jan29

I've recently been having a bunch of shadow qualities/suppressed truths coming into awareness. It's strange, they're not pretty but for some reason I'm kind of delighted by them. It's like ah - there you are! That's who's been hiding under there! And actually, it's been surprisingly easy to embrace and love myself more for them.

It's relieving to more clearly see how much of a flawed and fallible human I am underneath the pretty thoughts and efforts to transcend. For the most part it seems like I'm just better than some at (over)compensating for my shortcomings and obscuring them behind more pleasing external expressions, and I started doing so from such an early age that I lost touch with the feelings and instincts driving the compensatory projections. There's obvious intelligence and potential there but so far it's all been harnessed for this stupid way of living.

The most uncomfortable thing about it is how compulsive it all is. No matter how much I may learn or realize it still takes over and runs the show, especially when I'm interacting with others, particularly those I've known a long time. I'm compelled into acting like the version of myself I and others have come to expect of me. I'm often compulsively agreeable to the extent that I'm barely reaching the surface of my interactions. I get lost behind my own politeness and overconsideration for the comfort and feelings of others. Not out of any selfless reasons, as I've come to realize, but out of fear and conditioning. In a way it's all I know - it's how I learned to socialize. I've been realizing how many of my relationships only work because I'm so good at keeping my mouth shut and basically acting as an affirming mirror/sounding board/emotional toilet, which was my primary function at home. That's how I learned to be in relationship. But I'm also afraid of others, and afraid of what might happen if I step too far out of line. Afraid of their feelings, judgment, ridicule, criticism, misunderstanding, rejection, conflict. In short, I'm a coward. Nothing noble about it. I'm a selfish, phony coward, among other things. The question now is, what to do with this awareness? I don't want to be this way forever.

It occured to me that one of the core reasons is that rather than genuinely maturing I've just been acting more mature, really since I was a kid. To really grow rather than just maintaining what I've come to know, I likely need to be willing to strip the compensatory behaviors, pretenses and screens away and let my true self/feelings emerge and start engaging and learning through direct contact with others/the external environment. In short, I need to stop acting and actually experience what happens when I'm vulnerable/real, even/especially if others don't respond positively.

This is the way true maturation happens - it comes when internal authenticity collides with external resistance. Otherwise there's just a stunted and fearful child putting up forcefields to keep itself feeling temporarily safe from a world that still seems too frightening and overwhelming, until it can crawl back into its room/womb. This is an immature perspective and way of being, because a mature person is aware that life is inherently insecure and that death is inevitable. To live in a chronic state of anxiety and control/avoidance with this awareness is just stupid, because it's all provisional and going to disappear no matter what. Once mommy and daddy are no longer standing nearby it's the awareness of the inevitability of death that enables one to be bold and willing in the face of insecurity and fear. Or something like that. I can't tell if I'm slipping into pretentiousness again...I'm trying to convey something. Basically that I might think I know better, but I don't really. Because this is all in my head, it's the inference of logical thinking - thoughts and words. It hasn't come via experience through my colliding honestly with life. It's just theory, I don't really know shit. For all I really know it just is what it is and there's nothing that can be done.

Anyways, some wonderfully ugly things coming to light recently. It's been clarifying in some unexpected ways. I've further realized how bored and finished I am with almost everything I've come to know. For one thing I'm bored of tasting new foods. I don't really eat for pleasure anymore, I just want to eat whatever keeps me feeling clear, alert and satiated. I don't really enjoy hanging out, chatting about most things and playing games anymore either. I want to enjoy it and might act like I am to be polite/pleasant company, but I'm not really. What I enjoy now is following my own arising instincts, desires, interests, relaxation and growth without this nagging pull to keep other peoples' preferences and feelings in mind. I enjoy being internally guided and free from all that. Everything is looking more and more like the same old shit different day. Even the big things are starting to look like that.

I just want to follow my heart now, on a moment to moment basis. I'm tired of doing the same social gestures and rituals over and over and over, to be a nice person, a good friend, a good whatever. I don't want to do it anymore. I've lived all that out ad nauseum and now I want to shed that skin. I want to do my own thing now, and I don't want to worry about anyone else. I don't want to just be a pleasant addition to the lives of others. I'm bored/finished with that. I want to be myself now, or rather to commit to growing into who I really am/could be underneath these social patterns and behaviors. I want to give myself the freedom to explore and be myself, without encroaching upon the freedom/boundaries of others. A mutually granted and respected freedom. And I want to bring that into my relations with others. But right now, I can't reliably seem to do it. The gravitational force of habit and fear are strong. I can't seem to do both at once. And like I said, I'm a coward. I don't know what to do about it right now, and it still feels like there are significant gaps and blindspots in my understanding and awareness of myself. I can tell myself what to do but when the moment comes the odds are generally high that I'll slip back into old patterns. I seem to be powerless, at least to immediately change.

But change does happen, slowly. Very slowly, almost imperceptibly. So I guess all I can do is keep going. Keep meditating, keep inquiring, keep feeling/releasing, keep getting silent so the body/mind can continue to work itself out.

I haven't lived at all yet. Not really. I'm grateful for some of the things I've experienced, but for the most part I haven't lived them. I'm hardly present in my life at all, at least interpersonally. Someone is showing up on the surface of my life but it's rarely me. It's mostly a bunch of fear and unconscious patterns puppeting this corpse. I haven't really taken shape yet. There's still a long way to go.