But I’m working on it.
Still pondering the secrets of my nonexistence as revealed by me in this space in the second half of yesterday’s blog entry.
To summarize, I figured out that I have felt like I am not here, not really around, like I am a ghost, and other similar things because my childhood traumae scared me so much that I was afraid to exist, and tried not to.
Somewhere in my deep programming, far beneath the reach of mere reason, is the feeling that if I am detected, the Bad Thing is going to GET me, and my only safety lies in giving no sign of my existence whatsoever – including that basic unconscious signal all humans put out that tells other humans we’re around.
Hence the feeling you are being watched, among other things.
And whilst those observations remain solid, I think there is more to it than that.
For example, I think being ignored and neglected by my family and my teachers had a lot to do with it as well. They treated me like I didn’t (and shouldn’t) exist, and that really fucked up my early childhood development.
I carry a massive sense of negation around with me as a result. A powerful feeling that I should not be, I am not wanted, my existence is a mistake and a crime, and that the world would be better off without me.
And yes, I know, intellectually, that none of that is true. And that counts – it’s the whole foundation of my ability to resist those terrible thoughts.
But those thoughts are always there, held back by a dam made of reason and sheer bloody-minded stubbornness, but still exerting a terrible pressure on the system.
Keeping the zombies out is never as good as making them go away.
It’s only been within the last year or so that I have been able to look at myself in the mirror without a powerful wave of self-hatred so powerful it almost makes me puke washing over me.
That hardly ever happens now.
That guy in the mirror ain’t so bad. Just looks like your everyday average big bearded fat dude. There’s a lot of guys who look more or less like me in the world.
But then again, it’s never been what is on the outside that’s the problem. I hardly give it any thought at all.
People are their insides to me. Their hearts and minds and souls. Everything else is just whatever packaging fate randomly assigned them, and means nothing about what matters to me about them.
Though a penis is always a plus. Sorry, ladies.
I love your hearts and minds and soul too.
Just not into vagina.
Try not to take it personally.
I’m sure your is fantastic.
I hate this kind of thing
Wandered off with only 464 words written. Totally spaced on the fact that I had not actually made it to 500 words like I am supposed to in part 1.
Didn’t remember till I was sitting down to work on part 2.
Numerically, an insignificant oversight – 36 out of 500 words, 7.2 percent.
But getting this blogging shit done right everyday is my one little island of competence and productivity and reliability in a sea of flaccid ineptitude, so it hurts to screw up.
Oh well. I will def get my 1000 in by the end of the day, and that’s what counts.
And now, another brilliant innovation from Fruvous Labs.
A Subway suggestion!
Hey Subway! You should make it an option to have egg salad as your side dish.
I can’t be the only person who loves the stuff, I’d much rather have a little plastic container of egg salad than greasy chips or a cookie. And you have the stuff right there for making your egg salad subs. So why not make it available as a side?
Come to think of it, you can turn any sub into a salad, so I could just order the egg salad sub as a salad and add whatever veggies and stuff I want…
Mental note : try this.
On personal morality
Say you are walking through a mall when you see an article of clothing and instantly fall in love with it.
You have to have it. But you can’t really afford it. So you’re torn. The tension builds, then snaps : you buy it.
But then you get home and try it on and you look fantastic but regret is setting in, and you start thinking about how badly you just fucked yourself over by spending that much, and you start to feel guilty.
But guilty about what? For who? The only person who got hurt was you. So clearly this is not our usual interpersonal kind of guilt.
Instead, it’s personal guilt, the kind you feel for violating your own self interest. It is entirely self-referential and therefore is separate and distinct from the kind of person guilt we feel when our actions have harmed another, or one of our own principles.
This makes it an interesting avenue of moral inquiry that I have never seen explored elsewhere. It makes us take an almost schizophrenic role in that we are both the wronged party and the perpetrator of the crime, and are angry with ourselves.
Viewed that way, it seems almost like insanity, but it is instead a fundamental part of any functional self’s ability to self-regulate and it would be hard to imagine it not being there.
To put it somewhat flippantly, it’s how we stay smart.
As such, it is inherently intellectual. It governs the realm of making smart choices rather than morally correct ones.
Thus, it is a rather chilly faculty. This is clearly demonstrated in sociopaths, who lack empathy and thus have only this personal morality to guide them.
I can’t imagine living in a world that cold.
No wonder some of them go nuts.
Still, the case of the sociopath shows that this morality of self-interest might be the primitive ancestor of pre-empathic morality, and thus might teach us a thing or two about the deep structure of all moral psychology if only we have the courage and fortitude to strap on our wetsuits and explore its chilly waters.
And speaking of chilly waters, I suppose I should stop talking like a reptile and lay down for a much more human nap.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.