On Belief

This semester, I am taking a folk belief class. It is a subject that is so immensely broad, I don't even know where to start with it. I have started by pledging to myself that I will try to be more introspective to my own belief structures in the hope that figuring it out will help me be a more rounded and ultimately happier person. Though the past week has been alright on the happiness scale, I still have once or twice a day when I am struck with unexpected anger or frustration (usually while driving, heh), or inescapable sadness. But I think that it is only normal to feel the peaks and valleys of emotion during the course of a day and only once or twice in the past week have I been unable to get these less positive emotions out of my head after allowing them to happen.

Back to the belief discussion, last week in class, we had a group activity where EB asked each person in the class to write down one unverifiable belief on a notecard. She then distributed the notecards around the class and we had to interview one another about respective beliefs. I wrote on mine, "I believe that if I do good, good will come to me." When asked by my interviewer why I believed this, I had to think about it a bit. I mean, I am rational person, but I certainly have had many a negative experience in my life. I am not always able or willing to do good when I see it (I have bouts of anger, I have lost my temper before, I was in middle school once, for Christ's sake!). I still try to keep this in my head, though, because I am only in control of my own actions. No one else but me. And I do believe, to a point, that if I continue to live my life well, the bad will even itself out with the good and I will be able to reach the end of my life feeling I did something worthwhile. I don't know if I would identify it as karma, per se, but as more of a sense that I believe if I treat people the way I want to be treated (despite at times how I am actually being treated), if I go out of my way to help those in need, if I allow myself to love and be loved and cast off (or at least not act on) my more negative tendencies, I will live a good life. And that things will work out because the force of my being will make it so. Not to be a Pollyanna, but being negative doesn't help anything and it will only spawn more negativity. Self fulfilling prophesy and the like.

I also interviewed a fellow student, whose belief was in vibes. When I asked him to explain it more, he said that, though he didn't know if he was just reading body language, he felt that he could read the overall energy of a space and use the force of his own charisma to either add to it or change it. It was an interesting concept and I think it is one that I understand. I don't believe I am able to change the feel of a space by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I am alright at pinpointing the people who are turning a positive space into a negative space, or who are attempting to shift the energy of a room through force of suggestion or body language. I spent a lot of time watching people and it is interesting how certain personalities can influence other personalities. All in all, an interesting belief and an activity that resulted in a fascinating conversation and hours of reflection after the fact. I am going to try to pay more attention in the coming weeks to see what I can read, if I can allow the energy of others to fill me. Though studies can be done about how people influence one another and the power of the charismatic being versus the emotional black holes, I don't think anyone can say definitively that there is more than reading body language, which I believe, to a point, is happening.

So there are my long thoughts on the subject. It has been going through my head lately and if a blog is just a silly way to put ideas out there, even if no one reads them, then that is what I am doing. In other news, I am applying for jobs and internships right now, still waiting to hear on MLS programs and desperately trying to find something I care about to write papers on this semester. That's about all.

-B