. Because that's crazy and there are people around.

I have a headache and my chest feels tight. I definitely can't relax now. I'm just tired of it.

I had a frustrating weekend last weekend.

And I really do try not to be pessimistic about certain things, but it just felt like everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

I'm not really in the mood to explain all of the things that frustrated me... but suffice it to say that there were a lot of things.

But what was really on my mind right now was how I've been feeling socially as of late. It just feels like to me that the more people that I meet, the less they want to actually get me or understand me. It's just frustrating. I sense it at times when people I know just use "That's just Josh being Josh" line as a convenient way to explain my peculiarities instead of exploring them (and maybe having a laugh along the way). I get frustrated with people. And we all know what happens when I get frustrated with people... I distance myself from them.

And I don't think it's difficult for me to trust people in the conventional sense of the term. But in reality, I think that while I definitely feel like I can easily trust people, it's possible that I don't really trust people and people's judgments. What's kinda scary for me is the feeling that this isn't new... I can think of specific situations in which I instinctively did not trust someone in critical situations in which I was given instructions to do something, but I had to see what they were seeing first before I did it. So, I'm left with the hard truth that I've been shrouding myself in this blanket of "I can trust people easily" because I can trust people with very personal information of mine. But when it comes to another person's judgment of my direction, I have to see it for myself.

So, I can trust people with things I'm in control of, but I can't trust people in things that I don't have control of. And that, my friends, is not cool and not fair to you.

I have a core group of people that I know that I consider to be my closest friends. Most of them I have known for many years. Most of them are on my friends list on Myspace. Most of them I met online.

I've had the privilege of watching these friends essentially grow up and start new lives and have their own lives. Understandably, with that comes a loss of contact in some cases. While I still have conversations with these people, it's clear that I cannot have the same depth that I once had. And again, it's understandable why that is. As the core drifts farther away into their own lives, I still search for people I can have depth with.

But it feels like... forgive me if this sounds hyperbolic... but it feels like I'm stuck in place smiling and waving at my friends, wishing them luck, as they go out farther and farther away from me, and I'm just stuck in place.
Sure, I can still see some of them. But it just feels a little more lonely around here.

Maybe I shouldn't be so selfish and self-centered, and maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic and take for granted what and who I have.

But people are moving on without me. There is no disputing that. I'm trying to move forward... but it has not happened. I'm stuck.

And here we are in November, the end of another year just around the corner. As is customary this time of year, I look back on the year that was and evaluate it. And I have to say that I have been rather frustrated this year up to this point. It just doesn't feel like I've made any progress this year. This time last year I was feeling quite similarly to how I am now. Very disappointed and frustrated in the body of work.

I have to shoulder the bulk of the blame. The inability to drive and make things happen continues to be my chorus.

If I can't drive to change things, then how am I to expect things to be any different next year? If things follow a predictable pattern, why am I to believe that the pattern will not continue?

Maybe I should look at sports for analogies. The most obvious one being "That's why they play the game" If sports were played in newspapers, underdogs would always lose. But they aren't. The favorite to win a game doesn't win it all the time. So while there's always hope things will be different... it just doesn't feel like it to me.

I keep pictures and letters that I've gotten over the years... mementos, things like that. And I can't help but feel mad sometimes at some of my memories. I'm not going to elaborate now... and I'm not erasing what I just said (even though I just considered erasing it)... I think that is for another time.

How does that quote go... "The more things stay the same, the more they change"

No.

I just looked it up:

La plus ça change, la plus c'est la meme choses.
(The more things change, the more things stay the same)

[Ms. Kensington]

I don't know ... my battlecry is more like: "Arrrrghiiiiyaaaaiiiiyaaaa".

this reminds me of the beginning of Circle of Life from the Lion King.

[Khola aka Bee]

Bee needs sex

Lol. Yes. Single life is awesome.

I'm officially going insane now!!!

[Rubicon]

Well, for me that phrase most definitely resonates with me. And I think what happens is that this phrase usually comes about as a result of a reality check. And usually I think of this phrase within the realm of like my personal development. So like, I'll be going through some sort of rut or whatever, and I'll start to feel like "Ugh, I've been down this road before." And like, I tend to repeat the same kinds of mistakes that I've made before. I find it difficult sometimes to actively put head knowledge of my mistakes into action when it surfaces again.

So, that's usually when I really feel like, yeah, the more things change, the more things stay the same. I'm older, I'm more mature, I've experienced more things, but really, I'm still doing the same stuff sometimes.

This is from my blog, which, you'll see what I'm talking about:

I see what you mean now, Tereg. Thanks for explaining. I relate to a certain extent, but I'm usually thinking in terms of how different my perceptions of people/things are in comparion to 'back then'. The changes in my attitude are usually imperceptable to me in a day-to-day sense, but I look back a year or so ago and think "Woah, I really thought I understood so-and-so or such-an-such. How little I really knew." It's humbling, yet encouraging at the same time. I feel like I'm evolving constantly as a person whether I want to or not. If only in a passive sense. Because you're constantly reacting to and assimilating new information all the time. So that's why I don't relate to "the more things change, the more things stay the same". It would be more like "Things may look like they're staying the same, but they're actually changing imperceptibly all the time." But it doesn't really have the same ring to it ... :-)

Then again, you're talking more about actions and behavioural patterns, where as I'm talking about perceptions and feelings.

You know I was just thinking though that I probably look at other people more in terms of not changing though - so maybe my 'evolution' is all in my head. :-) Idk.