jan14

Got another compliment on my intellect today, or rather the clarity with which I communicate my thoughts. It's interesting how quickly praise can go from feeling pleasantly stimulating to uncomfortably confining. For a time I was getting complimented way too much on my appearance and demeanor and eventually felt more self-conscious and insecure than ever. I worked through it in time but it really messed me up for a while. I don't want the same thing to happen with my intellect, but maybe it's necessary in a way to move through and drop things. I'm already losing interest in it.

After all, what's the big flippin whoop? So I can describe things well. So what? Am I joyful? Am I free? Am I loving? Am I whole? Am I at ease with being and expressing who I really am? These are closer to what really matters. Intellect is just another shiny toy, not so different from a nice face and outfit. They can be more of a hindrance than a help if those deeper core qualities are underdeveloped, as they are in me. Because it's tempting to refine and construct a superficial ego identity around those surface things since it impresses people and makes them want you. They feel inferior in relation and inflated by association, and if I'm not careful it can make me feel unjustifiably superior which will in turn make everyone, including myself, feel insecure and worthless deep down. Over trifles. Words and appearances.

I don't know how to feel about this really. I don't want to put myself down or devalue aspects of myself, especially if they're really gifts that I'm failing to appreciate and enjoy due to my own misuse. I guess I just feel frustrated. I feel frustrated that I'm still failing to get through my own defenses. I'm still misrepresenting myself. I'm trying to have my thoughts understood rather than relaxing into and expressing who I really am. Once it was charm, then looks, and now thoughts. I don't really feel met or nourished in any of those things. Actually I feel used somehow, and like what really matters is lost somewhere behind the surface while others benefit. I make myself useful and then feel used. Go fig.

I've met some people who want to be closer, and I'm tempted but I'm also wary. I don't want to get into these boring dynamics where we sit together and yammer the contents of our minds at each other to stave off loneliness and despair. But I still don't know how to drop the bullshit and ask for what I really want, or even what that is a lot of the time. I still act too nice, polite, cautious, cerebral. So I get bored! I get so bored, of myself and others. Mostly me though. Almost entirely me actually. It's me! I bore myself, and then I get bored when others reflect back the boring shit I'm putting out. I don't want to have an intellectually stimulating conversation! That shit is boring! I want to laugh and have fun!! But I'm so uptight and in my head ahhhhh!! And I'm scared of getting close to people, mostly because I'm scared of hurting them by being honest or avoiding being honest. It feels like a double bind - boned either way.

I know I'll get past this. I know I will, it's inevitable at this point. It's already happening. But it's not going to happen tomorrow. I'll have to work at it slowly and arduously for a while. I want that freedom so badly, to just feel free to follow my own heart and act on my own instincts without being so confined by feelings of guilt, fear and shame around how others might feel about it. I'm like a prisoner to their feelings, or rather my own feelings about their feelings. I'm still imprisoned by my feelings and misplaced sense of responsibility. I want to be free.

Which means I'll have to continue facing and feeling into my feelings without running back into my defences. The way out is through.