dreams & role models

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. No problem falling into it, but difficulties staying asleep. And of course as soon as it’s time to wake up, I struggle to stop hitting the snooze button.

I’ve been dreaming a lot too which is what I think keeps me from sleeping deeply and restfully. Lots of weird, disturbing, uncomfortable dreams. No wonder I wake up unrested and groggy through my day.

Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep is in theatres this weekend and I’m looking forward to seeing it with m. Maybe Gondry’s movie will have some ideas about dreams and sleeping that I can learn from.

To change topic rapidly:

I was reading something about role models yesterday and it made me think about my own role models. When I was younger (high school? college?) I had such a specific idea of who my role models were and what they meant to me. Lately I’ve colored everything around me so cynically that I found myself wrestling with this concept. Every possible contender seemed flawed to me and thus unable to fulfill that role. Not that I find myself less flawed or not flawed at all. Hardly the case. But in discussion with m we agreed that there are traits and characteristics about people that you can admire and model yourself after (or hope to model yourself after) even if these folks have flaws that you don’t wish to emulate. Even with this distinction, I find myself drawing blanks. Sort of.

I think that role models are important in that it’s not a bad idea to continue to want to learn and grow and be a better person. Choosing a person or people who exemplefy these virtues to keep as your own personal fairy godperson-that’s a nice way to practice this I think. I am lucky to have many people around me who I admire but I seem unable to put them in this position of role model. Which makes me think that I am still having problems with the definition of the word. But I’m curious to know: Who are your role models and why?