For Christmas we started a family book club, and the first book up was Boundaries: When to Say Yes How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. I was at dress rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof during the discussion on it so I missed that! So I figured I should make this month's blog post about it!
December's post, "ambition, obligation, followthrough," is about how I do many a thing I do because I feel obligated to do it, which is fitting to bring up again given the subject matter of the book. The central metaphor of the blogpost is the final couple of episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Third Impact, which is funny, because Boundaries is a very Evangelion book. Christianity aside, even (all the Christian images in Eva are just because Japanese people think it's cool and exotic.)
The Third Impact (the first impact was the creation of the moon and the second impact was the awakening of Adam) is the dissolution of human boundaries, causing all human beings' souls to essentially merge into one as we evolve into the final Angel. The Angels (an advanced alien species who are also the progenitors of humans) shield themselves with forcefields called AT Fields, which it turns out that humans also have: Absolute Terror is that which keeps us separate as beings and prevents us from intimacy. The Hedgehog's Dilemma. The evolution of our understanding of boundaries as an infant, growing up and realizing that our mother is not ourself but another, is an important philosophical theme that gets discussed in these episodes, and is talked about in Boundaries the book.
But anyway, like, I don't know what they discussed during the discussion, but I guess I should talk about my actual takeaways here though, like, what did I learn here, if I do things only because I feel obligated, how do I set boundaries for myself there? When I'm already okay saying no to doing things I don't feel obligated to do? Do I have a choice on what I feel obligated on and what I don't? I'm not sure the answer to that. Maybe it's possible to get finer toothed with it, tease out parts of tasks that I do feel obligated on and separate them from others?
I'm certain yes, but that leaves me uncertain of where to go from there: for example, I feel it would be better to write more to this post, better still to have something to say on the book, better still to have more personal takeaways, but I only feel an obligation for the first few things. There is plenty I'd love to say no to, but still feel an obligation towards, so maybe this idea of drilling down on which aspects I feel that obligation about and why can be a takeaway, even if it's not something that the book is even about.
Another thing that just sprang to mind after I hit publish on this: prioritization! Today I felt "obligated" to make a blog post, do rehearsals, get in some final updates to my monthly journal, catch some films before they leave streaming, finish up my brown-tagged graphics on my video project. Overcoming an illness, however, and sleeping fifteen hours today (and about to go to bed early right now) I prioritized doing this blogpost apparently. And rehearsals. And Duolingo; I'm out of streak freezes. As nice as it would have been to work on my video project today, getting my brown-tagging in by the end of the month (premiere date May 4 2024!) I can't feel the roof of my mouth, so, my health has always been more of a priority than working on the project, even when I'm doing serious crunching I've always gotten in at least seven hours of sleep.