Category: Self Worth

  • Fake

    The world is full of brave faces. People showing a strong front while internally their world is crumbling, or has already crumbled. Some let in a select few to witness the destruction first hand while they serve a dual purpose of being a shoulder to lean on. Others are too ashamed to admit to such weakness and block everyone out instead, often aggressively so. Despite these differences, both tend to be focused on how they’re perceived in those trying times rather than how they feel, or more importantly, why they feel the way they do.

    The embrace that most offer in times of trouble often uplifts the spirit and not much more. That small blessing is great, but only if it’s accompanied by a jolt that prompts us into action. The jolt can be our own realization and courage to be decisive about changing our state, or it could be a needed kick up the butt from someone that we trust. Either way, that jolt is needed. In the absence of that jolt we are left with nothing more than a group pacification of our weakened state where we are often convinced by such gestures that just trudging along is worthy of celebration.

    Perhaps, for a short while until the shock and awe subsides, just being able to maintain a semblance of composure is commendable. But it reminds me of something I read once about runners. The level of fitness of a runner is not determined by how far or fast they can run, but instead it is measured by how quickly they can restore their bodies to a state of rest at the end of their run. In other words, how quickly can I stop heaving to catch my breath after the intensity of the exertion has subsided. I think this has relevance in this case as well. The time it takes for us to recover from the shock and awe of life’s less pleasant moments is a reflection of our spiritual resilience in the face of reality.

    I digress…again. The fakeness in us becomes most prominent when we become so focused on how we’re perceived, that we lose our way on that path of self actualization because we gauge the measure of our success on how others celebrate our progress. If we consider that the majority of those around us celebrate mediocrity and conformance without even realising that a world exists above such a dreary standard, that gauge of success effectively prompts us towards complacency the moment we believe that we’ve arrived, relative to those low standards.

    The fake are the ones that draw you close in a moment of weakness, then push you away when they don’t want to be reminded of that same weakness. They’re the ones that embrace when times are tough, but are aloof when the figment of success enters their minds. They live outwardly what they desire inwardly, but they live inwardly what they hide outwardly.

    As obvious as that may seem, most don’t get it. Especially not the fake. It’s easy to miss such important but simple details when the focus of your life is on the perceptions of others. We become prisoners of society despite actively subscribing to such incarceration, yet we complain bitterly when that same society is relentless in its demands for more from us. Conformity to societal whims is a never-ending cycle of trying to appease an insatiable appetite for affirmation. The irony is that those that are fake, desire what they would otherwise receive if only they chose to be authentic. Authenticity begets sincerity, and I’d rather have a single sincere friend than a stadium full of insincere fanatics.

  • Carrots And Sticks

    I recall, with some discomfort, a time in my life when I was painfully focused on how I was received by others. I recall simple moments when I made someone laugh quite unexpectedly, and then found myself feeling compelled to continue focusing on possible behaviours or witty statements to solicit more of the same. It took a long time for me to realise that it wasn’t just the laughter that I enjoyed, but the attention.

    Being noticed for the same reasons we wish to be noticed is more addictive than any drug you’ll ever find. Ironically, it’s the absence of this validation that drives many to drugs to escape the reality of their insignificance, relative to their needs of course. But that’s not the point of this post. The eventual realisation of what I was getting from such experiences confirmed a painful truth that I only realised was painful much later on. I’m slow like that, fortunately so. It was the realisation that my self-worth, and therefore my actions, we’re largely defined by what I wanted from people rather than what I wanted to contribute.

    Being driven by the fickleness of others is a good way to erode any sense of purpose or fulfilment in life. No wonder so many enter their twilight years feeling betrayed and bitter, and often disheartened at the thought of all that they didn’t achieve, or that they don’t have. That’s what being a whore to society does. It robs you of your dignity while you’re trying to appear dignified.

    Against that backdrop, I always find it curious when I see people motivating themselves to improve themselves by tying such motivation to someone around them. They’re effectively saying that only if you do x for me, then only will I do the right thing for me. Stated differently, I’m improving myself so that you can be proud of me or accept me for the person I can be, but I’ll stop doing it if you’re not around, or if you reject me because then it’s not worth being a better me. In other words, you will be my carrot and my stick, without which I have no purpose in life.

    When you’re focused on acceptance, you become a consumer. Consumers are good for the economy, but they’re rarely the beneficiaries. The same way they make businessmen richer while indulging in trinkets to distract themselves, needing validation makes the attention you receive the trinket that distracts you from being you. I’ve often heard, and said, that many people exist only, and then they die without having lived much at all. I now think that there is a fate worse than this. Many people live a life of subservience to others while fooling themselves into believing that they’re in fact serving humanity, or some other higher purpose. They’re the ones whose eyes light up when they’re showered with attention and affection but become almost entirely mute in its absence.

    By design, fulfilment and purpose is only ever realised when we serve a cause greater than ourselves, or larger than our lives. Self indulgence is an insatiable cycle, even more so when we don’t realise that it’s our ego that we serve. Service to a higher calling is what connects us. No one ever connects with others when they’re focused on their own needs before anything else. Just because that pursuit of the self may appear sincere or subservient doesn’t suddenly make it meritorious. In fact, the more adept we are at disguising it, the more detrimental it is to our sense of self.

    For me, beauty lies not in being attracted to those that accept me, but more in connecting with those that are passionate about the spheres that I hope to influence, or embrace. Anything else is simply a pacification of my unwillingness to accept my inability to influence change in the world around me.

  • Look Behind Their Eyes

    The one who judges is most often reflecting their bitterness rather than the merits of the subject of their judgement. There is a simple but important difference between judging and understanding. In seeking to understand we are compelled to make judgement calls about what we observe. Those judgement calls are in the form of observations or assumptions we make relative to what is visible to us, what we know about the subject, and what we think relates practically to it. In other words, our frame of reference is brought to bear on what we are faced with. We all do this. It’s a normal cycle we go through sub-consciously in order to make sense of the world around us.

    The challenge lies in what we do with this information. The worst among us assume that this set of information is absolute and authoritative and therefore feel confident enough to use it as a basis of judgement against others. The lesser contemptible among us realise that it is only true within our current frame of reference and could change substantially if new information were to come to light. But there must be a simple reason that tells us why we respond so differently, and it cannot be external either. So what is it about how we perceive ourselves that gives us reason to be either arrogant and judgemental, or grounded and understanding?

    I believe it lies in that septic space called self-worth. The lower our self-worth, the greater our inclination to judge, and vice versa. Those that despise themselves seek affirmation in the fact that others are lesser beings than they are. It’s an easy fix to stave off the contempt we feel for our shortcomings when we lack the strength of character required to face it, and deal with it. It’s significantly easier for me to slander the efforts of another than it is for me to raise my game and be as competent or benevolent as they are, all the while fearing insignificance with the current audience if I am seen to be the weaker one.

    The challenge in expecting such bitter souls to reflect is that their bitterness is exactly the distraction that prevents them from reflection, and in turn, mindfulness. I still believe that those that may be bitter but are inherently good, and strive (albeit internally only) to improve their character and humanness, will ultimately attract the right set of circumstances that will force them to set aside the bitterness for long enough to see the truth of themselves that they tried to wish away.

    The clutter in my space is making this thought process very difficult to articulate. When we see someone behaving despicably, our most common response is to despise them and to shun them. We distance ourselves from them from fear of contamination of their vile ways, or at the least, from fear of being associated with them. The former is a lack of our sense of self, and the latter being our need to be perceived well by others. In other words, our need for significance. If we didn’t fall victim to these two obsessions, I would guess that our response to vile behaviour would be very different.

    Instead of shunning or despising, both of which are inherently judgemental, we would seek to look behind the eyes of the contemptible one, and instead of responding harshly, we would see the weakness that drives them to behave the way they do. But this demands of us that which we are most loathe to acknowledge. It demands an embrace of our own weaknesses, and more importantly, our gravest failures. In order to look behind the eyes of another, we need to recognise in them what we once subscribed to as well. Look behind the eyes of anger, and you’ll see a desperate need for significance. Just because they may be demanding that significance in the workplace doesn’t mean that it’s their colleagues that are the root cause of their desperation. Most often we tend to project our aggression on those that are least likely to resist or challenge it, while avoiding such aggression in the presence of those that we wish to appeal to instead. It’s the path of least resistance that enables such behaviour. We are more likely to show aggression in those spheres of our lives where we hold more authority because the coward in us directs us away from those settings where we know the repercussions will be costly. The cost being relative to what we desire.

    It’s for the same reason that parents may vent their anger in the home but be docile and compliant at the office, or vice versa. As despicable as such behaviour may be, the moment we recognise that need for significance, or the need to appear competent, or simply to be liked, we will be able to see the weakness that provokes the brute, rather than believing that the brute is a lesser being than ourselves.

    When we judge prematurely, we recede into a space of arrogance that eventually convinces us that we’ve arrived at the point of awareness in our lives where all we do is impeccably informed, and all we challenge is of a noble cause. That’s when we become the aggressors, and it is then that we should pray that there is one in the audience that will take the time to look behind our eyes so that they may be able to sensitise us to the weakness that has driven us to become the contemptible one.

    If we look behind the eyes of the aggressor, we’ll see that there are no bad people in this world, only weak ones.

    [Yet another incomplete thought process]

  • When Family and Friends Collide

    Being torn between my loyalties towards family versus friends was never pleasant. I recall specific events where I was treated with disdain after returning from an afternoon with a friend in my neighbourhood. It was not just from my father, it was pretty much from the whole family. Having a social life seemed wrong, and being socially awkward was my default disposition. I suspect the two went hand-in-hand.

    The insecurity of a family unit that grows insular by default rather than necessity is often a reflection of the insecurity of those that yield the most influence on them. It’s almost cult-ish by nature. The indoctrination that suggests that choosing the company of others automatically implies that you place less significance on your own family members is unnatural and stifling. Having to choose between your absolute loyalty to family that precludes any other bonds from being established and wanting a space for free expression unattached to your family should not be a choice that anyone should have to make. It sets the scene for a precedent that can rarely, if ever be met.

    The underlying principle is a simple one. If you impose limitations on others, limitations that don’t shape their moral or ethical standing but instead is aimed at defining their movement and free association with others, you need to be damn sure that you’re in a position to offer them what they would otherwise get from those social circles. Family can be toxic as much as they can be a blessing. Often, in a less healthy environment, they stifle the growth of each other and root themselves in a point from the past based on the belief that they need to protect each other from a perceived, but often unrealistic threat. Simply stated, a family of victims of society are more likely to restrain the social activities and affiliations of its members than one that is secure in their collective individuality.

    But that begs the question as to how do we become a family of victims to begin with? Again, I look towards the most influential members of the family, typically the father, or the mother, or both. They set the tone for what is perceived to be healthy and balanced, versus what is unacceptable or intolerable. Their fears and insecurities are often passed on as truths and realities, while preventing sufficient exposure for any of their children to determine the veracity of such claims themselves. This ensures that the established authority in the household remains unchallenged, and that the balance that is comfortable for the insecure, remains above reproach. Despite its best intentions, it is a sick environment in which to raise a healthy mind.

    I’ve often witnessed first hand how such environments yield common chronic health conditions. The kind of conditions for which most are happy to blame faulty genes, while remaining oblivious to the stress and strain our bodies face when subdued in such an unnatural way. Occasionally one member of the family will be free from that condition. They will generally have a more optimistic or healthy outlook on life, including a healthier social experience. However, the inclination under such circumstances is for the rest to believe that that one individual is fortunate, and since they are not afflicted with the same ill-health, it is therefore possible to live a healthier and more meaningful life. That is simply rubbish.

    When we stop to consider the impact of our emotions on our physical wellbeing, and stop writing everything off as a disease that attacks us from without instead of within, then hopefully we’ll stand a chance of breaking the cycle. The stress coping techniques that we adopt as we grow are learned from those we’re most exposed to. When that exposure is limited to only an insular family unit, it stands to reason that the resultant ill-health will be a common experience as well, hence being misconstrued as a genetic inheritance.

    The cycle can be broken, but it requires exposure to other frames of reference for us to develop any reason to question the truths that we hold dear about life. Of course the reverse is also true. If that insular family unit is balanced in its embrace of life, then it also stands to reason that the individuals that it spawns will be balanced by nature. This is unfortunately rare, if not impossible, because a healthy balance would unwittingly provoke broader inclusion in society, including the necessary contribution towards remedying the ills of that society.

    The greatest irony of society is that it is most severely criticised by those that are in fact an inherent part of its make-up. When we assume a level of aloofness and distance ourselves from the ills of society, we become party to the problem, rather than the solution. Too often those that break the cycle extract themselves from the environment that spawned them. While it may be healthy for the individual to do so, it robs the very same society of the resources and influences that are needed to uplift its social fabric to be one that is healthier and more wholesome. That societal structure can be as small as a single family, or as big as a community of families. Either way, we are an inherent part of it, even if we remove ourselves from it. That absence defines our contribution, whether we like it or not.

    The test of our character therefore arises when we find ourselves needing to hold on to the new-found freedoms experienced external to that sick cycle, while acknowledging our responsibility to assist others to see that there is a life that is possible beyond the unhealthy indoctrination that defined our reality before that point. Empowerment lies not in liberating yourself only, but in liberating those with a similar affliction as your own.

  • Dramatic Trauma

    I’ve always been curious about the impact of our perceptions on the reality we seem to contend with. This became even more prominent in a recent discussion regarding the way in which we perceive or interpret various experiences and how it subsequently affects us.  One thing I realised is that I don’t recall ever looking at any of the many colourful experiences in my life and feeling distinctly overwhelmed or traumatised by it. The thought of it being traumatic never entered my mind.

    Sure, there would be times when I would describe the experiences of others as traumatic events in their lives, but I think there is a very important difference between how we describe something for effect, versus how we experience or internalise it. This rings true to my views about labels and how that also drives conditioned responses within us. Without intending to rob others of the gravity of their life experiences, I would suggest that the moment our internal conversations suggest to us that we’re experiencing a traumatic event rather than just a challenging event, it reinforces the sensations associated with feeling attacked, as opposed to raising our awareness of our response options instead.

    It reminds me of moments when the responses of others towards an event in my life seemed to have heightened my awareness to the impact of it compared to how I felt a moment before they said anything. This has happened to me often regarding death or near death experiences. I would cope with the reality quite well, but would be jolted into a deeper sense of loss or betrayal when I saw the emotion in the faces of others that were witnessing the events unfold.

    It’s like the contagion of a yawn. We tend to feel a need for rest after watching someone else going through a really hearty yawn, even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with our energy levels before that. I think this is the same response we have towards people that express raw emotion around us. We’re drawn to it like a moth to the flame. Sometimes it grounds us in compassion, but often it sucks us into the victim state that makes it that much more difficult for us to emerge from it. More destructive than this is when we find a sense of comfort in the sympathy from others that dwarfs any level of comfort we experienced in the normal course of our lives. That’s when the weak and neglected among us play to the sympathies of others and remain bogged down in a phase of their lives that ultimately defines their existence, not because the event itself is too traumatic to let go of, but the attention and significance it afforded them is too rare for them to want to give up. Rare in the context of their lives.

    It’s that dramatic emotional response that leaves a lasting impression. It makes a mediocre life noteworthy,  and when that fleeing moment threatens to pass, a cycle is spawned where we seek opportunities to create triggers for yet more sympathy because as long as others sympathise, the true frailty of our lives would escape us as long as we enjoy the sympathetic embrace of others. That embrace tells us that it’s ok to be broken. It tells us that simply surviving is a triumph in itself, and that any lack of conviction or courage to move beyond that point is completely understandable.

    That’s when we fail ourselves, and we fail others. When we gauge the intensity of the struggle of our lives relative to the weaknesses of others. It’s for this reason that we need to look towards those that rose above it rather than those that coped. Unfortunately, our celebration of mediocrity makes it increasingly difficult to tell the difference. Couple that with our innate fear of exposing ourselves to the same opportunity that earned us betrayal and you have a perfect recipe for a victim’s regret that is despised on the inside and dressed as strength on the outside. If only we put as much energy into moving on, life would be so much more endearing.

  • Instinctively Rigid

    It occurred to me earlier this week that instinct is what grounds me in my old ways. It seemed like a strange truth at first, if a truth at all, but the more I grappled with it the more it became clear to me that instinct, although often the result of years of experience and practice, can often hold me back from growing. But like pretty much everything in life, there are no absolutes. So what then would be the difference between those instincts that hold me back, versus those that propel me forward?

    I believe it lies in defining the focus of what I wish to hone as a preferred response. Whenever that response was focused on my external reactions, including the manner in which I verbalised my thoughts, then it most often developed into instinctive responses to external challenges that caused me to cement my position very convincingly without giving me reason to pause for long enough to consider if there may be merit in what I was challenged with. I guess it’s the difference between having a prepared response for a similar situation, versus an assumed response for tokens of a similar situation. The difference is subtle, but important.

    It’s the same as wanting  to raise your hand to defend yourself from a perceived threat of an incoming blow when all that was done was someone standing close to you wanting to reach out and remove some lint from your shirt. Because we weren’t paying attention, the hand gesture appeared as a potential threat and instinctively we responded by going into attack mode. Fortunately, in such a situation it’s easy to very quickly realise that the attack is not in fact an attack, so we are able to restrain ourselves before striking at the person for their kind gesture. That’s the easy part.

    The difficulty lies in our instincts that are informed by the internal conversations that we have. The smallest trigger from someone that invokes memories of a hardship or pain that left a scar we wish to hide from the world results in us responding to the storyline in our heads, with just enough attention being paid to the conversation at hand to ensure that we present our defence as a carefully considered retort to something that was implied, even though it most probably was not. It’s almost as tiring as that last sentence was to write.

    Instinct does not create new realisations. It simply reinforces what we’ve learnt before. Each time our instinct proves to be a successful response to a perceived threat, it becomes ingrained even deeper and defended more fiercely than ever. If our focus is on growth, our instinctive responses will be observed so that we constantly adapt it relevant to the new realisations that we acquire with each moment that passes. If our focus is on defending the struggles of our lives, then we’ll remain rooted in developing our defences aimed at demanding recognition for every battle we fought. Most fall into the latter category, that is why we find ourselves in a society that is instinctively victims by nature, and violent in expression.

  • Still Searching

    The search for serenity continues. It’s a search that will always be futile, like the pursuit of perfection, but its pursuit promises peace. The kind of peace that is forever elusive yet holds enough promise to keep us committed to its pursuit. Passing my fingertips over the keyboard without crafting any thoughts holds a similar promise. It’s as if I’m hoping that through some stroke of genius the clutter in my head and the weight on my shoulders will suddenly unpack itself beautifully in prose that will give it meaning and purpose. The stroke is there, but the genius is not.

    There was a time when a slow deep breath with my eyes closed would cause the substance of my thoughts to surface while subduing the noise. Now, such a breath only reminds me of the shallowness of my breathing. It’s the shallowness that echoes the distractions of my life. Discarding the essentials while focusing on the embellishments. I see it around me all the time. I’ve spent fortune after fortune of hard-earned bonuses in the renovation of this piece of land each time hoping to create a comfortable space that will remove the clutter and allow for repose, yet so many iterations later I have yet to place even a basic bench in the backyard so that I may be able to enjoy the peaceful surrounds of a garden that is admired but rarely enjoyed.

    My breath is like that bench. In misplaced moments I find myself inhaling deeply, feeling the release it offers, but losing focus on exhaling because the next breath is prompted again. Completing a thought, or a chore, or even a breath, have all become synonymous with restlessness. The chest tightens, the shoulders spasm, the neck stiffens, and the head pounds. But these are not my emotions being expressed through an unwilling body. It is echoes of the strife that exists around me. Strife that is disguised well. An unhealthy focus on needing to prevail leaves an underlying torrent of debris that threatens our composure the moment the crack in our armour reveals the wounds beneath.

    Too often I notice too many with an outstretched hand to seemingly want to lift me out of the abyss of reality. I smile a silent smile at their obliviousness. They’re oblivious to the fact that I stepped into the abyss to cup my hands beneath their feet so that they may be lifted high enough to see what life is like beyond the surrender of their hope to the expectations that they have grown to embrace as reality. It’s the same distracted-ness that convinces us that the more effective our defenses the more wholesome our perspective, until we reach a point where we’re ready to offer those defenses to others before we even understand their reality.

    It’s the tokens that count. The tokens that resonate with us in our search for familiarity of purpose. We see a struggle that, on the surface, resonates with a defining moment of our own and before even looking closer, let alone trying to understand, we present a promise of salvation not realising that such an uncalculated gesture in fact reveals our desperation for serenity more than it offers peace. I believe that life will only ever offer a psychosomatic relief from the trials of this world. As we prioritise our efforts on those things that provide relief or comfort, the impact of their poor cousins is deferred for only as long as we’re able to keep them away from the feast we hope to indulge in.

    Life presents us with a spread of delicacies and trinkets, carefully concealing the sweat shops that operate behind the veil of obliviousness. Those that are restless through conviction peer behind that veil in their attempts to see the delicacies and trinkets for what they are, slowly finding themselves repulsed by it. Most prefer to indulge instead, believing that what lies behind the veil is unimportant, because it is only in the appreciation of the indulgence that gratitude is reflected. Gratitude is hollow when it appreciates the outcome without an understanding of the toil that made it possible.

    Perhaps in that there is some truth. Perhaps it is the hollowness of the appreciation expressed by others towards our achievements in life that never fully heal the wounds that created the present moment. It’s a fleeting consolation that recedes when the darkness descends. The night is only as peaceful as the day’s indulgence, and the day’s indulgence is only as focused as the reflections of the night. Perhaps we should stop seeking fulfillment in the expression of gratitude from others. When we use that hollowness as a yardstick against which to measure our success, we subscribe to the insanity that dictates that the oblivious will define our peace. I just realised why the search continues.

  • The Gravity of You

    We go through life seeking to be understood, slowly shedding each layer of protection as we grow bolder in our journey towards finding that elusive state of comfort between the fire that rages within, and the composure expressed without. It’s a dance for two often mimicked by one, but the band continues to play, whether you have a partner or not. The show must go on. But in all your shedding and expressing there is a small space that you protect fiercely. A space so well hidden that only the most deliberate of efforts coupled with the most determined of insights is able to unlock. It is that little treasure that defines the gravity of being who we are.

    But, like gravity, not everything we attract is attractive, nor good for us. Space junk and stray rocks pound us at times and leave defining scars to add to the unique tale of who we are. The uniqueness of our tale is not enough to sustain our desire to be unique, to stand out from the crowd. Instead, uniqueness comes with the threat of isolation, and so we set out in search of one similarly damaged or suitably seasoned. It’s an irony that serves us well. The brave struggle to define a space that adds to the collage of this world, while seeking the embrace of one who understands and appreciates the cost of such a colourful contribution. We were built to connect.

    For some that connection is realised in the form of a kindred spirit, or a soulmate. For most, it is the mere idea of the same that gives them enough reason to abandon the search, believing that the familiarity they may have found is in fact the companionship that they sought. Anything more than a compromised pleasure demands a commitment of transparency that most are incapable of. Not from lack of ability but from pure fear. A fear so great that the mere contemplation of such abandon leaves them paralysed with even more fear.

    An abandon of who we are in favour of who we are willing to present to the world has curtailed the dreams of many. The humiliation we suffer at the hands of our own bitter ridicule creates that hoard of pain that we protect so fiercely and often hide so well that we forget that it’s there. The learned behaviours that protect it remain ingrained in our being always ready to be summoned, but the purpose of such defenses is easily forgotten, until we eventually defend on instinct and attack blindly anyone that strikes close to the core that we have chosen to define who we are. But we have forgotten what lies within, and so we loiter through this world pretending to be resolute and principled in our fight for the oppressed or the noble cause of preservation knowing that it resonates with us in some way but never really knowing why. And in this way we find ourselves focused on living a life aimed at leaving a legacy rather than being understood.

    I believe that among the great death bed regrets will be the realisation that we never truly showed the world who we are. It will be a moment of angst that will tear at that core that we hid so well, but even then, with eyes firmly fixed on the inevitable, fear will prevent many from being discovered. The ridicule we heaped on ourselves for what should have been bumps in the road turned them into unassailable mountains and pits of quicksand. Then we associated that ridicule with the mockery of others. To deflect attention away from our own shame we shamed another instead. It was always better to expose our flaws in others so that they would not get a chance to witness the same flaw in us. It’s a flawless strategy, except for the one paying attention.

    The one that is honest with themselves will see their flaws echoed in others, and rather than use it as a point of ridicule and deflection, they draw on it to understand and support. Reverse engineering our shame and disappointment makes us powerful, while neglecting it makes us weak. The gravity of who we are is not defined by the shame we hide within. We can never be defined by that which remains hidden. So in the absence of that full disclosure we remain undiscovered, while ensuring that the image we sell of ourselves is all that will be embraced by those around us. It is unsurprising then that even the boldest embrace often doesn’t fill the void. How can it fill the void when it isn’t allowed to reach it?

    No one will ever know the true gravity of being you. At times, that may be a comfort to you, but when it matters most it will leave you wanting, unfulfilled, and bitter, ailing from unexplained diseases that you’ll dismiss as being a natural end to a difficult life, because there is no shortage of others like you that will seek to validate your weakness. You will draw a superficial comfort from that, but deep inside, in that niche where you stashed your shame, you will feel the roots of your fear take hold one last time as you struggle to take in the air that you took for granted all your life. The gravity of being you will only weigh you down if you choose to be defined by the fickle expectations of those around you. If you were not living up to the expectations of others, you would never have reason to ridicule yourself in the face of their mockery.