rather than writing a proposal for conference-planning, i have so far spent my morning deleting old emails. i found this:
"i'm in a foul mood and am in great danger of lashing out to everyone i love best, telling them to forget me, forever, since i am so unworthy of their friendship as to be undeserving of even a last conversation. i am wallowing in self-pity, gorging on self-loathing and perfuming myself in bitterness. currently there is nothing admirable, lovable, respectable, good, or in any way worthy in my person. my character is of such hideousness, if it were not mediated by the opacity of embodiment, i should be a very Gorgon, Medusa herself, turning all who look on me into horrified, disgusted stone.
i alone of all persons cannot seem to become a healthy, happy, well-adjusted, moderate grown-up. i alone of all persons am unique in my excessive childishness, my selfishness, my self-centered-ness, my inability to receive or give love from/to anyone. i am an undisciplined mass of inarticulable desires. i am haughty and narrow and stingy and rigid. i act as though i deserve the world but do not even work to deserve the kindness of my friends. i demand love but do not even begin to *be* loving-ly. i am foul, wretched, inhumane, a monster.
i style myself wise but don't live according to wisdom. indeed, i hardly live according to any of the principles i most highly value: bravery, courage, steadfastness, love, thriftiness, generosity, simplicity. i kaleidoscope myself where i ought to focus. i fling myself beyond myself rather than concentrating myself where i am. i dream of a future but idle in my present. i contradict my contradictions and make paradoxes of my paradoxes. is there any wonder i am unlovable? there has been no self for me - or anyone else - to love." march 1, 2008
as it was in my university account, i was in great danger of losing this written moment to the time-gods who preside over the existence of messages. this one deserves a longer life
interestingly, months later and in a rather happy frame of mind, i still identify very much with those angry and tender expressions above. ok, so maybe not a Gorgon, but still. yes, i am or may be all of those things. but there is a world to love and i am in that world.
4 comments:
Let me phrase this carefully. Did you write this yourself, about yourself? (The first part of the post is unclear about this; the last seems to say so.)
Further comment based on your reply, if any...
yes, i wrote this post myself and about myself
OK. I was moved by it; but it's probably best if I reply by e-mail or in person... In the meantime, I'll just say I recognize a lot of my own thought processes in your post. And I suspect we're not the only two who think this way. But your note was honest and self-revelatory. Good for you.
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