Category: Self Worth

  • Contaminated (Part II)

    We live in times where the inclination to remedy a fall far outweighs any rationale to prevent the fall from happening. We’ll willingly encourage others towards intoxicants or unhealthy distractions, and then form support groups to help them out of that addictive state, while refusing to condemn the bad advice we gave in the first place. Accountability is only celebrated if it doesn’t disrupt the oblivion of the masses. Those that threaten such disruption are spurned for being callous, cruel, or arrogant, often accused of thinking that they’re better than everyone else. In short, we condone that which reflects our own weaknesses not because we believe in its wholesomeness, but because we feel more human in recognising the shared weakness in others. More than this, it makes us feel less inferior when we believe that we share shortcomings with others, rather than falling short of expectation by our solitary selves alone.

    It’s not about being better than everyone else any more. These days, it’s simply about not being worse. There was a time in human history that I imagine the focus to have been on competing to excel in human endeavours. People would have exerted themselves to achieve noble goals that served as inspiration to others to want to rise up and pursue even greater heights. It’s quite different today. Today, it seems as if we compete to see who is able to dominate through any means possible, where the level of domination is celebrated, without any concern for the means or methods that achieved such domination, except where those means and methods threaten our ability to actively compete.

    I’ve been fascinated by the term ‘fully formed adults’ ever since I first read it a few years ago, but my fascination quickly turns to disgust as I look around and struggle to find specimens that exhibit such qualities. Semi formed adults raise calloused and contaminated children. Children that grow up under semi formed adults face trials and hardships that are entirely avoidable, and fully surmountable, but they often shy away from the challenge of rising above because when they raise their gaze looking for a role model to guide them, they see nothing but more contamination of a society that is full of semi formed adults. It’s therefore little wonder why they themselves succumb to the same cycle.

    Regardless of how harsh our childhood may have been, we all reach a point of independence in life where we are able to feed or break the cycles that raised us. Critical thought is spurned as rebellion and disrespect because semi formed adults lack the skills and self-worth to effectively navigate their way through critical thought processes. The stigma associated with failure is so harsh that even in the face of absolute failure we’ll find a euphemism to describe our sorry state. Anything is better than admitting failure. It’s this same insincere and tainted social setting that continues to lay down a path of strife and distraction for children looking for meaning and purpose in life.

    In the absence of a critical mass of fully formed adults, those that try to break the cycles are placed with a burden that is tenfold relative to the effort that would be needed to raise a balanced and confident child. It’s a constant struggle of trying to convince or influence the child towards a wholesome standard while they are bombarded with the unhealthy standard of the semi formed adults that they’re surrounded with. Isolation from such a malformed society is not an option. When we disengage, we lose the right to judge, criticise, or cry foul.

    We need to stop raising children. We need to start raising adults. This mindset that has contaminated the world in recent centuries that childhood must be enjoyed with abandon so that we can start being adults when we reach a certain age needs to be abandoned. This distinction between childhood and adult life is misguided. It’s not about age, it’s about awareness and accountability. We should expect greater accountability as we progress through the stages of self-awareness and awareness of our surroundings. The same way we expect a child to stop wetting the bed once they have been taught the value of hygiene and the skill of using the toilet, we should continue to hold them to such levels of accountability in action and behaviour as they continue to acquire new skills.

    But adults that had a contaminated childhood often project those regrets on the children under their care. Instead of raising the standard against which they raise their children, they embellish the esteem of the child with gestures that convince them, the adults, that they’re doing a better job than the raising that created the flaws that they despise about themselves.

    The common undertone and theme in society these days is one of demand, but little supply. We’re all demanding to be recognised for the struggles of our lives, and to be judged based on the gravity of those struggles, while remaining entirely oblivious to the fact that we are merely spawning another generation of victims that will take our efforts and raise it further. Their demands will be ever more destructive and selfish, and the erosion of society that we universally lament will continue on its downward spiral until a group of inspired young souls will look upon the generations that came before them with a sense of contempt and disbelief. The inheritance of wholesomeness that should have been passed down will be absent, and in such total absence they may finally resolve to correct the path that they’re on, rather than continuing the toxic cycle in search of affirmations and validations for experiences that hold no sway over the next generation.

    Adults that still place their insecurities and weaknesses before the well being of those that look up to them deserve a special kind of scorn. We all have the ability and the capacity to actively reflect on how we are perceived by others so that we can take steps to embellish our images in ways that would earn us praise. This is regardless of upbringing or value system. It is entirely based on who we wish to view us admiringly, and how we wish to feel about their gaze on us. We therefore cannot argue that such reflection in the betterment of our characters and moral assets is impossible simply because we were raised by a calloused or contaminated society. The resolve and courage exists for us to change the way we live our lives. The motivation however, is lacking, because it is significantly easier to fulfil an expectation of a consumerist society than it is to raise the expectations of the next generation.

    [end rant]

  • Contaminated

    A blistery childhood or a beautiful one. Both leave lasting impressions on us but not always in ways that we realise. A blistering childhood has been the cause of many to grow into beautiful people because they chose to create a world for themselves that did not echo the sadness from which they emerged. Equally so, a beautiful childhood has prompted many to assume a level of entitlement and aloofness that soured their souls and sent people gasping for air when exposed to the stench of their arrogance.

    The circumstances of our childhood was probably never a matter of our choosing. Sometimes we may have even made choices that defined it when we were allowed such definition as children in the presence of barely formed adults, but there is a justifiable absolution for children that make such bad decisions in the presence of adults who should have known better. Such kindness is not so easy to dish out for adults who continue to choose badly due to a contaminated childhood.

    The motivation behind the actions of parents are rarely known even by the parents themselves. This makes it that much more difficult for the child, the real child, to find a path out of that cycle as they try to understand why they hold such a deep sense of self-loathing, or a vacant stare of expectation, or worse, a longing for completeness.

    The pain that sometimes shapes our lives in our early years often end up leaving us ambivalent in our later years. At times it feeds the resilience of our souls in our struggle against a cruel world, while at other times it hampers our expression in ways that make us contribute towards the cruelty we wish to escape. Recognising those traits that detract from our wholesomeness is only half the battle. The rest of that battle is fought for the rest of our lives as we consistently try to unlearn a form of unhealthy expression that we were raised to believe is entirely normal.

    I see children that were raised in homes where explicit adult behaviour was flaunted as fashionable, personal hygiene as optional, and vulgarity of expression as humorous; and they struggle to operate in a setting where such behaviour is not tolerated. They struggle to rectify their ways, or reconcile their upbringing with what is demanded of them by society. The harshness of the demand undermines the burden of reality that they carry with them. But even that is a burden that they only reasonably comprehend much later in life.

    Until they reach that stage of relative awareness, relative because it’s near impossible to be fully aware of the difference between your normal and society’s normal, they will struggle in relationships that often define them as uncooperative, unwilling, or simply unacceptable relative to what would otherwise be a normal expectation from a normal adult. But such a demand from them is not entirely unreasonable.

    Tough love has never been so tough to implement. Parents that find themselves raising children from contaminated environments will likely spend a lifetime accepting that they are perceived to be disciplinarian monsters, while the fruits of their labour will be enjoyed by the normality experienced by their charges later in life. The point that needs to be made is a difficult one to articulate, partly because it holds such prominence for me, and partly because its definition escapes me.

    The balance that is needed between discipline and compassion is that much more difficult to strike when the one who is charged with raising the contaminated child is themselves contaminated. Their effort becomes that much more valiant and admirable, but their state, if observed casually by the normal of society, leaves much to be desired.

    [The point was barely reached, let alone sufficiently articulated in this post. Much reflection is still needed on this issue.]

  • Self-Imposed

    I set a deadline for myself. That deadline expires at the end of this month. It was to have a book completed by this time, but it did not anticipate much disruption that has taken place in between. Some of it beautiful, some of it not. Nonetheless, I set the deadline, and I’m missing the deadline. For many, that would be a futile exercise. For me, it was a self-imposed nudge in the right direction.

    While my book is not written, and may never be at this rate, it did give me a lot to focus on. It forced me to consider issues and aspects that I otherwise didn’t see a need to contemplate. It was a big, hairy and audacious goal to begin with (to quote someone that will remain anonymous for purposes of this post), but I set it anyway. Not because I had no intention of achieving it, or at least trying, but because I have the conviction to achieve it some day. The fact that that day has not arrived as planned is not what is important. What is important is that I live with a conviction to achieve more than I think I can. More than most expect me to. And most importantly, more than can be reasonably expected of me.

    This, I find, is much healthier and rewarding than self-imposed misery, self-imposed limitations, and self-imposed failures. Corny clichés flit through my mind right now about setting targets and goals, but I’ll spare you the pain of reading that.

    What I do believe is important to share is the fact that not achieving your goals for good reason is not something to be ashamed of. Those that might use it as a reason to mock or ridicule you do you a favour by exposing their fickleness and insincerity, which is in fact a blessing because you know exactly who should be kept close, and who should be discarded.

    Most people don’t believe in themselves. They also react aggressively towards those that provoke their fears and expose their self-imposed limitations. So if you’re waiting for someone else to believe in you before you take that big step, or set out on that long journey that only you can take, you’re wasting your life away for people that are inconsequential in their own lives, let alone yours.

    Anything self-imposed should be a source of grounding, a source of inspiration, or at the least, a source of reflection. It should never be an end state. It should always be a prompt to begin anew.

    Imagine if we all imposed excellence or at least a sincere yearning for excellence on ourselves? The world would be a very different place, governments would not have so much power to abuse the rights of those they are supposed to serve, and corporates would not yield the control they have over the lives of so many. If we desire excellence for ourselves, we’ll tolerate nothing less from others. The moment we do, we sow the seeds of insincerity because then it’s not excellence that we desire, but instead, it is a sense of superiority that we seek.

    Our convictions are reflected in what we impose on ourselves, and what we demand from others. Insecurity in who we are defines how we express this conviction. Those that are distracted and unaware of their own convictions will easily misinterpret our insecurities as expressions of our unique characters. Meanwhile, those of us that have little reason to believe that we’re capable of more than the assumptions that others hold of us will readily succumb to the definition that society imposes on us.

    [There’s a point in there somewhere, but I don’t feel like seeking it out right now.]

  • Friends for Enemies

    Friends. I’ve always found this to be a quaint notion. Something that offers a sense of endearing companionship while providing a comforting distraction from our isolation in this world. I’m obviously cynical on the subject because I’ve experienced and witnessed true friendship quickly recede when reality became unpalatable. So I wonder if there is really something called true friendship?

    I think it’s all about that beautiful old principle about what’s in it for me. More than this, it also relates to our inflated sense of self, and how well the friendship nurtures that self-image. There are memes in abundance regarding the nature of true friends that would point out your shortcomings and not only make you feel good. But there are unfortunately not nearly an abundance of friends who want their shortcomings pointed out.

    One of my favourite sayings in this regard has been attributed to a number of different historical personalities, but its truth remains…well, true. It says that the friend of my enemy is my enemy, which in turn implies that the enemy of my friend is also my enemy. I guess that also means that the friend of my friend is my friend and the enemy of my enemy is also my friend. Anyway, point is, those that hate what we hate find a sense of association with what we value, and vice versa. Most would confine the understanding of this with just the relationship that they maintain with others, but I think it goes beyond that. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that it is more accurate to view this within the context of our characters, and which good or bad traits we recognise as friends or foe.

    Within the above context, suddenly the person that hates my bad traits and looks to encourage me to abandon such traits becomes my friend. However, that assumes that I sincerely want to improve that aspect about myself. It assumes that the bad trait is not something I hold on to as a definition of my self relative to a defence I need to prevail in this world. It assumes that I live with conviction, and that I strive to improve with every day that is offered to me. That’s a grossly inaccurate assumption. I struggle to find people that actively and sincerely seek to better themselves. To recognise their shortcomings and to bravely embrace the changes that are needed to raise the standard of their contribution to this world.

    Most are bent on embracing those struggles or shortcomings that resonate with others, and nothing more. When we show the world how brave we are to face off what everyone else is struggling with, it feeds our ego more than it develops our character. It proclaims that we are bold while others are meek, and in so doing gives us the courage to fight that good fight that defeats so many. And so we prop up our egos and assume that we’re sincere about improving who we are, while in the process convincing the shallow ones that we are indeed striving to improve. Yes, I speak with contempt of such endeavours because it only entrenches the insincerity that has eroded the wholesomeness of society and life in this self-indulgent world.

    The one who reflects, recognises the ugly inside of them, and then simultaneously celebrates the beauty within, is more likely to demonstrate gratitude for their lot in life than the one who only sees the ugly and tries to disguise it as a noble struggle. Those that live their lives out in the social network limelight need the affirmation that is lacking when they look within. They need to see themselves through the lenses of others because their own lenses offer little or no comfort at all. Their enemies become their friends, and robs them of peace and energy as they go through life painstakingly maintaining the defenses that they need to make them feel whole.

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The one who recognises the ugly in me and sincerely advises me about it is the one whom I should embrace. Not the one who convinces me that my darkness within is not a bad thing because everyone else has it. Not the one who tries to convince me that my darkness or my handicaps are not so bad because they want me to pull them closer for making me feel better about myself. They are self-serving at my expense, and I am left wanting because of it.

    With friends like these, indeed, who needs enemies. Friends or enemies both offer the opportunity for growth, but only if we are honest in our reflections and introspections about who we really are, and what we stand for. If we’re comfortable glossing over our shortcomings because we’re more inclined to celebrate our few strengths or successes, it will be a short while before we lose our footing and feel the stench of complacency strangle the peace out of our lives because at some point, everyone gets that wake-up call. Everyone has an innate desire to shrug off the yoke that has held them back for so long and to move forward with or without the significant others that pacified them while they carried that yoke around. That’s when relationships are truly forged and defined, or discarded.

    But it requires courage, and it requires conviction, and it requires brutal honesty, all of which are in short supply in a world of instant gratification where friends can be acquired and lifetime companions can be discarded in favour of a synthetic life. The more virtual our reality, the less real our lives will be. But death is not a virtual outcome. It’s not the end of a level or the expiration of a time limit on some game with in-app purchases. Perhaps that should read ‘inept purchases’. That is what we do. We sell our souls in favour of short term gains because we lack the courage to forge ahead into the unknown. We seek the comfort of certainty in the outcomes of our decisions, and therefore make decisions when we can rely on the predictable outcome, rather than making decisions because we uphold the principles that we profess to live by.

    Still think you have friends? In fact, still think you’re capable of being your own best friend? Go on, be honest. I dare you!

  • Unconditional Love

    To live life romantically is such a beautiful notion. You see the world for all that it offers and politely ignore all that it is. The lover professes unconditional love for their beloved, yet so often such undying love ends in heartache. Was it unconditional, or was it one-sided? I once heard that the one who loves less controls the relationship. I think that is mostly true.

    Unconditional. That’s a huge claim to make. Unsurprisingly I decided to test its veracity by observing those around me who often profess to uphold this claim of unconditional this and that. Love, for starters, is grossly misunderstood and overrated by most people. Obsession, infatuation, or lust (or all three) are usually at play long before love even enters the picture. Having said that, I believe that unconditional love is real. However, it probably doesn’t take the form that most assume it to be and probably shouldn’t be called love to begin with. I think commitment and sincerity are more attuned to reality than the vagueness of love.

    Too many confuse love with acceptance, and far too often that acceptance is based on the fear of rejection. We accept untoward behaviour or allow people to take us for granted under the guise of loving them unconditionally, while the truth is closer to the fact that we are usually fearful of not finding something better if we reject such treatment. Being alone is infinitely more scary to most people, more scary than dealing with an abusive or unfulfilling relationship. Having someone, to many, is better than having no one, even if that someone holds them back from being who they are capable of being. Yet they stay in such relationships believing that it’s unconditional love, more because they’re hoping to receive unconditional love in return.

    But here’s the rub. When we hope to receive unconditional love by making such sacrifices of our own peace and sanity, it implies that we have yet to unconditionally love ourselves. In the absence of that self-acceptance, we look for others to accept us first so that we can convince ourselves that we are worth the investment of love and life. We therefore fool ourselves into believing that unhealthy relationships must be endured simply because we would expect others to do the same for us if we were the unhealthy contributors to a relationship. The irony is that we are such contributors when we settle for less.

    That’s all fairly obvious for those not in denial, but it still doesn’t quite define what unconditional love really is. For me, unconditional love is not being infinitely tolerant, but instead, it is about being intolerant of anything less than what you know the person you love is capable of achieving. Apply this in a parenting scenario, or a marriage, or a romantic liaison, and you’ll see how it holds true. If you love someone, you won’t allow them to do something that you know is going to harm them, or cause an oppression against others. The moment you tolerate such behaviour from them, you prove that your love for yourself is greater than your love for them because being unpopular erodes the self-worth of the fickle.

    Stated differently, what is usually considered to be tough love is only possible from those that are confident that the acceptance or rejection of others does not define who they are, or how they see themselves. You have to be accepting of yourself as a whole person within the context of a relationship before you will be willing to push for a correction or adjustment in behaviour from the person you’re with. However, it also means that in accepting ourselves, or others, we need to recognise the weaknesses or bad habits that detract from our wholesomeness as a human being, coupled with the resolve to work at improving it. The same must be true for how we view others if we are to profess that we love them.

    It cannot be love if we enable destructive behaviour. Perhaps that needs to be rephrased. It is not love for the other that enables destructive behaviour, but a lack of love for the self that allows it to continue unchallenged. When we subject ourselves to abusive relationships, we fool ourselves into believing that if we wish to be accepted, then we need to be more accepting of others. That’s far too idealistic to be healthy. The reality is closer to having a clear conviction about what we stand for before we agree to stand for everything.

    More importantly, if our greatest fear is how we will be perceived if or when we object to something, then again, we are more concerned about ourselves than we are about making others feel judged. It feels like I’m over complicating a really simple issue. so here’s a final take on this.

    You need to know what you stand for before you can be accepting of others. If you don’t, you are not accepting, you are assimilating because of a need for inclusion. That fear of rejection or isolation is grounded in the fact that you judge yourself harshly, and have a lack of conviction in improving those traits of yours that you would rather others don’t see. To deflect attention away from such weaknesses, you embrace others without question so that you don’t give others reason to question what you’re about.

    We see this playing out in parenting all the time. Parents that won’t accept that their children are wrong or downright abusive because such acceptance confirms that they may have failed as parents. Women and even men remain in emotionally and physically abusive relationships because they’re afraid that no one else will accept the distasteful view they have of themselves, while trying to convince the world that they are only holding on because they truly believe that their partner is a good person behind all that anger, or insecurity. Or worse, they remain in the relationship because of the children that they don’t want must be raised in a broken home, not realising that they’re effectively teaching their children that it’s more important to grin and bear it than it is to stand up and do the right thing.

    We project our insecurities on those around us, and then over compensate for theirs in order to ensure that ours are not discovered. Then we wrap it up as unconditional love because that is more palatable as a concept for us, and is found to be more endearing for those from whom we seek acceptance. We do this while forgetting that unconditional love is being willing to point out what’s wrong so that we can work on making things right, rather than suffering the wrong because we don’t want to offend or be seen as unpopular. Unconditional love is what drives us to demand nothing less than what we believe is possible from those we care about, because the only time we can claim to truly love them is when we want for them what we want for ourselves. If we desire less for ourselves, then we seek to live vicariously through them instead, which once again confirms that our love, as unhealthy as it may be, is in fact for ourselves more than it is for others.

     

  • Dying is Easy

    During my morbid years, you know, the years that are accompanied by knowing everything, followed by the years of futility before we realise that adults are weighed down with responsibility rather than just being deliberately boring, I found it attractive to look forward to death. Living beyond the age of 23 was not a life goal of mine, not because I was suicidal, but because it just didn’t seem like a probable outcome at the time. This improbability allowed me to live with a sense of freedom in my heart, feeling unrestrained by the burdens of deep contemplations of a future that I saw no reason to look forward to.

    This is not morbidity, and I’m not saying that to convince myself either. I’ve always viewed the advent of death to be one of liberation and ease. Life is a struggle, and the struggle is real for all of us. We find different ways to cope, to distract ourselves, and to push forward beyond the current state, but it doesn’t come easily. It requires effort. If that effort is not met with relief or joy at the perceived success of it, it intensifies that struggle. Those perceptions of success therefore become the trappings of morbidity or ease. If poorly informed, it convinces us that success may be in the shape and form of something that is detrimental to us. If well-informed, it may reveal that we’re not as celebrated as we thought we were, which has its own ball and chain to bear.

    Perceptions are therefore at the heart of the matter. How we perceive life or death draws us closer to either, or rarely to both. But we find ourselves facing life with a binary disposition. The debates and the philosophising are far too often focused on how to cheat death or live a fuller life, but is rarely focused on true balance. That true balance, for me, is how to appreciate life while embracing death. The one is meaningless without the other.

    People die a million deaths in a single lifetime, but very few live a single wholesome life before death. This is not surprising since many focus on understanding the definition of wholesome relative to someone else’s views without reflecting on their own needs, and then are convinced that they have a wholesome life, while never truly experiencing it for themselves. Life becomes a tick-box exercise when we are so externally focused and so internally ignorant. This is probably what I find most fascinating about the self-help book culture. We spend so much time looking for insights from others, that we spend only a fraction of that time seeking insights into ourselves. I know many would disagree by suggesting that their poring through those self-help books is their efforts to find what resonates with them, but that’s still like a child going to their mother, looking at the sun shining through the window, and asking if it’s morning yet.

    That seems to be at the core of it all. We’re often so insecure about our own capability that we need someone else to affirm it for us before we believe it for ourselves. I’ve never understood why the opinions of others are so important to our own lives, because I’ve always seen how two people acting independently but sincerely, regardless of race, religion, or culture, align with the same human ideals, and goals. But we’ve distracted ourselves with labels and compartments that go as fickle as defining our perceptions of others based on the compartments to which they belong, before we even see them as independently minded human beings.

    That’s where the chicken and egg situation arises. Do we behave the way we do because we’re conditioned to align with the traits and attributes of the labels that we subscribe to, or do we subscribe to those labels because we find familiarity in their traits and attributes? For this reason I despise labels, token events, and the like. It preconditions us to a conformed response to life rather than encouraging us to live and think independently. I think the insecurity that drives us as a point of departure is what informs our inclination to first be surrounded by nurturers before we believe that we are capable of exploring and overcoming on our own.

    I’m not suggesting that we only learn from our own mistakes, and that we ignore the experiences of others. I’m saying that we set out with the belief that it is achievable, and then draw wisdom from sources that talk to our goals. However, defining that goal first before seeking such guidance is the difference between leading and following.

    Dying is easy. We kill our spirits regularly, often several times a day, because the threat of failure and its perceived humiliation is so daunting, that we’d rather slay our souls than believe in ourselves. Humiliation is relative. A failure only becomes humiliating if the opinions of those around us defines who we are, and what we think of ourselves. But that’s the problem right there. Most of us know no other way of living, and then die a thousand deaths in the face of rejection.

  • A Legacy of Beauty

    Reminiscing about childhood is a popular pastime. Idyllic recollections of a life that never truly was is bolstered by time that is kind to us . It allows us to forget the harrowing details as we protect our fragile souls from the harsh reality of life. Those that treated us harshly often became a memory of those who cared, especially when their harshness was all we had access to. We become captives of the weakness of brutes because our submission is the only significance that they may feel in life. I sometimes wonder how many realise that their self-worth is based on their ability to subdue others.

    Time creeps by, as time tends to, while I find the present moment to pale in comparison to my selective recollections of a childhood that never was. Moments of peace that were in fact moments of isolation, and collective laughter that was often exclusive by nature. I speak of this as if it’s my own, but the incomplete smiles around me suggest that it is a shared reality that is often denied.

    As time morphs the pain into beauty it also morphs the beasts into angels. Those that manipulate the vulnerable suddenly appear as the downtrodden when their loss of control is lamented as a betrayal of love or affection. I sit with morbid amazement as I watch kids who are barely teens reminiscing about childhood and the wonderment that went with it as if it’s a long lost part of their lives, and I feel sad. The sadness deepens when I witness how their recollections embellish events to make it more wholesome or inclusive than it really was. The disease of the adults appears to have transcended a generation that used to be symbols of hope. Those symbols of hope are quickly becoming reminders of despair instead.

    The torch bearers have handed over the soot but retained the flames that should have been passed on as generational wisdom to guide the next. The next appear comfortable to accept the association with the soot as a gift of love while not noticing it is the self-love of their captors and not the love of their captors for them. That distorted reality shapes a distorted world that they set out to change, not realising that their efforts to change it merely taint it.

    I looked across the bathroom at the mirror from behind the shower door and suddenly realised how many would see the mirror as foggy while ignoring the steamed door in front of them. Those that are living an assumption of reality would seek to clean the mirror, while those that embrace reality will open the door.

    We all need to believe that our contribution, even if not appreciated, is a wholesome one. When we are deliberately offensive or destructive, we convince ourselves that it is needed to restore balance. When it works out in our favour, we believe we were right, and when it doesn’t, we believe we were wronged. The selective views we nurtured through life in our efforts to establish our significance and self-worth betray us with such subtlety that it leaves us convinced that we’re the misunderstood or unappreciated while everyone else is self-indulgent and ungrateful of our efforts to uplift them. Accountability rarely features for the distracted ones because it erodes the fantasy that has become their reality.

    Our collective subscription to such distraction leaves us sympathetic towards this feeble state in which we find them. If they weren’t echoing our own weaknesses so loudly, perhaps we would be able to see beyond their feigned sincerity and disrupt the fantasy just enough for reality to peep through. But that would rob us of our legacy of beauty that we have to believe is our contribution to this world. Without it, we become that which we despise, so we find kindred souls that are equally tainted so that we are secure in the fact that any effort on their part to expose our weakness will be rendered incredible simply because the kettle cannot call the teapot black. In there lies weakness in numbers.

    [I set out challenging myself to write a post about something beautiful and uplifting. My alternate view of reality insists that I achieved it, because if anyone sees this as dark, they don’t appreciate my beauty that I offer so selflessly to the world. So the darkness must surely be in them and not in me.]

    P.S. If you can understand this ramble, or worse, if you can relate to it, I question your sanity, and pray for your peace.

  • Sincerely Dishonest

    I’ve always believed that dishonesty is the worst sign of disrespect. I just wish I could dismiss it as pure dishonesty that easily. That burden of awareness can really weigh you down at times like this. Being aware of what drives others to be weak enough to be dishonest makes it nearly impossible to shun them.

    The reality behind the dishonesty is that we’re weak enough to believe that the truth of us will repulse those around us, and so we create alternate realities to court the affection of others, forgetting what a dark web it spins for us. I can only imagine how dreary those quiet moments must be when we are faced with the stark contrast between our life and the life we present to others about ourselves. It can only tear away at your self-respect even more, which is the irony of it all because it was that same low self-worth, or lack of respect for your self, that drove you to create that alternate reality in the first place.

    I’ve often looked at scum bags, really low life schmucks that are blatant about their immoral or underhanded behaviour without any concern for the perceptions of others. I wondered as to whether that is a reflection of confidence or a total disregard for acceptance, or perhaps it’s the total abandon of hope in receiving any such affection which makes the entire purpose of their life a protest against the wholesomeness of that which they’ve been denied.

    Provide those same scum bags with a teaser of hope in being included in something larger than themselves, and withhold it the moment they edge towards it, and you’re likely to see a level of anger and bitterness that drives them to violence. Violence in such cases is the ultimate form of protest while at the same time being the deepest cry for compassion. But the risk of any such compassion being temporary or unfulfilled is so real based on the past betrayals of their lives that they are more likely to spurn it rather than embrace it, because protecting themselves from loss is better than having and losing again. Or so it seems at the time.

    But I started out writing this post with a very different angle to this that played on my mind. I thought that only the most deliberate of lies must reflect disrespect, because you can’t possibly lie to someone that you claim to respect. While I believe there is truth in that, I also believe that a greater truth lies closer to the fact that it implies that your disrespect for yourself is greater than your respect for that person that you claim to respect, and when that dynamic comes into play, you’d rather sacrifice your standing with that person than reveal the ugly that swims around inside of you. Hence the lie that follows.

    Our response to that determines a number of things about us, not least of which is our commitment to the one that lies. Are we invested in raising their level of self-respect more than we are in gaining our rightful respect and appreciation from them, or is our investment in our rights greater? But it’s not that simple, because at some point the investment may cause a denial of rights to others because we have a limited capacity, both emotionally and materially. So we find ourselves in murky waters feeling contaminated by the murk while also feeling undeniably attached to it. Pulling away to save ourselves spawns the burden of guilt or responsibility that goes with such a decision, while remaining tethered weighs us down because of the lack of sweetness from such an investment. Any sweetness that it may hold is on hold until our investment pays off. If ever. And it’s that gamble that gnaws away at us in the quiet moments when we don’t have the distractions of life to save us from its contemplation.

    I am convinced that the liar holds more self-loathing than any loathing we may hold for them. I also think that we spurn their weakness because it can easily spawn similar weaknesses in us when we find ourselves faced with difficult choices. In those difficult moments, it’s easy to justify a dishonest response because ‘everyone’ else does it, so it is entirely understandable. But such justification only provides some peace as long as we’re convinced of its truthfulness. That’s when we choose to surrender our principles in favour of ease, or we grudgingly hold on while also denying the reality of our weakness. That creates the tension within us that drives us to seek distractions around us, eventually leading to chronic ailments of the heart and the body that robs us of our sanity and self-respect as we grow older.

    My thoughts are almost entirely incoherent this morning, so this is my attempt at seeking sanity among the insane. I guess it’s also entirely possible that scum bags are not really scum after all, and that the true scum bags are the ones that betrayed their trust (probably at an early age) that resulted in their loathing for this world, and anyone that represents the warmth that they’ve been denied.