Aug 09 22
We don’t love ourself and we never have. “What do you mean love?” Well, when we look in the mirror or project an image of what we feel/think others see when they see us (like when waiting in line or walking past someone on a sidewalk) we have a mild to severe revulsion of the image. As well, if we reflect on ourself in a general sense, we kind of loathe that comprehensive image/feeling too.
In large part, we know why this is the case. There were un-integrate-able (dark, shameful, unexplained-by-the-adult-world) scenarios in our youth which caused difficulties in straightforward “normative” interaction (we were always possessed by a feeling that others could see what was un-integrate-able about us). The result was a sense of being outside the world — and becoming an outsider.
Being an outsider is not easily extricable; it is self-reinforcing, as it inherently makes one a liar. It is fairly impossible for consistent, self-aware lying not to compound/harden into self-contempt (there are exceptions — Jean Genet comes to mind). Loving yourself is a kind of ignorance of self that is irrelevant to the outsider.
But years on the outside, having to eschew (blissful) ignorance (of behavioral causations and environmental causations) has pushed some new aspects. The chief of which being an incisive consciousness — the result of which, a high awareness of ambiguity in all human perception/beliefs (particularly of the inside).
This is not a perceptive panacea, and it certainly doesn’t keep all the various malignancies from sniffing around the door, but it does incline us toward a new lightness. Ultimately, a feeling that life is best viewed as an art rather than anything like a certainty. We have a growing comfort in seeing the beauty, silliness and tragedy of ambiguities seeking rhythm and form in bodies.
In large part, we know why this is the case. There were un-integrate-able (dark, shameful, unexplained-by-the-adult-world) scenarios in our youth which caused difficulties in straightforward “normative” interaction (we were always possessed by a feeling that others could see what was un-integrate-able about us). The result was a sense of being outside the world — and becoming an outsider.
Being an outsider is not easily extricable; it is self-reinforcing, as it inherently makes one a liar. It is fairly impossible for consistent, self-aware lying not to compound/harden into self-contempt (there are exceptions — Jean Genet comes to mind). Loving yourself is a kind of ignorance of self that is irrelevant to the outsider.
But years on the outside, having to eschew (blissful) ignorance (of behavioral causations and environmental causations) has pushed some new aspects. The chief of which being an incisive consciousness — the result of which, a high awareness of ambiguity in all human perception/beliefs (particularly of the inside).
This is not a perceptive panacea, and it certainly doesn’t keep all the various malignancies from sniffing around the door, but it does incline us toward a new lightness. Ultimately, a feeling that life is best viewed as an art rather than anything like a certainty. We have a growing comfort in seeing the beauty, silliness and tragedy of ambiguities seeking rhythm and form in bodies.