Be what you are. Be like yourself.
Why is it such a painful thing to be self-conscious?
I think it is because there’s a kind of feedback loop involved. You’re trying to control yourself while also being the thing being controlled and that makes it impossible to be happy because it’s like you are biting your own tail.
Whereas we are at our happiest when we forget all that and just relax and be ourselves. Often, that takes doing something that fills our minds and souls to such an overwhelming degree that there is no room left for self-regard.
That could be anything, from a church service to rock climbing to singing in a band to playing video games all goddamned day.
You know. Just to pick some random examples.
Writing can do the trick too, at least for me. When I am sitting here tippity tap typing my words for the day, there is very little chance for me to be self-conscious.
I’m too wrapped up in what I am doing. Not quite to the extend that I am when I am playing video games, and it’s certainly not the same form of engagement, but it gets the job done anyhow.
This opens some fascinating new vistas for me. I tend to have a rather extreme view of what life outside the warm comforting realm of gaming is like. That it’s harsh and cold and I would feel vulnerable and self-conscious and my inner demons, no long distracted by gaming, would come and GET me.
Nothing good ever comes to GET you.
But if I simply broaden my perspective to include anything that could keep my mind busy enough to keep the bad voices suppressed, that could be all kinds of things.
Maybe even things that actually productive. Imagine that.
In fact, it’s even possible that if you include an attitude shift along with that perspective shift, you could turn anything at all into such an engrossing task simply by bringing yourself fully into the moment.
But, um, I think that’s for the advanced students. I’m a tyro now.
I have so much to learn. So much growing to do as a person. So many long dormant parts of me to activate and awaken and bring online.
But I truly believe I can change. I can change who I am and still be myself because I am the one making the changes, therefore they reflect me.
And what’s wrong with trying to perfect yourself? Things can always be better.
Hmmm. I’ve kind of veered far away from the original examination of self-consciousness I started out to do today.
So what else is new? Throughout the history of this blog, I have almost never ended up at the place I was heading for at the beginning.
And I’ve been doing this thing since 2011.
And I have arrived at what is probably the most important revelation I have had lately : there is life beyond video games for me.
I can get what I get from video games from other things if I just open my mind to the possibility of fully engaging with what I am doing.
And even if what I am doing is not all that engaging, that doesn’t mean I can’t also be doing other things in other tabs or windows to keep my mind busy.
For example, writing this blog is almost never the only thing I am doing at the time. I am almost always reading a webcomic or watching a YouTube video or otherwise occupying myself while I write and just jumping between the tabs whenever I need to in order to contain my ever-flowing mental energies.
There’s a lot of them.
So the way I do this blog is itself proof that I can keep myself occupied without video games, and I have been doing it without a problem for over a decade.
Now I am going to go lay down because I have a hell of a lot to think about.
More after the break.
What can I do?
Quite a lot, actually.
But first I need to get over my reality aversion. Or, if not exactly get over it, find some way to work with it.
And towards that go. I will again remind myself that I don’t need to make some big, dramatic, irreversible leap into the void, necessarily.
I mean, it may come to that eventually. I may find that baby steps just aren’t getting the job done and the only effective cure is to fling myself from the parapets and hope I learn to fly on the way down.
But we are not there yet. For now, starting with baby steps seems like the best move.
And if it isn’t, who cares? I’m under no obligation to always do everything the best possible way to get the best possible result.
Especially not in realtime, which is, after all, where (and when) we live.
That’s why I keep going on about not judging our past realtime, split second decisions and actions by the standard of the calm and uninvolved present.
There will never be a time when my brilliant and agile mind will not be able to think of a better decision than whatever option I actually chose.
Ergo, pleasing that particular part of my mind is impossible, because if left to its own devices. it would set the bar so high at “there is only perfect, and failure” and clearly that is a wildly unreasonable standard for literally anything.
i keep coming back to the idea of just worrying about being me. I’ve been told “just be yourself” my entire life and until fairly recently that’s always struck me as insipid.
I mean, surely there’s a bit more to life than that.
But I think I get it now. Shifting the focus to just being yourself removes the possibility of investing your emotions in outcomes you cannot directly control.
The only thing you truly control is yourself.
So concentrate on doing that, instead.
As a jaded GenX type, it’s a little galling to realize a lot of the dipshit stuff morons have been mindlessly regurgitating to you for your whole life is actually true.
But luckily, I’ve a good enough sense of humour about myself to find that very amusing.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.