Who Am I?

Well, this is certainly a difficult question. How exactly can one define who they are? If you want to see what I am involved with and interested in, you might as well visit the About page (what I do willingly), and I could tell you some of my life habits (stuff I do unconciously), and reading this can give you some idea of some of my ways of “processing” life (ways I think, feel, react). I could even do a lot of research and find, to a large extent, what I am made out of, or at least how this stuff called “matter” is organized to make me. Personality tests tell me that I am a choleric melancholy, or an INTJ. I described those other pages in order to give you a more clear picture of them than perhaps other journal styles would have by as they describe the daily activities of a person’s life. Yet these things only paint a hazy outline of who I really am.

I think I may have lost the more developed journal entry from previously, so I will not go back and try to explain everything. Ultimately, I have become convinced that this question is only answerable in the context of relationships, specifically with an unchanging, eternal relationship, such as the one we have with God. That is an entry I am still working on (hopefully that will continue throughout my life!). However, in the meantime, my next entry will address our relationships with women.

Habits

Believe it or not, these things are really hard to think of unless someone tells you about them, so this list is short.

1. Everyday Tasks

I am generally a clean person.
I like a very clean floor because I lay around on it a lot doing work or just whatever.
I sleep mostly on my side facing to my right or on my stomach.
I hand wash most dishes right after I use them, so I rarely use more than one complete set of dishware.
I usually eat the same basic thing, two peanut butter and jelly waffle sandwiches for breakfast, a tuna and cheese for lunch (used to be turkey and cheese)-this has been changing, and various things for dinner.
I brush my teeth religiously (right hand) but am not as good about flossing.
As I walk, I usually am deciding between which route is shortest, or trying to schedule my to do list and thus occasionally may give the impression I am in another world.
I can live mostly with the lights off though I do not prefer it.
I definitely hunch at the table while eating.
I twirl my hair and scratch my head when I am stressed out (like taking a test).
I keep my nails short.
I shave about every two days although I am now to the point where I think I might start shaving daily.
My room is usually organized proportionally with how stressed out my life is currently, though in general clean (bed made, floor vacuumed and clear of most things besides homework).

2. Random Rituals

Bounce the ball 4 times before my first serve and twice before my second serve.
I fiddle around a great deal when I am bored, whether with my keys or some other object.
I usually drive with one hand and drive the speed limit.
I try to spend a substantial amount of time alone to summarize my thoughts at the end of each semester.

3. Conversational/Communication

I apparently often start saying something or look like I had a thought, and then either think better of it or figure out that I am wrong, so I do not finish the thought.
When I am searching for something to say or the situation seems awkward I often yawn.
My voice becomes much more quiet if I am not telling the complete truth or if I am not confident of what I am saying.
I try to be precise with what words I use, so I am mostly unconcious of the non-verbal messages I may be sending, although I am trying to work on being aware of some of these.
If I am in a really intense conversation I often start shivering.

Processing Life

First let me make sure you understand what I mean by “Processing Life”. I am referring to ways my “will” decides how to act. Often these present a stumbling block since it is not really “my” life to live. For the more mathematical out there it is the matrix which forms the basis for my life (I like linear algebra). The main different ways I have tried/am trying are listed below. Hopefully this will provide a fairly complete overall picture. Feel free to consider what role each of these areas plays in your decisions as you read.

1. Spiritually

I wish I could always say that this was the driving force for my life. I know that I need to trust God when making every decision, following His Holy Spirit’s leading or my Biblical knowledge. Yet often I revert back to trying to process life using the methods below. I hope that this journal does not reinforce that tendency but rather helps point you and I to trusting God.

2. Intellectually

Describing how I think used to be extremely important to me, so I guess I might have a little more to say here than the other areas where I am still exploring mostly. I often try to reason (mathematically and scientifically) my way through a problem/decision, a tendency which my studies in school as an engineer have intensified.
If you have ever been exposed to linear algebra, that is how my mind usually works. I am always trying to categorize and organize things in life. Because this is probably a more dominant way I process life, it can be seen a great deal my actions as described on the about and habits sections.
I often thought that I could control a situation if I understood what was going on.
Often before I take action, I desire to understand the situation.
I like to see and understand the big picture (what a “matrix” generally describes).
In the past, and sometimes I revert, I have only desired a relationship with others in order to gain information about the bigger picture of life.
I used to like to learn things for the sake of learning things, now I am not so excited about such things although I still do have a great deal of curiosity and a vibrant imagination.

3. Emotionally

I rarely process life much from an emotional viewpoint and mistrust what my emotions are telling me greatly, since I rarely see them as much more than neurons being absorbed in my brain. That said, I still feel things deeply. Some common feelings and how my life displays them are listed below. I wanted to categorize these as good or bad, but I (think) that they can be both, depending on if we let them be in control of our lives or not.
Anger/Hate: I rarely get angry and it seems few get angry with me, so perhaps this is the reason. It is possible to annoy me, but it takes some intentionality.
Awe: I am awed by creation around me, especially sunsets, sunrises, and large objects like space. I often wish I was more in awe of God.
Confusion: Usually when I get confused I just lose my ability to think anything, though I may appear deep in thought. I just have to take a moment to refocus. If I remain confused it is one of the things which most quickly makes me angry I think.
Excitement: I am generally an excited person, although often I do not show it as much.
Fear: I rarely encounter situations where I should be afraid and rarely put myself in situations like that since I do not have a great deal of risk in my life. I am trying to increase the amount of risk in my life, whether it regards relationships or being spiritually bold. However, things like death definitely scare me, and in that type of situation I usually am somewhat paralyzed.
Guilt: I do feel guilt, although it rarely consumes me. Often it is a reminder that there is something in my life I need to address or ask God or someone else for forgiveness.
Hope: I have a great amount of hope still which comes from the fact that I see few obstacles usually and have a direction in my life. Often just living in that state of mind gives me more joy than I can express.
Loneliness: On occasion I do feel very lonely. However, I have never had an intimate relationship, so the fact that I do not really know what I am missing probably lessens this feeling. My self-centered, independent nature also deadens this feeling.
Loss: I have lost a great grandmother, a grandmother, and a grandfather during my life. The loss of my grandfather, who started me on tennis and who I am named after affected me a good bit.
Love: Most of my encounters with this emotion (although it is much more than an emotion, but also a commitment of the will) have been simply in trying to love my friends. My love is usually expressed in concern for what is going on for their lives, a desire to listen and encourage them. It is almost impossible for me to love someone when that commitment goes totally unreciprocated over a long time. However, I think I have been the person Austen describes when she says “one cannot love a reserved person”, so I am trying to figure out how to be more open than I already am. I have felt the feelings brought on by infatuation and I think I understand the difference.

4. Physically

By this I am referring to how I use my senses to process life. The main senses are listed below. Often the more we use a sense, often the less sensitive it becomes in actually producing an emotional response (which then conceivably would cause an action). We are all “sensualists” to some extent (read “The Brothers Karamazov”).
(1). Sight: This is by far the most dominant sense in my life. I may not remember everything I see, but I learn very quickly if I can see something. Thus, a way for me to learn is to summarize thoughts in words that I can see, not just hear. Thus taking notes is very important for me. I often visualize things when I am trying to connect them together, so flow charts and graphs often stick with me. Pictures are very important to me because they almost seem to put me back where I was at that time. My long term memory is most tied to my sense of sight. It is therefore the sense which I most fear losing.
(2). Touch: I can remember very clearly the shape of things I touch.
(3). Taste: I have not put in much effort to refine my sense of taste, but I think overall it is fairly acute.
(4). Hearing: My sense of hearing is not very good in general, and if you tell me something I will rarely remember it after you have told it to me. That is one of the reasons that I try to write EVERYTHING down.
(5). Smelling: Honestly, my nose is not very sensitive. I therefore rarely act on or remember a smell, however much people think that we remember smells the best. I could see this in that the few that I am actually able to smell I generally remember fairly well.
Overall I am not the most buff guy, although I try to keep myself in good shape by weight lifting, playing tennis, Frisbee and by swimming. My eating habits could be a little more healthy, but I maintain a fairly balanced diet.

5. Experientially

By this I am mainly referring to how my past affects my present reality. There is no way that I am going to try to summarize my entire life history, so I would refer you to the “friends” page, which hopefully eventually will tell how the interactions between those people and my life have influenced this area.