Yes, it’s gone from “awesome” to “amazing”. Deal with it.

Lately I have been thinking about what an amazing and extraordinary person I am. And for once, not in a begrudging and dismissive “well, I suppose, given the evidence, some people might conclude that I possess some amazing-like properties” way.

In a true blue “it’s actually pretty awesome to be me” way!

It started from the way I interact with my fellow furries online in a text environment called Tapestries. I was signing off recently when it suddenly hit me : compared to all the other fuzzies there, I am an amazing phenomenon.

Not to put them down. They are fine. But I haven’t met anyone who is as dynamic, sweet, funny. outrageous, adorable, sexy, and downright entertaining as me.

I light up whatever room I am in. I bring the party wherever I go just by being myh scintillating. sparkling. amazing self.

And that’s like. no small thing. Most people do not have that. It’s extraordinary.

It’s just taken me a long time and a lot of recovery to get to the point where I can appreciate myself as the all star amazing fellow I am.

Snagglepuss : And in a social context, even!

Admittedly, it’s the safe social context of a world where I am my words and in that sense I have total control. but it’s still pretty amazing.

And the truth is, I could totally be that way in the real world,. too.

Think about it. As Fruvous, I am bold, outrageous, charming, forward, cute, sexy, and beloved by nearly all who meet me.

I tend to piss off cranky people. but that’s no loss. It just ends up with them looking like the joy and fun hating villain from an 80’s cartoon.

And the thing is, I could totally be like that in the real world. All it would take is some courage and a certain kamikaze fatalism that detaches me from outcomes and instead says “whatever happens, I gotta be me. ”

That’s a wisdom I would have laughed at until recently. Obviously the right thing to do is whatever produces the best outcome. What more could there be?

Byt it turns out that utilitarianism doesn’t work that great on a personal level. I now think that the best life strategy is – and brace yourself, because this is some mindblowing wisdom you have never heard before – is to be true to yourself and you can’t go wrong.

Wow, what a radical thought that the entire culture has been screaming at me for as long as I can remember. I guess I just never “got it” before. I was too busy being excessively reductivist and obnoxiously logical and myopically self-referential about every little thing.

To those of similar inclination : remember my motto – there is a lot more to life than what makes sense. Ditch the logic and ask yourself how you feel about the world. Watch a sunrise. Think about kittens. Give someone you love a hug. Open yourself to the large doses of positive emotions available in the world and don’t sweat what they mean or how they fit into the big picture or what, in balance, it says about society.

Just open up and soak it in. Let yourself feel good.

Because, like…. why not? Why not feel good?

Isn’t that what all intelligent organisms want to do?

In life, we logical types end up building enormous and elaborate defeneses against our own emotions out of a highly misguided desire to stay “in control”. These defenses end up strangling us and depriving us of the very important emotional nutrients we need in order to be happy human beings.

Well fuck that. We think we know better than our emotions but we don’t. The human mind actually works extremely well without that kind of interference and all the fiddling and reacting and constructing and justification does is get in the way of the mind’s excellent abilities to heal itself.

So the idea is to get out of the way. Simplify. Downgrade. Try to remember what life was like when you were a child on a summer day with no obligations other than to please yourself. Don’t worry that someone relaxing and thinking like a child for a while will somehow cause all your intellectual progresss since then to collapse and never return and suddenly you won’t be smart any more.

Relax. That shit’s hardware. It will boot back up when you want it to.

Back then, you dealt with the world on an emotional level, without filters. you felt things strongly and with your entire being. You weren’t jaded or cynical or wary yet. Your heart was open and you were happy.

But then life happened. Bad things happened. And you wanted to make sure they didn’t happen again. And it was here that you made a fateful choice : you decided that the problem was emotions.

Emotions were the enemy, and old cold precise intellectual reasoning could save you from them. Emotions made you do the things that led to the pain, and that meant the only solution was to clamp down hard on your emotions and take refuge in the cool crisp air of intellectualism and never let your emotions “get ahead of you” again.

And it made you feel safe. It detached you from your emotions and let you escape the negative ones and that was worth whatever price you had to pay.

But it was a huge mistake. Emotions were never the problem, and blaming them was like eating a bad peanut and declaring war on food. Emotions are life. They are the only reason we do anything. Logic and reason are powerful tools, but that’s all they are. Tools. They can’t give you the love and hope and acceptance you need. They can’t replace all the good things to feel in life. They can’t get you through times when the world seems very dark and you want to give up.

Only emotion can do that, and only if you LET IT IN.

Wow, what an extraordinary and inspiring speech!

Told ya I was amazing.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.