Kseniya Parkhamchuk

Thought one: Admiration

Throughout my life, I have always had a subconscious understanding of who I am. This understanding has become much clearer with time. I remember things I was curious about at 15-17 that I still find very exciting.

Now, with every other day, I feel more and more confidence in my own judgements.

I am definitely not the kind of person who is focusing on one single narrow aspect of life. I am the one who wants to create systems. I still can not embrace the immensity and make it all at once, but I can choose the priorities, develop them and expand with time.

I am at such a point in my life where I am fed up with fake experiences. I do not want to do things that are meaningless just because everyone around me is doing them; I lost any sense of it.

I mean, today the man at the farmers market treated me with a cookie. He was selling them, and there was no any degustation. He enthusiastically told me about what it is made of and where and when he started making them. He genuinely (hopefully) shared his product, and I want to be genuine in return.

These are some people I sincerely admire:

  1. Stanislau Wyspianski
  2. Lex Friedman
  3. O. Henry
  4. Leonardo da Vinci

I admire them because I think they kind of figured out how to be their authentic, multifaceted selves, combining good skills, curiosity and seeing the beauty of life. I believe they constantly crave artistic expression, starting from one thing, developing it and, after all, creating the whole system where everything they are doing (reading, writing, painting, designing clothes, buildings and so on) is working as one perfect mechanism, naturally evolved and consistent. But is it a coincidence, a natural path or directed efforts?

What if your real authentic self is a puzzle, the parts of it are everywhere, and you are constantly looking for them and trying to assemble your custom puzzle?

So my final understanding at this point is:

And about people:

Anyway, the real question here is: can anyone build their own understanding, unique system and personality? Everyone is naturally curious as a child. How does curiosity fade?

Social overhead: life becomes predictable as we gain all basic survival skills, we are loosing focus, wasting ourselves all around. In the end, who preserves the curiosity and who looses? Mmm.. open-minded people? Why are they open-minded, why are they not terrified by uncertainty?

I found two main factors here:

  1. Early life, upbringing
  2. What is your brain wired to and why?

I think the upbringing is A LOT. It either will help you all your life, or you will constantly need to figure out how to get rid of old habits. Just try to think of what the main things are that you value at this point in life, then think of how many of them you realised in your childhood. What if you got all of them from the very beginning?

It's very difficult to figure out what you should figure out as an adult. How would you know you need something you have never had?

That's why being an adult is a responsibility, even if you do not have children. Without responsibility, we cannot grow or take life seriously - and why would life take us seriously in return?

My answer to the second question is experience and a bit of a character, I guess. You can learn both: uncertainty is scary and it hurts, and uncertainty is an opportunity. What happens first? :) The game of life. Trying to take everything under control is tiresome; at the same time the larger the uncertainty, the more anxiety you gain. So the natural path here is to refuse adding extra complexity; otherwise, struggle as long as you can, or accept this vulnerability and just explore further.

Maybe it's ultimately about trust – trust that you'll figure out things on the go, trust that you can handle whatever comes up, and trust that the process of discovery is worthwhile even if the outcome is unclear.