I’ve been such a child for so long.

The non-incident at comedy class yesterday illustrated that. I really thought, in the back of my mind , that my joke would go over like gangbusters and everyone would see how funny and talented I am.

Like somehow, the things that limit others don’t apply to me. Sure, other people should not expect everything to go perfectly on their very first day when the whole point of the class is to learn to do it, but surely that doesn’t apply to me.

After all, I’m super talented!

And I can see what is going on there. I am still looking for that situation I had when I was anbsp; kid, where being bright got me a steady flow of opportunities to show off how smart I was and get approval in the form of high marks and being a very lazy sort of teacher’s pet.

And the thing is, all that shit was effortless to me. Math, history, science, English… Total breeze.

But the cracks were already showing even in my elementary years because I reacted very badly to the things that did NOT come naturally to me. Things like arts and crafts, gym, or anything else requiring physical adroitness instead of mental was met with massive resistance. I was a hellaciously stubborn kid who knew seemingly from birth that authority was arbitrary and required a heck of a lot of cooperation from those it is imposed upon. Cooperation I was free to withhold if I didn’t like what was going on.

So nobody could make me do anything. And the worst thing was, emI got away with it. /em

When I look back at those days, it is amazing the crap I got away with. I acted exactly like the rules did not apply to me, and the truth is, they didn’t. My brilliance, stubbornness, and unusual view of authority meant Inbsp; could, metaphorically speaking, get away with murder.

And that’s the situation some part of me is still looking for : praise and approval for doing things that require no effort, and free to refuse to do anything I don’t feel like doing.

Not gonna happen. To put it mildly.

I’m an adult now, and that means that I have to learn to accept that, in the real world, you can’t get by on just your magical specialness. The classroom is never coming back. The same rules that everyone else has to follow apply to me as well, and that means that, just like everybody else, I will have to learn to stick with things that do not come naturally to me and work on them until I am good enough.

It is better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all.

More when I get home.

(—)

Life will always be work.

Nobody is so naturally gifted that they can make all their dreams come true without having to do anything they don’t feel like doing ever. Even the most talented people in any given field have to work at it. They have to do their work whether they feel like it or not. They have to invest effort and endurance into things which may never pay off. They have to settle for net gain via compromise rather than full gain without compromise. They have to accept trade-offs.

In other words, they have to grow the fuck up.

It’s not like all this effort hoarding does anyone any good, anyhow. It’s not like when you need to put an effort in to something, you have so much effort stored up that you could move mountains and barely break a sweat.

Instead, you get weaker and weaker from the total lack of exercise of your will. Your world gets worse and worse because even simple things are hard when you have let your muscles atrophy completely.

This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if some forms of depression are simply the result of a tragic lack of growth. Arrested development. Somewhere along the way, the psyche did not get the psychological nutrients it needed to complete a growth spurt, and as a result, stopped development right then and there.

In essence, these forms of depression are rooted in a lack of growing up.

I am not ignorant of the potential for that kind of statement to seriously piss people off. For some people, telling a depressive they need to grow the fuck up sounds an awful lot like blaming the victim.

But it’s not. It’s suggesting that there is something the victim can do to escape their victimhood. Whether or not it’s pleasant to hear, it’s the truth, and if it makes you really fucking angry to hear it, ask yourself why.

The truth hurts like a bitch sometimes, but it’s the only thing that will truly set you free. Face the music, pay the fine, and get the fuck on with your life.

Build strength. Gain vitality. Make a life for yourself. Go find your happiness and be willing to do what it takes to get it. Stop being a filter-feeder (what imagery), stuck in one place and only getting what nutrients happen to float by.

I just figured it out : I keep slipping into the second person because that way, I can lecture myself.

Face the chorus of fear and the clamorous clanging of alarm bells in your head and know that by opposing, you can end them. Stand tall, do not waver, and they will die away when it is clear they will not get their way.

And the more often you do that, the less hold these fears and compulsions will have over you. Overcome yourself. Know that the real you is capable and strong and fierce, and perfectly capable of breaking through all those bonds that have been holding you back and making you think you are weak when you are anything but.

You’re as strong as you want to be.

Or would you rather keep pretending to be weak?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.