I am a woman of extremes. I don't know if I've stated that here before, but I do know that I have said it many many times. I do not live in a black and white world, I do see the shades of grey, but for me personally, there is no middle ground - pretty much ever.
When I do stupid or painful things, I go ALL out. I can't just trip and fall, I have to fall into a HOLE or off of a train or cause myself some ridiculous and laughable injury in doing so. When I love something or someone,
I LOVE IT/THEM. When I hate something, same thing. There is very little that I am on the fence about or am apathetic about.
Many times, if I don't have an opinion on something, I will go out and do the research I need to formulate an opinion. If all the information that I find available to me is slanted in one direction, I will withhold judgement until and unless I can see the other side of the story. I try to be fair in my extremes.
I find that in my various endeavors, I throw myself into them entirely. I can't just sort of do anything. I can't do things halfway, I either do them with everything I've got or not at all. Passion is key and if I'm not passionate about something, anything, why bother?
My music is a passion. Every day I play my guitar. Every week or two I write a new song. Every week I strive to perform out and make the effort... networking, meeting people, creating some semblance of whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish (which I still don't know exactly).
My work is a passion. I love what I do and I am damn good at it. For the moment I am bored because I'm working below my capabilities, but eventually I'll say the right thing to the right person and the situation will improve. I know this because that's just how things work. But I never stop loving what I do... I just sometimes love it a little less because I'm looking for ways to make it work better for me.
My internet usage is a passion. I rarely just randomly surf around. I research and stumble across new things. I explore the sites that entice me to a degree I doubt many achieve, having tens of windows open so I don't forget that I wanted to go back to that one blog or that one page with all the links on it. Even at home, it's not unusual for me to email links to myself so that I remember to go back and look at them another time.
I can't do things halfway, it's just not in my nature. I have a million things that I would love to do, but I will never have time to do them in the way they need to be done.
So I take what comes and I watch my step in case I cross from the woman of extremes into something bordering on addiction (because the line is very, very fine), at which point I may give that one thing up to replace it with something else.
And I wonder what it's like to be the type of person who can smoke a cigarette at a party or in a bar and not worry about it... or who can stumble without it turning into some big production... shoot... how about who can stumble without it even being a mention in their daily recap.
Although, you know, I must admit, I bet those people lead much less interesting lives than those of us who take everything to the extreme - whether on purpose or not. They say it's a curse, "May you live in interesting times", but I would feel a whole lot more cursed if I didn't have at least one interesting thing happen to me every day... and I wouldn't have nearly as many stories to tell.
~FG };^>
