Silly and Excessive Seaweed

Isolate: To set apart or isolate from others.

Here is another more modern interpretation of a couple of verses in one of the great holy books that I have been reading - this particular holy book is associated with my childhood religion so it's fraught with great peril and the source of great strength and triggers some wonderful memories and, simultaneously, some really annoying emotions.

See?  The yin and the yang.

"What is faith?  It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen.  It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead."

OK, now one of the older translations:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

So the guy who did my more modern translation tossed in a lot of extra words.  The intent of the passage seems pretty close but still a lot of interpretation.  It reminds me of a translator listening to someone from Uzbekistan ripping off about 20 minutes worth of dialogue, then turning to the camera: "He says yes."

I dunno.  Take what you like and leave the rest, I guess.

I'm thinking deeply on the question asked from a few different sources concerning my anxiety: what is the pay-off of all the worrying?  To engage in a behavior one needs to get to a result.  What is my result?  What am I looking to gain, to achieve, to enjoy, to avoid?  Anxiety is a tough one.  If you eat too much and feel sick afterwards at least you have the pleasure of eating the food.  If you let your anger run rampant there's a nice sense of self-righteous indignation.  If you gossip your denigration of another person is used to inflate your own sense of self-worth.  

But worrying about implausible outcomes?  Little tougher, that one.  I'm not sure what nurturing the anxiety does for me.  Am I channeling my inner mama, keeping her memory alive by worrying in her absence?  I don't complain about my health to other people - hypochondria would be a logical source of pleasure, a way to draw attention to oneself.

The answer is hazy.  It's something else.

I have too much time to think about myself.
I'm not doing enough to force my attention away from my own self and onto others.
I've veered from healthy solitude to unhealthy isolation.

When I'm asked to do something with social connotations I immediately defer in a non-specific way: "Thanks for asking" or "thanks for thinking of me but I'm not going to be able to join you." A couple of friends invited me to join them at breakfast last Monday, and I declined.  As I continued to chat with them for a bit I thought about my plans - a walk on the beach, a cup of coffee, a nap, all alone stuff.  I had nothing going on that was that important or interesting - I just was choosing to hang out with myself and worry about implausible events coming to pass.  So I went to breakfast.

It wasn't that much fun.  I can think about myself when I'm with other people.

Christ.  Man, am I thinking about myself.

I may have some fear concerning how I would spend my time if I didn't have exercise as a huge time filler.  It is silly - and excessive - that I exercise every day and that I think I have to exercise every day.  Don't get me wrong - it's important to take care of the physical plant, just not to the degree that I do.

I may be at a spot where I need to fill some time with other activities - volunteering, work, writing, etc.  A common problem for the early retiree is a sense that one is no longer a productive part of society.  I'm glad that I have a lot of good options that I can use so that I continue to feel productive, my time in The Fellowship right at the top of the list.  Still, it's easy to slot "work" in as a big time-filler, even if you don't like what you're doing.  It's what everyone does.  It's very common.  I'm incredibly lucky that I was able to separate some of the money issue out of my life.  I realize that most people aren't in that spot.  I'm also lucky that I have solid, healthy ways to fill my time.  The guy next to me is retired and he recently took a job driving cars off of a ship primarily so he could kill some time.  He seemed to sit around and watch TV a lot.

Working it out.