I'm in a very transitional place right now. I haven't felt this free in a very long time and I can't say I remember what it feels like to care what other people think. I haven't been that vulnerable in awhile. I'm a kind person and have a very solid sense of what aspects of me I cannot alter without compromising the essence of myself.

Recently I've found someone, it's ridiculous really, who inadvertantly makes me feel as though I need to be better. Someone so seemingly principled and understated that I look at my moral flexibility and open-minded aspects and see them as comfortable offshoots of indecision and complacency. I used to have fierce convictions. Or perhaps thought I held those convictions fiercely in hand. In retrospect that time was pretty formative and I recall struggling to develop an educated opinion of a wide range of things. Like trying to pour concrete around your feet to feel grounded. It felt born of anxiety. The world felt so big in places that I craved a more refined lense.

This person doesn't accept the wrongs of the world without kicking and fighting back in every conceivable manner. Through work, through volunteerism, through protesting what they spend their money on or what they put in their body. They remind me of a path I could have chosen for myself many years ago. Normally I would chalk this up to living in Portland, where quiet protests are so mainstream as to not even be notable. However, as this person doesn't prounonce their every thought as an epithet it feels as though their attempts to keep the courage of their convictions is genuine.

I'm antagonistic and willful and independent and comforted by my own good opinion. This I know and I don't pretend otherwise. They're flaws when overused in some circumstances but really quite balanced by an array of other qualities that compose me. When I interact with this person I feel like I'm staring at a better version of myself. Someone who is freed of their righteous burden through their self-inflicted restrictions. At the same time, as a lifestyle, it seems very restless. As though every restriction still stands to be not good enough. The bare minimum that you can accomplish when you come to accept that you aren't going to save a world that badly needs it, is still the bare minimum.

I guess I also don't like the fact that if there is a person who fully lived up to their own expectations of the world and the other people they share a planet with, then they might feel justified in painting everybody with a judgemental brush. I don't know if they do but not knowing is poor comfort when you enjoy a good opinion of that person and don't know whether that estimation is returned. Or really whether or not you deserve that estimation.

But like I said I'm in a very transitional space in my life right now and it allows a lot of things that were once grounded to float and be examined once more. Perhaps not a bad thing, even if it's extremely uncomfortable. I think I just described what a growing pain feels like. All in good time I suppose.