OK, hate isn't quite the right word. It implies a violent emotion, one which desires to destroy or hurt the object of hatred. It's more a frustration and despair.
Why:
I have ideas about who and what I should be, and should be doing, and I'm not those people and I'm not doing those things. Or anything remotely close.
I'll give some illustrative examples:
I'm not a wildly successful entrepreneur for green technologies.
I'm not a world changing activist who inspires millions to take up arms against our destructive system and plant gardens.
I'm not a spiritual bad ass who gives up everything to find a perfect master and totally trusts in God.
I'm not a normal bad ass who one pointedly devotes himself to some mastery and uses it to better the world.
These are things that I am not. And I think they are better, more important jobs than mine.
The result of that is that I feel crappy about myself.
The solution is... I don't know, but it's been suggested that I try finding a way to truly appreciate and love myself, as I am. It sounds really nice and comforting, just to think of. Easier said that done though, as old habits are hard to kill.
Also with that understanding, comes the homework of being ok doing what I'm doing, rather than trying to do what I think I'm supposed to be doing. I'm here working on a dinky little pipe cleaner stick figure, while I'm looking over at Michelangelo, thinking I should be practicing making marble statues and shitting on myself for not doing so.
I have to start from where I am, and do what I'm capable of doing. maybe that looks really, really unglamorous. Maybe for some classes I need to be in the special needs class, and it's hard for me, when in other classes I'm in the Advanced Placement version.
That's right, I don't universally think I'm a horrible person. There are some things I recognize are good about me. Mainly because friends have told me so (I still have a lot of trouble recognizing these things for myself.) That often just makes me more upset about my shortcomings, because I blame them for keeping me from being able to share my gifts and actually do some good for the world. I feel like a grade A cretin, for being given so much and doing so little with it. But fuck you muther (*&^er, (this is the self hate coming through), I can't do what I can't do, and if I am special ed with something, that's what I am. There will always be someone better and worse than you at anything. If you hate yourself and tell yourself your crap at it, you'll feel like shit. Maybe you'll use that to motivate yourself to get better at it. But that never worked for me, or anyone I know, so if it worked for you, let me know, because I'd be interested in that story. It would be a new one.
The other option is to look to what you have done, what you do have, give thanks, and take the next step, from where you are. And take a look at what all the parts of you make up, and live from there. Maybe I'm not good at organizing and motivating myself. I've tried to get better at it, but I just kind of suck beans. Well, I'll do my best to improve that, but maybe I should find somewhere or someone who is good at that, and do what I am good at.
Accepting reality is a relief, because you can stop arguing with it.
This is all easy to say. very very easy to say. It is a huge fucking deamon to slay though. It's a lot of emotional slogging, a lot of work and learning.
But hey, at least that's one of the things I'm good at.
;)
I go once more into the breach, into the consciousness coal mines, for another day, month, or year of backbreaking, dirty, mean labor. I'll let you know when I find some gems.
"I'm not a world changing activist who inspires millions to take up arms against our destructive system and plant gardens.
ReplyDelete*"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
--Henry David Thoreau
Ideals and dreams are of practical use. Good job for having them. Congratulations on your aspirations and desires--they are part of the process, and probably always will be.
*Re: "I'm not a spiritual bad ass who gives up everything to find a perfect master and totally trusts in God.
I'm not a normal bad ass who one pointedly devotes himself to some mastery and uses it to better the world."
I disagree entirely. How to explain--there's giving up everything, and there's giving everything ("giving your all") and really they seem the same to me, though I may be overlooking the distinction. You at least seem to be entirely devoted to mastery of -- maybe life. You are devoted to something that seems ambiguous, because it's huge. Perhaps rather than calling it "Life" I could say truth or beauty or mystery or deep ecology or being human or being Isaac or developing your full potential or to start with exploring your unique potential (it seems exploration and development, like discovery and creation, go hand in hand as simultaneous processes, or rather the same process viewed in different ways.)
*My most complete feeling of failure, I think, was around senior year of highschool. Though perhaps it was sooner I realized there would always be someone better at any given thing than I was, and given all the people in the world there probably wasn't anything really unique about me either. So the conclusion that I came to was that what it was practical to do was love the world. It seems to me a good plan still--love, enjoy, appreciate, serve.
"There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer,
no disease that enough will not heal,
no door that enough love will not open,
no gulf that enough love will not bridge,
no wall that enough love will not throw down,
no sin that enough love will not redeem.
It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the mistake; sufficient realization of love will resolve it all.
If only you could love enough, you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world."
--Maharishi
As far-fetched as some of it sounds, I find it entirely believable in that love seems to be a powerful and enduring motivator.
*Take off the sunglasses. You're surrounded by gems (or rather, composed of them.)
These are Isaac-specific comments--really, you're quite sparkly and dazzling (metaphorically) Then again, it is my stated mission to appreciate everyone ;) maybe i'm just wearing the colored glasses. But somehow it seems to me that compassion/love must always be the basis of understanding/truth because it alone is all-inclusive (as I define it). Being all-inclusive, it allows for distinctions . . . allows for everything, for things as they are, "out beyond right doing and wrong doing" there is a person named Isaac
I'm glad you posted this, since I was thinking about posting it, sans identification, when I read it in my email. perhaps I shall post my reply here:
ReplyDeletethank you.
it somehow hurts and is difficult to receive this. probably because I sometimes hate myself. to be more honest, I simply cannot receive most of it. cannot accept it and feel it in my heart. Intellectually it seems reasonable, but fundamentally I haven't forgiven myself for the sin of being me: a being less than I think I should be.
I will try my best though, to forgive myself more and more, and find a way for love to enter, through the miles of rock separating it from me. it works it's way in through the cracks like water slowly seeping down miles of rock, and eventually it will find it's way. I hope.
this is not to say i hate myself wholesale. I recognize, in an unfulfilling and intellectual way, some of my benefits. but there is a block in my heart for loving myself. as I said, I have to genuinely forgive myself. atonement is an appropriate word, especially with the word play "at-one-ment" and the idea that it happens from the realization that one is already whole, loved, as is. dare a I say perfect? I don't know yet. it makes intellectual sense, but we will see what my heart says, because thats' the one that decides whether there is joy in my heart or not.
until that happens, it's good to have friends like you.
so thank you, again.