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Y’all. Did you know that “My So-Called Life” is streaming on Netflix?
Believe it.
And I’m pretty sure it single-handedly cured my snotty-itchy-watery-stuffy-sneezy head cold last week.
Ok. And maybe the Zicam + Airborne + Contact helped as well. But I’m not keeping score.
You’ve gotta remember that show. Mid 90s. Glam-rock hair. Claire Danes as the young heroine (not a drug). Fifteen year-old drama. That awful awful plaid was in style. And overhauls/overalls/whateveryoucallthem.
One of the things that constantly happens in the show is that some teen finds out what people are really thinking/saying about her. Notes passed in class. Fights in the bathroom. Informal polls about who’s the hottest, nerdiest, etc etc etc.
It happens in many forms, and it usually hurts.
So why would someone just voluntarily ask for that information? I don’t know. Maybe it’s some form of self-improvement, dressed up like self-abasement?
Either way, there’s this website that gives you the opportunity to allow others to anonymously tell you what they think of you. The site is called “failin.gs“
Ouch, right?
Right?
Maybe not. Some people are actually using this site. I’m in a rather fragile moment in my personal development, so I won’t be enjoying the benefits of this online service.
At least, not right now.
But, will you? Would you want to know “what others really think about you”?
ht: Lifehacker’s mention of failin.gs
Was this created by the makers of Formspring?
I’d love to hear people’s honest, constructive thoughts, but I don’t always think that the anonymity of the internet brings out the best in people.
Spoken like a VERY wise woman!
What she said!!!
ummmm.
no.
thank you.
yikes.
you’re welcome…?
punctuation is so important, right? that was supposed to read….
no, thank you. to the anonymous, “what do you really think about me”, thing.
haha!
I figured. I was just being cheeky.
hey Mandy!
Ah that show seems ages ago!
Some one at Bible study last night mentioned they hadn’t heard of the Supertones! That made me feel old! At least they’d heard of Five Iron Frenzy.
Do you remember Life Goes On ?
I think hearing what others think of you is cool. But I think it would be nice if it where more relational. But maybe it would be a bit cool not knowing who they where. As Christians we suppose to support and also speak in love when someone isn’t honoring the Lord in their walk. Though it’s so hard to connect with others on that level. It feels like you get close and then they move or there is a lack of trust. Then there is fear in that level of depth.
Back to making soup, biscuits and building a lego castle with Nate.
Hey Yolanda!! Life Goes On was my FAVORITE!!!! You seem like one of the few who’s actually open to this idea. But, yeah, within the right context, feedback can be a powerful thing.
I am mildly curious. But yeah, too fragile.
Agreed… I’m not curious enough to open that Pandorian box.
I’d love to hear it, but then would not be sure what to do with it. Just because someone says it, does that make it true? Are we supposed to adjust our lives because of someones opinion of us? Anyone with weak self esteem will just find more fuel for their misery IMHO.
Too many potential downsides, not enough upsides. If you just gotta know, I’d say avoid it and find someone you know loves you and get as close to an honest opinion as you can from them.
“Just because someone says it, does that make it true?” well… The question is “what do you really think about me?” We’d be asking for opinions, which are slightly subjective sometimes. But, unless they’re lying, then yeah I guess it’s “true” in the sense that it’s what they think of us.
Hence, the cringe.
I loved that show.
I don’t want to use that website.
Love the brevity and security of your answers.
as long as it’s good or constructive feedback.
ok, no.
hahaha!!! My thoughts exactly.
oh the timing of this post. i’ve learned enough today to last me until the end.
Most people don’t understand. Think hard on that statement. Then, yeah, ok. Some are just cruel cruel cruel. But some out there are good and kind-hearted and loving and are worth having around… Don’t write off yourself, or people in general.
i would not, could not, sam i am.
because as much as i actually crave to know what people really think of me, right now i don’t think my heart can handle the truth. (cue A Few Good Men scene…)
That’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.
I think Dennis’ point above is really worth considering. And I’ve really been chewing on the fact that the only opinions that matter are the opinions that matter to us. I think, when asking the right people, you’ll get what you need in the right way. What’s that proverb? “Faithful are the wounds of a friend…”
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ummm…no.
I am ever so happy in my little bubble of rainbows and unicorns where I believe that everyone loves me and thinks I’m just doing an amazing job at my life! I don’t need my bubble bursting anytime soon!
exactly!!! hhahaha!!!
omg, that would be horrible. I am the ultimate ostrich and would much rather just find things out on my own, which I will and usually do, being the self analyzer that I am, than have someone tell me. I am too easily crushed. And probably way harder on myself than anyone else would be anyhoo.
I think I’m harder on myself than most people as well… At least, I’m my own worst critic in areas that really matter to me. In things that don’t (but might matter to someone else) I couldn’t give a crap. Oops. Maybe I should ask for a few trusted, but honest, feedback moments.
More relevant wisdom from Frederick Buechner, on mystery he writes:
“There are other mysteries which do not conceal a truth to think your way to but whose truth is itself the mystery. The mystery of your self, for example. The more you try to fathom it, the more fathomless it is revealed to be. No matter how much of your self you are able to objectify and examine, the quintessential, living part of yourself will always elude you, i.e., the part that is conducting the examination. Thus you do not solve the mystery, you live the mystery. And you do that not by fully knowing yourself but by fully being yourself.”
As far as self-discovery goes, that’s an important point. Do you think he’s right?
I’m laughing. Grinning. And my insides are doing a dance. My heart might even be speeding up a bit. I’ve got to get this guy’s book.
In short, yes. I think he’s very very very right about this “mystery” that is ungraspable. Hannah. Think about it. It’s the soul/spirit/mind/body conversation. And there’s the dust, yes, which is our physical body. But the personality (influenced by DNA and upbringing and brain chemistry) is still a bit elusive. And we haven’t even begun to distinguish the soul. Oh yes I think he’s right. i think the more we try to figure ourselves, the less sense we can make to ourselves, in some degree. I think, as persons who will give an account for how we live our lives, we have a responsibility to move towards growth and development, which includes a lot of self-awareness. BUT, I think the essence of our deepest point of soul–the “quintessential, living part of yourself”–will in fact remain elusive. Personality can be tested and defined. But, how do you catch a soul? How do you define/measure/distinguish/quantify it?
It’s like using a mirror. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we’re looking “with” a two-dimensional object, which eliminates our ability to do any more than see ourselves in 3-D. We’re not actually in physical 3-D in a mirror. Just visually in 3-D. And our experience of our “self” is limited to our vision.
There’s no true meta-experience of ourself outside of the limits of metacognition. And even that is hard to accomplish at times. So, yes, just as metacognition is a limited view of our own thinking and reasoning, so self-discovery is limited as well… And a full understanding of ourself is slightly beyond mental reach.
“Live the mystery,” he says. LOVE IT! Just be you and stop asking questions. haha oh the permission in his last concepts there.
Yes, I think he is right, too. And I really was trying to use some self control and stop peppering your blog with comments (aka ideas I’ve stolen verbatim from someone much smarter than I). However, since you brought it up. Here’s what he says about the “mirror.”
“If the idea of God as both Three and One seems farfetched and obfuscating, look in the mirror some day. There is (a) the interior life known only to yourself and those you choose to communicate it to (the Father). There is (b) the visible face, which in some measure reflects that inner life (the Son). And there is (c) the invisible power you have which enables you to communicate that interior life in such a way that others do not merely know about it, but they know it in the sense of its becoming part of who they are (the Holy Spirit). Yet what you are looking at in the mirror is clearly and indvisibly the one and only you.”
Should I even tell you what he says about dreams? (at this rate you won’t have to buy the book as I will have posted its entirety on your blog)
YES!!!! Do tell! Oh do tell!
I’m loving this.
He says, “Christianity is mostly wishful thinking. Even the part about Judgment and Hell reflects the wish that somewhere the score is being kept. Dreams are wishful thinking. Children playing at being grown ups is wishful thinking. Interplanetary travel is wishful thinking. Sometimes wishing is the wings truth comes true on. Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it. ”
He calls his book “a dictionary for doubters”- it’s written in the form of a lexicon. And because I LOVE to share a good book, here are a few more:
On music: “Whereas painters work with space…musicians work with time as one note follows another note the way tock follows tick. Music both asks us and also enables us to listen to certain qualities of time…We learn from music how to listen to the music of our own time- one moment of our lives following another moment…Music helps us to ‘keep time’ in the sense of keeping us in touch with time, not just time as an ever-flowing stream that bears all of us away at last but time also as a stream that every once in a while slows down and becomes transparent enough for us to see down to the stream bed the way at a wedding, say, or watching the sun rise, past, present, future are so caught up in a single moment that we catch a glimpse of the mystery that at its deepest place time is timeless.”
On glory: “Glory is what God looks like when for a time being all that you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes.”
Some of his passages are laugh-out-loud funny and some of them speak to the core of our hearts:
“Jesus said, ‘All things are possible to him who believes.’ And the father spoke for us all when he answered, ‘Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!’ What about when the boy is not healed? When, listened to or not listened to, the prayer goes unanswered? Just keep praying, Jesus says…Even if the boys dies, keep on beating the path to God’s door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most half cocked and halting prayer the God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself. And maybe a the secret heart of all our prayers that is what we are really praying for.”
He covers meditation and healing and the difference between making and creating…you should really read this book. And we should really have a conversation about it.
Charmed by his thoughts on wishful thinking.
Validated by his take on music.
Absolutely and completely undone by his explanation of unanswered prayers.
I’m sold. I’m in, with eyes wide open and a slow-reading mind that longs to grasp what the heck he’s talking about. ‘scuse me while I get my amazon.com on.
Oh, and thank you.
Drew and you have tag-teamed me into becoming a reader–well, more of a life-gleamer. Now, back to Amazon I go.
I am glad, dear friend. I bought my copy used and paid about $2, plus shipping and handling. Also while you’re there I’ve heard rumors this man has written a memoir or two. Keep me updated on how it goes. I’d like to hear your thoughts as you unpack Buechner’s thoughts (and on Persepolis). Also, come visit my blog tomorrow, please.
Will hop over to your blog.
Be warned that I’m not as quick of a reader as you are! My review might be late