Interview #1: A Self Portrait
Posted by Tara in The Great People Project on June 4, 2012
I felt it was important that my first interview for The Great People Project be a self portrait, so to speak. How can I ask people to bear their soul if I am not willing to do so myself? And so I’m sitting here in the laundry mat (as my washing machine broke yesterday) bearing my soul, while my clothes are drying in the large capacity dryers.
Interview #1
1. Are you striving or looking forward to anything in your life right now?
“I’m personally striving for freedom. I want to let go of the angst I carry and find a peace. Whenever I lose sight of this goal I panic. I don’t want to be distracted from it.”
“I think as a family, we’re always looking forward to making more money. Money is a fun thing to get.”
“I also want to lose weight. I hate feeling fat. But, I have a plan for that.”
2. What’s your biggest fear?
“I’m always afraid of my children dying or being badly treated or hurt. They hold my heart like nothing else. It may be that I just have a really strong instinct to protect them from harm. This can be a negative thing for me too, as I feel guilty when my decisions make them unhappy.”
“I’m afraid that the aliveness I desire is a fantasy that I’ll never realize. I fear that I’ll realize one day that all there is to life is the mundane I’ve been running from. This would be the devastating to me.”
3. Do you think you’re a good person? Why or why not?
“I think I’m an amazingly good person. In fact, I rarely think I’m wrong. A lot of times I find myself feeling guilty for how I made another person feel, but even through my guilt I feel I’m in the right. And yet, even when I like what I’ve done, I feel like a less than worthy person when someone else doesn’t approve. I think my heart is perfect though.”
4.What emotions or pictures do you get when I say the word “God”?
“Anger and strife come to mind first. This feeling of wanting to cry out and ask “WHY???” Then I get a picture of a man that I associate as God and he is joking and laughing. That makes me feel light and happy. I also feel loved. And yet there’s an angst fighting for attention too.”
5. Is there anything you wish you could change about yourself?
“In the moment, my appearance. I think I’m hot when I’m thin, have my hair done, I’m wearing makeup, and I have on cute clothes. Right now I’m fat from the baby, none of my clothes fit right, and there’s never time for hair and makeup. I’d also like to do more, as opposed to always dreaming about doing more.”
6. Have you ever experienced a passionate love relationship with another person?
“Yes! It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s like a drug. I think I could live a whole life in that passion. I’m sad sometimes that my husband and I can’t live life like a big romance all the time. When I daydream about my future that’s usually how I view our relationship, just one big romance. But in reality, there are chores, bills, stress, and fatigue that get in the way. Maybe that will be one of the things I stop letting in when I feel alive, the mojo blocker.”
7. Do you have any regrets?
“Sometimes I regret that I didn’t chose a bigger and bolder life when I was younger. I wish I’d become a movie star or rock star. But when I think about it, my life has been pretty exciting so far and it feels like it’s only getting more so. So I guess I regret not being able to see the excitement in my life all the time.”
8. What’s your greatest shame?
“In the moment, I’m sad to say that a few months ago I hit my oldest daughter in anger as if I were a kid fighting a sibling. I was so ashamed. Even though she wasn’t hurt and we made up, I’d never want anybody to treat her that way, especially me. She deserves so much better than that and I can’t take it back.”
9. What would you consider your greatest accomplishment in life?
“I’m proud that I’ve been able to break out of so much of my culture and family of origin. I’m proud that I asked myself the question, ‘How do I know that what I believe it the truth?’, and then walked through fires to discover truth. I’m proud of how much my mind has been expanded and how well I can see humanity now.
10. Do you like who you are?
“I truly do like myself. I think I’m fantastic… when I’m looking directly at myself. When I’m looking through the mirrors others set before me, I usually find a bunch of flaws.”
Wrapping up the interview of myself, I realize that this was a fun experience. It makes me hopeful that others will enjoy being interviewed as well, and that I will enjoy hearing all they have to say.
-Tara
The Great People Project Has Begun!
Posted by Tara in The Great People Project on June 3, 2012
The Great People Project has officially begun. What is The Great People Project? It’s 10 questions, 100 people, and a bunch of great conversations.
I am going to interview 100 people from all kinds of backgrounds with the exact same 10 questions (see below). These questions are all about the heart in the moment. They are not about theory, philosophy, or right and wrong, they’re just about how a person feels. I have no point I’m trying to prove, or theory I’m trying to fit everyone into, I just want to know people’s hearts. I figure I’ll learn something from it all, and at the very least, I’ll get to have 100 really good conversations.
All the interviews will be anonymous to further encourage honesty. I will be posting these interviews on this blog, and they can be viewed as a group under The Great People Project category tag to the right of the 1Alive homepage.
The 10 Questions:
1. Are you striving or looking forward to anything in your life right now?
2. What’s your biggest fear?
3. Do you think you’re a good person? Why or why not?
4. What emotions or pictures do you get when I say the word “God”?
5. Is there anything you wish you could change about yourself?
6. Have you ever experienced a passionate love relationship with another person?
7. Do you have any regrets?
8. What’s your greatest shame?
9. What would you consider your greatest accomplishment in life?
10. Do you like who you are?
Settlers Of Catan
Posted by Tara in Adventures and Activities on June 2, 2012
I lost in Settlers of Catan again tonight. I was so close to winning too. I had 3 victory points for being Top Defender of Catan with my knights, 4 settlements, each worth a victory point, and the longest road card, worth 2 victory points. (We modify the game in our house so that the winner has to get 10 Victory points, as we play with an 8 and 10 year old who have a smaller attention span than we do.) I was sneaking up on everyone else, as I didn’t have any cities and wasn’t getting a lot of cards, while my two girls were raking in the cards and buying all the commodities. I was holding the cards in my hand to upgrade one of my settlements to a city for the win, when I was sabotaged. The Robber took half my cards, and my husband put down a bunch of roads to steal the longest road card. Then my girls, who were on a team, upgraded a bunch of stuff on their turn and won without even knowing it! I had to point it out. Bummer.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain. Settlers of Catan is a board game. It is not just any board game however, it is a very involved board game that once played, makes all other regular board games seem childish and boring. There are multiple ways to earn “victory points” during the game like building up your cities, defending Catan with the most knights, and through cards earned with commodities. Whoever gets to 13 victory points first, wins.
We have taken to playing this game on weekends with our kids. It is usually a fun family game… until someone takes first blood by intentionally sabotaging another player to get ahead in the game. This is where it can get ugly. We have had some serious altercations over this game, including an episode where I threw iced tea in my husbands face and he went ballistic! (What? You’ve never thrown a drink in someone’s face?) Anyhow, the game cards had to be aired out and dried off after that one. And we’ve begun pairing up our kids on teams so that if one should have a meltdown, the whole game doesn’t have to stop, they can just go play something else while their partner finishes the game.
Despite all the drama, we love this game. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for something interesting to do with a group. It’s requires at least 3 players, and there are multiple extensions if you get bored with just the basics. We have the Cities and Knights extension and really enjoy it.
Happy gaming people.
-Tara
The Road Between
Posted by Tara in Thoughts and Emotions on June 1, 2012
I find myself on the road between roads today. I’m not sure where I am. The path I thought I was walking has disappeared and the road I’m going to travel has not shown up yet. Hell, maybe I’m just on a picnic.
The point is, I’m not really lost, but I don’t have a direction either.
I’m wondering, should I sit down, pull out my compass, and come up with a plan to find a main road, or should I just walk down this road between roads until a main one appears?
I feel peace about just walking, waiting, being patient… But I feel excitement when I think of figuring it all out.
And so I’m thinking. I’m just walking and thinking. Think, think, think.
I wonder, will I figure it out before the new road finds me, or will it take me by surprise?
Only time will tell…
-Tara
Breaking Through To Freedom
Posted by Tara in Thoughts and Emotions on May 30, 2012
For years now I have been working towards freedom. Maybe I’ve been working towards it my whole life, I’m not sure. I started noticing the shift in focus about 6 years ago though, so that’s where I count back to. This freedom is the key to my alive heart. It’s what releases me from the story I’ve been told, the standards I’ve been held to, and the burden of those around me. It is what I want.
The process has been hard. I’ve walked through many fires, losing myself again and again, in the hopes of finding the truth some day. With the quest of easing the angst of my heart, I have pushed forward when all hope seemed lost. I carry those moments in my mind like battle scars. Something to be proud of, to remind me that I really have changed.
The snippets of freedom I have tasted along the way have been my motivation. Feeling alive for even a moment, is enough to make me realize it’s all that I want in this life. It is the feeling I’ve been searching for. The prize I long to have.
My fear has been that I will be chasing this aliveness my entire life. That I will be continually seeking and never finding. That what I long for is not possible, or it’s depths are never ending. My fear is I’ll never have what I want, and I will die trying.
What I want is to come into this “aliveness” so that I can truly live. I want to devour the world! I want my heart to explode all over everything around me. I want to really feel. Really taste. Really love. I want to be free! And I want it while I’m still young, so I can live a long full life. I don’t want to come into it when I’m old. I want it now!
And I’m beginning to feel very close to it. Like the time of freedom is near. I feel as though the lies that have kept me down are like a dome over my head, holding me in, and I’m about to break through the ceiling to come out flying on the other side. The broken scenes of freedom that play in my mind are getting longer, closer together.
It is near.
Come to me Freedom. Open up to me Heart. I am waiting to be yours.
-Tara
The Adventure Paradigm
Posted by Tara in Adventures and Activities on May 29, 2012
We’re moving again. This will be the 15th city in the last 12 years. I’m really excited. I love change and I was just about ready for some.
Every city I’ve lived in has been a different chapter in my life. I always meet new people, encounter new ideas, participate in new activities, and learn more about myself. I never know what’s waiting for me, and I’m always afraid nothing will be waiting. But, there’s always something amazing and unexpected there to greet me.
In reality, I have a high volume of change in my life, and that’s the way I like it. When things even sniff at becoming stagnant, I get depressed. I bore easily and being bored is, in my opinion, one of the worst emotions I experience.
I’ve always been this way, although I didn’t always recognize it in myself. It’s amazing that I’ve been with the same man for 15 years, although he is the most entertaining person I’ve ever met. He is literally glowing with life and excitement, and he’s constantly changing right along with me.
The season I’m wrapping up right now has been amazing. One huge, and unexpected event, has been my new baby. I didn’t see that one coming. I got pregnant shortly after we moved in, and have just finished up my postpartum appointments as we get ready to move. What a joy he is too. I am obsessed. You could call it the baby season.
And, as it’s been in every case, there are key people I’ve met. I think the most prominent person has been one woman in particular that I’ve discussed large amounts of philosophy with. I think she and I have been impacted by these conversations. Her talking to me about logic and science, me talking to her about truth and emotions. It’s been really good.
Then there are the people I’ve met who disapprove of my lifestyle in more ways than one. They look at how much I’ve moved and are appalled at my instability. They think I have the physiological disorder of “the grass is always greener.”
You need to be grateful, stable, just like us…
It’s uncomfortable to them that I’m not following along in the story we’ve been told.
She is failing at the quest of achieving suburbia.
It’s hard for most to understand that I rent because I don’t want to buy, when our culture says owning something is achievement, and renting is what you do until you achieve. The thought of owning a house, a boat, a motor home, etc… is suffocating to me. I don’t want to be tied to those things. My goal is to devour the world. To be completely independent of anything pulling against my dreams. I have an adventure paradigm that I live out of, and it’s something most cannot see. But I love my life!
I’m excited to see what the next chapter holds, and I hope I can keep my adventure paradigm active, as many times the ideas of others infiltrate my mind.
-Tara
Related articles
- A Letter from 2112… (briangdonnelly.wordpress.com)
- Nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. (lifeinfinityinsanity.wordpress.com)
Crawfish and Alligator. Yee Haw!
This weekend I went to a Memorial Day barbecue with a whole bunch of… um… “country folk”. The living room of the house it was hosted in had the stuffed carcasses of 3 deer heads, 2 boar heads, 1 black bear, and 1 mountain lion, all killed by the owner. There was also a polar bear he hunted and killed in his bedroom. One of the boars had a broken tooth from when it grabbed the guys arm and drug him up a hill before he could finally kill it. This was some serious shit.
There were also some interesting things to eat at this barbecue. Besides hamburgers, hotdogs, and smoked tri-tip, there were crawfish and alligator. I’ve never had crawfish or alligator so I was excited to try it. The alligator was tenderized and deep fried, so it was not hard to want to try it. When I did, I thought it was pretty tasty. Pretty much tasted like really moist chicken to me.
The crawfish was ugly. It looked like a little bug. I tried to walk up to the table covered in crawfish and just pick one up like I knew what I was doing. I wanted to act casual. But I honestly couldn’t do it. They were too creepy looking. So like a baby, I had my husband break it apart for me and just hand me the meat.
It was okay. It tasted like shellfish. Definitely not worth looking into the beady eyes of the thing before consuming it. (Maybe if I was really hungry.) I could see eating the meat in a paella or jambalaya though.
Table of crawfish at the party.
I like that I’m willing to try new things. A few years ago I decided I wanted to branch out of my comfort zone with food and try new things. Since then I have tried foods like whole barbecued sardines, pho soup complete with the lining of a cow’s stomach (I think), seared ahi tuna, sushi, chili mangos, runny eggs, lattes, vodka tonics, and of course crawfish and alligator. I’ve discovered how wonderful vegetables taste as well. Ooh! and mushrooms. I’m sad it took me so long to try mushrooms. They’re wonderful. But the point is, there’s so much to discover. I’d like to try Vietnamese and Thai food too, as this seems to be pretty popular. Maybe Indian food. We’ll see what life brings about. I never know. And that’s what makes it an adventure: the not knowing what each day will hold.
-Tara
My Amazing Buddha Drawing
Posted by Tara in Adventures and Activities on May 25, 2012
San Diego Museum of Art (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This past weekend the San Diego Art Museum had a free family day and festival, so I drug my family out to it for a “cultural” experience. It was really just because I needed to get out and do something.
The last time I visited an art museum was in Denver. The Denver art museum was wonderful and inspired me more than I would have expected. I was hoping to have a similar experience in San Diego.
Once inside the museum, however, I quickly realized that it would not live up to my previous experience. You see, Denver had been full of amazing modern art, while San Diego was full of old boring art. Not interesting to me at all.
Luckily there was an art workshop going on where they taught us to draw a picture of Buddha with pastels. My whole family gave it a go (except the baby who decided that would be a good time to have a poop). I did nothing original with mine, just followed instructions, but it was really fun for me.
It made me realize I need more art in my life. I’d like to try a few mediums as well. Ceramics, drawing, sculpting, painting. I’ve never really explored art before. I’m going to try to fit this into my life somewhere.
It’s nice to be inspired. It feels good. It’s just another one of those things I need to break out of my rut to do.
For now, this is my truth.
-Tara
My Weight Loss Frenemy
Posted by Tara in Everything Else on May 24, 2012
Since having my wonderful baby, I have been faced with the hard truth that I have got to lose weight. At first this was easy, as there’s a certain amount of weight that comes off on it’s own from the natural purging one’s body does. But that doesn’t last long. Then there’s the excuse that I’m not allowed to work out for the first 6-8 weeks so that I don’t injure myself, that makes the personal effort I have to put forth minimal. But, having just had my six week check up, I am now at the point of no excuses. I am going to have to get off my butt and start moving. I am also going to have to watch what I eat more carefully.
Wii Fit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As a rule, I have been weighing in every Friday since the day of my delivery. I use my Wii Fit to do this daunting task. Now, the Wii fit is what I’d like to call my frenemy (friend-enemy). If you’ve ever used one you’ll know why. If you haven’t, let me explain. Basically it’s a bit mean. It will do things like pretend to forget your name if it’s been too long, or make your Mii look fatter if you’ve gained weight. It will also lecture you about eating well, and exercising more often. It will even prompt you to remind other registered Mii’s to work out. It’s not cruel, but it can be a bit pushy. Nevertheless it’s my only scale.
So tomorrow is my weigh in and I’m dreading it. I fear that my lack of discipline will catch up with me. I have, in the past, had the discipline to lose 40 lbs and keep it off for 6 years. And it was a decision that I have never ever regretted. Clothes fit me nicely, I wasn’t embarrassed when I was naked, I looked good in a swimsuit. I felt spry and agile. These are all good things. I’m going to have to keep these things in mind, because I need the motivation. I don’t want to be fat. I hate being fat.
I have 20lbs to lose until I reach my goal. We’ll see what the Wii has to say about that tomorrow.
Until then, I’m gonna try not to eat the chocolate chips in the pantry with a spoon of peanut butter.
-Tara
So, I Hear You’re Gay.
Posted by Tara in Thoughts and Emotions on May 21, 2012
Dawson’s Creek (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last night my husband and I watched the Dawson’s Creek Series finale. (Oh yes we did.) I saw it when it first aired years ago, and cried for 30 minutes afterward. This was partly because it was a really sad finale, but partly because I felt like I was losing some of my high school friends forever. (Don’t judge me.)
My husband had missed it way back then, so when he saw it on the Netflix cue, he thought he’d give it a go.
Well, this final episode takes place 5 years in the future for the characters and so they are all adults with careers and such. Well, two of the characters have become a gay couple (Jack and Pacey’s brother Doug), and Doug “coming out” is part of the subplot.
This made me think, “Where do I stand on homosexuality?” I used to think I knew, but a lot has changed in my life. I no longer look at people the same way. So, I asked myself the question and here’s what I’ve come up with.
I don’t really care if someone prefers their own sex. I really have no political or religious stance that is. But I have to admit that the thought of two men having sex is gross to me. But then again, thinking of two obese or ugly people having sex grosses me out too. But because gay men are defined almost entirely by who they have sex with, I can’t help but picture two men having sex when I learn they are gay. I don’t like this image being forced into my mind. I rarely think of ugly heterosexual people having sex, because they’re not wearing a sign saying, “I like it doggy style.”
Two women having sex doesn’t seem as gross to me, although I’m still not entirely comfortable with it. Don’t know why this is different.
I feel I can relate to being judged for my sexuality. I had my first child at the age of sixteen. There’s nothing like walking around a pregnant teen, especially when everyone you know is a Christian. It’s like wearing a sign that says, “I had premarital sex with my boyfriend, so I’m a sinner.” I remember a woman introducing me to her daughter as a 17 year old mother, like it was my label.
I can only imagine it being like this for a homosexual. They have a big label slapped on them that declares this really intimate thing about them (that most of society feels will land them in hell), and this all before they say hello. It must be difficult to be known. Then there’s expectations that they’ll be good dressers, artsy, and really fun. I think this is sad as well. It’s like saying all black people look alike. They’re not just -people. I wouldn’t want to be treated like that.
So there you have it. That’s how I feel. It’s not something I’ve stewed on or something I will probably think about often, as the issue isn’t really in my life, but it’s nice to discover how I really feel, as opposed to how others have told me to feel about it.
-Tara
