{"id":6600,"date":"2011-08-02T02:47:30","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T09:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=6600"},"modified":"2011-08-02T02:47:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T09:47:30","slug":"perceptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/02\/perceptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Perceptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a man in this town who used to be a respected professional with a high-toned name. Now, thanks to decades of bad choices, all he has is his pride and three luxury automobiles he long ago relinquished the “privilege” of driving. And that toney name.<\/p>\n

Recently, a building he owned fell into such disrepair that the city condemned it and tore it down at his expense. My kind-hearted friend L., who mother-hens this man (and is apparently one of the only friends he has left), urged him to go in with her or let her go in with some big, strong boys before the deconstruction to salvage doors and hardware and other useful, saleable features of his century-old structure. <\/p>\n

“I can’t, L,” he told her. “You don’t understand. I’m an aristocrat. We don’t do things like that.”<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I bought this old house 50 weeks ago and I must admit it’s a mixed blessing. Oh, don’t get me wrong; it’s a great old place and it’s wonderful to have actual rooms<\/i> after 10 years of choosing to live in tiny spaces. But it does what old houses do; it needs new floors and foundation work, electrical upgrades, new siding, roofing rehab, and endless amounts of paint scraping.<\/p>\n

It’s a drain on my energy and my finances and sometimes I feel so over my head I just want to cry.<\/p>\n

Lately, I’ve felt as if the house has been eating me alive with all its demands.<\/p>\n

Then I realized, no, I’m<\/i> eating me alive with all the house’s demands. For all the endless things it needs, all the endless things I want to do to improve the place, the house itself hasn’t presented me with one “drop everything and spend money on me” emergency. Everything works. It’s just … not always pretty. Or not finished. Or otherwise not as harmonious as I like.<\/p>\n

It’s not the house, but my own attitude toward it, that causes my anxiety.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

It’s coincidence that I’ve picked two examples having to do with old buildings. This isn’t actually about buildings at all. Any more than these are about buildings:<\/p>\n

\"Duck-rabbit<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Face-vase<\/a><\/p>\n

Duck or rabbit? Face or vase? It’s all in how you see it. And it’s not an either\/or reality, but what your mind makes of it. It’s about perception of course.<\/p>\n

And until you’re able\/willing\/ready to see things a new way, you’re just not going to get beyond old problems and change life for the better. Ain’t happening.<\/p>\n

That adventurous Israeli family I blogged about yesterday<\/a> is doing something millions of other families with young children would shake their heads and tell us is “impossible.” And so, for them, it is<\/i> impossible.<\/p>\n

When we’re raised to see government as a fact of life, as inevitable as the sun rising in the east, we at first find the idea of a world without it literally unthinkable.<\/p>\n

When everybody “knew” the continents were too big and stable to move, it was impossible to develop a coherent theory about the causes of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.<\/p>\n

Before Priestly, Scheele, and Lavoisier “gave” the world oxygen, scientists could only wander up the dead-end alley of phlogiston<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As long as people think the only choices are between voting and violent revolution, they literally can’t<\/i> see an entire world of other options. <\/p>\n

As long as you cling to the ancestral pride of “being an aristocrat” to the point of refusing to mitigate damage to yourself, you’re not going to pull out of problems you caused by keeping your nose in the air.<\/p>\n

As long as you bang your head on the idea that your house is conspiring to make your life harder, you’ll have a hard time perceiving that the problem is really in your own brain. (In my case it took a reality check from a friend.)<\/p>\n

As long as you can’t or won’t or don’t want to look at problems in a new light, you’re most likely going to end up watching your old gloomy unchanging problems. For a long time.<\/p>\n

Do you find that fun? Satisfying, sometimes “because it is bitter and because it is my heart”<\/a> (link added). But fun? Irk!<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

The above is prep material for the final installment of “Responsibilities of a resident of the police state, which should finally come wandering along later this week.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a man in this town who used to be a respected professional with a high-toned name. Now, thanks to decades of bad choices, all he has is his pride and three luxury automobiles he long ago relinquished the “privilege” of driving. And that toney name. Recently, a building he owned fell into such disrepair that the city condemned it and tore it down at his expense. My kind-hearted friend L., who mother-hens this man (and is apparently one of the only friends he has left), urged him to go in with her or let her go in with some…<\/p>\n

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