Growth ⇄ Expansion

I've went back and read my own entries. I've been thinking about why I am no longer attached to my old journals. I plan on using their pages to create art pieces where I once would have done everything I can to protect them. Why? I know this is a shift for me. You don't just go from being protective over source material to just seeing it as art. Why is it a droste now? Why did it shrink? Why do I feel like I'm a staircase above it?

Growth ⇄ Expansion

Growth is upward, expansion is outward.

Growing means becoming a "better" person. Maybe it's breaking old habits and forming new ones. Learning and unlearning.

Expansion is what happens when you've come into your own and now you're just being that. It's not the end of change, it's not the end of learning and unlearning, but it is a different form.

Think of it like a flowering plant. They start off growing up, then they grow out. They are a growing stock growing upward, then their leaves grow outward. The flower buds, opens, then it bloom. It stretched outside the pot although it isn't getting much taller. That is expansion.

Why was it so important for me to make the distinction?

Growth ⇄ Expansion reminds me of the relationship between journaling and meta-journaling. Being learning theory and applying that theory.

From being confident to knowing.

Knowing expansion exists opens your mind to believe that growth for growths sake is not the end game. It's actually just the beginning!

It gives you a conceptual answer to "what do I do one I'm there? What do I do after I've grown?". You simply embody, you continue to evolve, bloom, and your leaves take different shapes and turns.