Let’s try starting from a positive angle for once.
I think I am getting better at remembering that I’m actually a pretty amazing creature. A rare and magical creature quite unlike all the other critters in the zoo.
Not the hardiest of specimens, I require special care and handling, but with my wit and charm and imagination, not to mention my warm and affection personality, I can be a highly rewarding friend and companion for years to come.
All that and I’m cute too!
So adopt a Fruvous today. Act now, supplies are running out. Guaranteed to appraise for double the value as long as the appraiser is him.
My point in all this, besides healthy ego-building, is to reframe my self-image in a more positive light. This is no mean task, as merely mindlessly boosting myself will not cut it.
Repairing the heavy structural damage to my self-esteem will take a heck of a lot more than a crowd of generically nice people waving signs that say “Go you!”.
Thanks folks, but um, I’mma gonna need something a lot stronger.
The new structure had to be made of actual solid truths about myself, and is thus an act of synthesis by which disparate elements of my being are brought together to form an entirely new whole.
This, too, is kind of magical.
It’s tricky to explain the process because from a thuddingly thick point of view, I am fashioning this new me out of things I already know about myself. That I am crazy smart, creative, charming, and all the rest. If I already know all these things about myself, what else is there to do?
Well for one, there’s a vast difference between knowing and believing. Like I have said before, knowing is a cold and remote thing. There is little emotional investment.
Belief, on the other hand, takes investment and commitment, because the things we truly believe become a part of us on the deepest level.
But there’s also the synthesis factor. The synthesis as described above is the final step that creates something new. It’s the difference between the paint on the palette and the finished portrait. The difference between the script and opening night. The difference between the ingredients and the cake.
This is the sort of thing I am talking about when I go on about dreaming myself anew, or coming up with a new version of myself. A fresh synthesis that incorporates all that is known but in a stronger, more solid, more efficient form. One without the flaws and defects of the previous model.
Me 2.0, as it were.
And like any complex engineering job, it’s a slow and careful process. Because so much is riding on the end product, everything must be tested, verified, and then carefully integrated into the grand design, and that takes time,
It’s like NASA.
Maybe once I free enough of myself from rational restraint and the confines of my overweaning superego, I will be able to transform and transcend my current self into something far healthier, stronger, and more magnificent.
Something entirely new.
I think I have enough magic in me for that.
More after the break.
Hothouse flowers deserve to live too
Shit’s gonna get weird. Even for me.
I realized something a little while ago. I have always resented hothouse flowers. Like, how dare they be so delicate and weak and high maintenance. How dare they demand so much time and resources and attention just to keep their pathetic selves alive. Think of all the hardier plants those resources could support. Those goddamned hothouse flowers should just die, die, die.
Patient readers will recall that I have referred to myself as a hothouse flower many times in this space.
This is not a coincidence.
Clearly, a deep and viscous part of me hates myself for being so weak and self-insufficient and feels like fragile specimen like me should just die so people can stop wasting resources keeping such a worthless creature as myself alive and move on to supporting more worthwhile plants.
Not a surprise to realize this lay inside me, but still a shock,.
It’s such a stridently virulent strain of self-loathing. A distillation of all my feelings of making the world a worse place just by being alive and of not being worth what it costs worthier people to keep me around and my death making the world a better place.
In a word, yikes.
But I’m glad I dug this up. Once unburied and aired out, potent negative potentials in my soul like this lose most of their power, and the rest fades away in time.
I mean, so what if hothouse flowers require a lot of TLC and resources to survive? The owners of said hothouses clearly think their delicate little orchids and violets are worth it. They certainly would not consider themselves better off if one of their little potted pets died and left them with a space to fill.
Similarly, my friends online and in the real world clearly consider me worth the cost of admittance, and who am I to disagree? Am I really so sure of my own judgment that I think I know better than them what is good for them?
Yes, kinda. There’s still a big part of me that feels like if I were to die, people would be sad for a little while. but quickly get over it, move on, and forget all about me.
Because I was simply never very important to people. I was nice, but also pretty pathetic to be honest, and so my death was probably for the best.
A mercy, really. For everyone.
I know that isn’t true. My life and my light have touched a lot of people. I’ve brought sunshine and warmth and merriment into their lives. A lot of folks really like having me around and my death would devastate them.
Especially if it was by my own hand.
I know this is true. But I don’t think I believe it yet.
Give me time.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.