So lately I've been on this kick about style. I've formulated some viewpoints on it that seem to be in conflict, but I've come to the conclusion that they can coexist simply because they are both true.

There are some times when I am really anti-style. (I realize that this in itself is a kind of style, but them's the breaks.) Like, I sometimes really hate creating the character that I am, it comes to feel like a burden and I get tired of it to the point where I want to discard everything that I consider to define my personality. I just get sick of style, and I think, isn't there beauty without style? Like, things can be beautiful without having to correlate or match or theme or mean anything. I mean, sometimes they do, and that's awesome, but I'm tired of trying and tired of people who never stop trying. I can be a person without having to be a kind of person. Times in the past when this affected me pretty extremely, but these days I guess I'm just integrating it into the person that I am instead of letting it obliterate the person that I am.

And I was talking with a friend about this thing I'm doing, this 'dating around' thing. I've never done it before, and it's fun in an interesting way. It's a really empowering thing. I'm meeting all these people who I'm attracted to and who are attracted to me, I have an intention, I make it a reality, I get what I want. Kind of. I mean, part of the process is deciding what I want.

I'm the sort of person that looks forward to spending my life happily with one other person, long term, till death do us in. So there's all sorts of theories on that, like people say, do you believe in The One, or soulmates, whatever. My theory is style. We're all just looking for someone whose living style jives well with our own. Because we all choose a style to be, dig? Even me, with my occasional anti-style.

Because I think marriage is pretty much the same kinda process all across the board. Like, if you take the time to get to know a person, if you start out not liking them so much, you'll definitely find things to admire about them, and if you start out liking them a lot, you'll definitely find things about them that you don't think are so hot. It's just if you can learn to deal with the totality of a person. And whoever it is will probably have the same amount of things you like and don't like as the next guy, it's just different things. Style.

Like for example, when I explained this to my friend Jena, she said, "But I want the kind of person who likes to grow and change, you know?" And we agreed that was also an element of style. Like, everyone grows and changes. You wouldn't be alive if you didn't. It's just that people have different styles of dealing with it. There are those who love growth and change, embrace it, seek it. The upside is that they encourage and engineer their own growth and they are always striving to be better people; downside is that they are never quite content and have a tendency to miss what's right under their noses. (I myself am of this persuasion.) There are those who are quite satisfied with the person they are, and feel no need to constantly rearrange themselves. Upside is that they are confident, grounded, certain of their identity; downside is that when they find that they and things around them are indeed changing, as things do, they grow afraid and depressed. And then there are those who say, I am what I am, whatever that is, whatever that may be. Upside is that they are so very in the now, they can accept themselves and change; downside is they have a tendency towards apathy, unmotivated. People will grow and change; it's just how you approach it, and there's no better or worse.

I just thought that was a particularly illuminating example of style. How it's not just the clothes you wear, but just about everything individual about how you approach life. The basic themes remain the same.

So I'm just looking for the style I really dig, which requires my own style and abhorrence of style. Sigh.

I suppose things are allowed to contradict each other if they're true.

7:11 p.m. 2003-07-19�