I wanted to explore the idea of the influence on a person of the company that they keep closest...
Last night, one of Rider's bandmates came over to drink some beers and shoot the shit. He starts telling us about this TV show, and Rider was like, "Damn! They stole my idea! I was going to make that TV show! I should have done that."
And I chuckled, knowing him and where his interests lie, and I said, "You were never going to make a TV show."
"I was!" he asserted. "Claire was in school for filmmaking back when we were together the first time (2007–2009) and she was going to help me!"
Knowing some things about Claire, namely that she'd dropped out of said school and never went back again, I chuckled again. "Claire was never gonna make a TV show either."
"She's a very talented filmmaker!" he objected, indignant. "We were totally going to do it."
"See," I said, "normally we can't know the future. But there is one category of things that we CAN know the future for, and that is things in the past. The future of the past is the present. Is Claire making shows?"
"Noooo..." he replied in a sad tone.
"There's your answer," I said.
"Oh, snap!" his friend said. "That makes so much sense. I never thought of it that way!"
And usually I am not the kind of person to call people out like that, but there was something about that particular exchange that made me want to. It took a while of thinking about it, and I realized that it was how out of character it was for Rider to claim that he "would have done" something that was actually pretty unrealistic for him to do.
One thing that I love about him is that he's not one of those "all talk, no action" people. He wanted to be an artist, and he grew up to be one of the only people I know who is using his art degree and has been using it pretty continuously since graduating art school. He wanted to be a musician, and while he is not
commercially successful, he's been very prolific over the years and is one of my most locally beloved and musically dedicated friends. He isn't much for planning, but he knows what he wants and he goes after it in his own way.
I'm the same way, and so is Oona. I value people like that—people who are not only dreamers but also doers. Keeping company with them helps ME to stay motivated and achieve MY dreams.
So when I heard this "well, I woulda shoulda" stuff from him, it didn't ring true to me as "core Rider stuff." When it came out in his second sentence that it actually had to do with CLAIRE, it suddenly made sense. These weren't actually true Rider-sentiments; they were Claire-sentiments that had taken up residence in Rider by association.
Claire dropped out of school while they were together the first time and had never gone back. She used to perpetually complain about how she and Rider didn't ever go anywhere, while Rider and I went places all the time, yet when Rider would try to ask her if she'd like to go somewhere, she couldn't afford to go unless he was footing the bill (despite always having money for pot and booze). She does pro domme work part time and, as a supplement, has worked a series of low-paying, low-skill jobs typical for someone without much education or professional experience. She has not invested very much at all in her future or in accomplishing any sort of greater life goals or dreams.
An aside: I am in no way intending to disparage people who work low-paying, low-skill jobs, by the way. I worked my way through high school and university as a drive-through cashier, a waitress, a cosmetics clerk, a bartender, a telemarketer, you name it—all manner of hellacious low-wage jobs. I did this while also accruing loan debt that I'll be paying off for a long time. And my mother before me worked similar jobs AND did so while raising three children. I come from a long family history of the working poor. I know the struggle, and it is real.
What I'm more trying to say is that there are people who set up goals that align with their dreams and then make those things happen for themselves by any means necessary (working shitty jobs AND attending difficult classes, loan debt, less time to spend on fun), and there are people who talk a lot of big talk about these amazing things they are going to do but then they instead squander their time, opportunities, and money on things that keep them stationary—with rueful regrets of what "coulda been" and bitter envy at people who currently have or get to do what they wish they had or get to do (never acknowledging the sacrifices of the past that made those pleasures of the present possible).
It's interesting to me that the effects that these differing kinds of people can have on each other when they are associating closely with one another is so obvious that—when I know someone well—I can pluck an inconsistency out of a conversation just like *that* and it turns out it's rooted in someone else, not in the speaker. Realizing that totally blew my mind and made me realize exactly HOW important it is that we choose our closest company well—that we aim to spend the most time with people whose traits we admire.
It also made me think about how important it is to have a strong sense of self so that if we are ever not quite fully aware of the traits of others yet (blinded by NRE, for example), we don't accidentally absorb pieces of those as-yet-unvetted individuals out of ignorance and poor boundaries.
I think that might be one of the biggest differences between finally having good self esteem and being a secure person vs. having poor self esteem and being insecure:
As a newly secure person who loves herself, I aspire to date and closely befriend people who I find admirable and who will inspire me to be the best I can be—I don't worry about being the inferior one in the group, and I don't need to surround myself with people whose visible shortcomings make me feel better about myself. I care about self-improvement, and about surrounding myself with people who exhibit healthy behaviors that I can learn from.
At the same time, I don't shun the people who are a lot less far along in this journey than I currently am. I just don't let them get emotionally close enough to me that they could strongly affect me. I used to date these "Claire-type" stagnant people OR if I wasn't attracted to them, I would kind of feel elitist about them and look down my nose. Now, I'd be happy being casual friends or acquaintances with these people and seeing the good that DOES exist in them (as long as they have not done something that I see as a Big Wrong).
It's kind of what I described to Oona as "caring more and caring less at the same time." I care more about other people's feelings and I rely more on their choices and actions to guide my opinion of them...but it's a detached caring that can't shake or influence "core Reverie."
This has all been kind of a ramble, but it's a set of ideas that I am exploring that I wanted to get down in writing. Hope you're not too confused if you made it this far.
