Ode to Myself

However counterintuitive it may be, the many traits I profoundly dislike about myself don’t hold me back from loving myself, and that’s all that matters.

All the pain I’ve gone through in spite of my privileges, and all the effort I’ve put into becoming worthy of my own love and respect, they all have to count for something, and they surely do.

I say, I’m smitten with my quirkiness—my behaviour and way of thinking, the way I smile and chortle, and the sounds I make when I’m nervous or livid; the way I empathize with others, the helping hands I’ve lent, how I repress outbursts of profanity, only to let it all out in a stream of impotence; the scars on my skin, the missing parts of my body, my unaligned spine and crooked fingers, all the sinister and archaic terminology I’ve obstinately internalized, only to fail to name commonplace objects; the occasional stuttering, the frequent cracking of my bones, the strength I muster up to overcome my tinnitus day after day, and the endless stimming that mollifies my soul; my voice, hair, and toes, my eyes and eyelashes, and all the moles scattered throughout my body.

I’m deeply in love with how I deal with my mild OCD, ADHD, and possible Asperger’s, as I am the way I internally control my tantrums, which oftentimes are at odds with the circumstances.
I’m absolutely enraptured by my compersion for others; how affectionate and kindhearted I am, the good friend that I am, the loving and thoughtful partner I am, who cares too much about everything but fails to pull himself together in a few key moments as a result of being overly overwhelmed.

I love my words, my accent, and my articulation. I love my naiveté that gets me in trouble every time I socialize, and I also love my softness and femininity that permeate my musical and literary preferences.

And, after all this, all I can think of is how much my awesomeness far outweighs my flaws, and how much more fascinated rather than repulsed by myself I am.
So, during gloomy days like today, remember these words—your words—, embrace and celebrate your identity, and please never cease to stay true to yourself.

Unconditional love

Suffice it to say, we all yearn such kind of love, regardless of whether we’ve felt it or not. It’s a deep-seated unmet need we all seem to possess—or should I say, endure—and we often let it set up our parameters for social interaction, bonding, and love. And thus, unconditional love has become a quality of virtue—you’re good so long as you love your kids, spouse, sister or friends, unconditionally.

I want someone to love me just the way I am, no matter what—that premise seems to be in the back of our minds; however, do we really grasp the significance of such need? Or, better put, do we actually intend to receive unconditional love from someone or to love them unconditionally?

Here are some thoughts you might want to factor in. The first one is simply understanding what unconditional means: indeed, it’s basically something not limited in any way, without conditions, ergo, consequences. So what unconditional love really means is loving—or being loved—void of boundaries, in spite of anything deeply hurtful or otherwise unacceptable. It could very well mean to opt out of falling in conflict when you should fall in conflict. Considering the whole range of the spectrum of the phenomenon, it can also mean to sabotage yourself or someone by not doing anything when you or someone feels undignified.

That doesn’t sound reasonable, does it?

Wanting unconditional love from a person means to not want any pressure or expectations on you. On that note, it may not be actually love what you’re looking for; rather, validation and acceptance, as loving is more convoluted than validating or approving of someone— love equals actions, not merely interpretations—. To want unconditional love translates into craving an unconditional relationship, and to truly love someone means to recognize conditions of both parts.

When it is about a committed relationship of two people alike, laying down the conditions and standing by them over time may be a smooth process, but when two people have opposite values; i.e., lifestyles, personalities, priorities, it gets extremely challenging to maintain an equilibrium. That means low compatibility averts the possibility of staying together in the same relationship configuration and be fulfilled. Conversely, high compatibility ensures that what you are, in overall, benefits the other person.

Truth be told, your primary parter may be the least person you’d get unconditional love from, as much counterintuitive as it may sound, on the grounds that they are the person who has the most skin in the game—the person who is more directly affected by the decisions you make for yourself; what you are, say, or do. For someone to love you unconditionally, they’d have to disconnect themself from you and not feel threatened by any misbehaviour that breaches one or many of their established conditions, which would not be a healthy deal.

A primary relationship will always be a cocktail of pressure, joy, expectations, and commitment, and as much disheartening as it may be at first, the idea of loving conditionally actually paves the road for a healthy relationship—if your conditions align with your partner’s conditions, you’ll both feel respected, appreciated, validated, accepted, and ultimately loved, which is what you initially signed up for.

Hi?

Sometimes I feel as though living is just en endless array of possibilities for you to reminisce about your childhood, to replay every treasured memory, every scent, every look, sentiment, even pain. If you were lucky enough to have had a wonderful childhood, like I did, adulthood is nonexistent, and I don’t mean it like Peter-Pan syndrome, I just truly believe the associations you establish as a child are the most prominent and pungent ones, and you either wish you could go back in time to breathe all that in for one more time, or change everything and have a better shot at life.

And bewildered, I just keep on longing for my young parents, depression-free sister, missed dogs, arcane melodies, and the state of being at peace to come back to me. To say hi to me and hug me.

I miss my innocence, perfect health, uncrooked fingers and soul. No tinnitus, no anxiety, no solitude, no self-loathing. I want to go back in time and smile, run, watch cartoons, learn and create. I want freedom, my friends, soccer, my whole future ahead of me. I want magical chocolate bars, start over, my first crush, being seven.
I want that
I want me.

Who is me?
I miss me.
Day in and day out.
Perhaps I can find him on a Gilmore Girls episode, or underneath my barefeet walking on asphalt.

Wait… I think I just saw him.
I think I just saw him.
I-I think I just…
Saw him…

That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore

I’ve been holding The Smiths’ big hit ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’ under close scrutiny lately. I’ve never been too good at interpreting songs efficiently. Maybe they aren’t supposed to have one specific meaning, but I think I’ve pinpointed the exact meaning Morrissey intended. Naturally, I could be wrong after all.
I’ll break the lyrics down into chunks. The first one goes like this:

Park the car at the side of the road
You should know
Time’s tide will smother you
And I will too
When you laugh about people who feel so
Very lonely
Their only desire is to die
Well, I’m afraid
It doesn’t make me smile
I wish I could laugh

Morrissey points out that what his friend makes fun of is not actually chucklesome. In fact, he finds it outrageous that someone would mock such a phenomenon — lonely people. But maybe he goes beyond loneliness and makes reference to all collectives that are slightly shunned or gruesomely derided by society; the LGTBIQ+ community,  polyamorous folks, the physically challenged, and all the underprivileged. However, he acknowledges that he wishes he could laugh, too, hinting that he wishes he weren’t so down to earth and so easily hurt by that.

But that joke isn’t funny anymore
It’s too close to home
And it’s too near the bone
It’s too close to home
And it’s too near the bone
More than you’ll ever know…

Now he makes evident that the reason he does not find that joke funny is on account of how much that resonates with his own life presently. He doesn’t laugh because he’s lonely and wretched, too, just like the people his friend stomps on. It’s a matter of empathy. Morrissey has now put himself in the shoes of woe itself and got a taste of his own medicine.

Kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down

The act of making fun of hurt, miserable, lonely people is ignominious and disgraceful. Only cowardly people would deliberately aggravate these people’s grief. Moreover, Morrissey calls people on their sickening, sly, mischievous proclivity to take advantage of the fallen.

It was dark as I drove the point home
And on cold leather seats
Well, it suddenly struck me
I just might die with a smile on my
Face after all

Now irony finds its way to Morrissey’s head and he snaps out of his self-pity. Suddenly, he realizes he is on leather seats and his grievance against his friend’s hurtful behavior had not contemplated the most vulnerable of beings: animals. And so he giggles a bit out of irony. This premise is underpinned by the album front cover design that reads: “Meat is murder.”

I’ve seen this happen in other people’s Lives
And now it’s happening in mine (7 times)

I’ve seen this happen in other people’s
Lives
Oh…
And now, now, now it’s happening in mine
Happening in mine
Mine, mine
Happening in mine

The final part of this song emphasizes his grief over the realization that he is, unfortunately, part of the sullen population whose misery guides their path in life. Simultaneously, he may refer to people’s putrefying morality. Their hypocrisy that taught him ambiguous ethical codes, and made him unaware of other sentient beings’ suffering — they are just as lonely and godforsaken as unprivileged people. Now he is just as hypocrite as anybody else, and he feels rotten inside. He’s no special. he’s just the same.

 

Ageing

Someone shared with me his fear of ageing prematurely. He was preoccupied with the notion that time goes by too quickly, and he also expressed curiosity as to what it would feel like being of old age.

-What does it feel like being, say, sixty or ninety as opposed to twenty-seven? —he pondered, to which I replied with a resounding sigh of uncertainty:

-Boy, I wish I knew that, but I figure it wouldn’t feel as alien to us considering the length of time we’ve been alive.

-How do you mean? —he asked.

-I mean, do you feel any different now than when you were, I don’t know, fifteen?

-Oh… Uh… Not really. I know I behave differently now and do totally different things, but I–I guess I’m the same person.

-I feel the same way—I replied—I’m twenty-five and there is an eighteen-year-old inside of me. However, by the time I was eighteen, there was a twelve-year-old taking over. In other words, you think you grow up but, in reality, you just behave according to what society expects from you at a given age.

-So, what you’re saying is we don’t really age? —he inquired.

-Pretty much. Your identity doesn’t age at all. The process of maturation is the by-product of growing out of certain habits by means of tedium and social pressure. I mean, you get bored because your brain gets all desensitized to certain stimuli and because it craves validation and acceptance. That’s when you drop off some old habits and engage in new ones, only those new habits happen to pertain to a socially-constructed, higher-maturation level, and society makes you think you’re growing up, but you’re not—you’re just making sense of the world as your despondent body decays.

-… and that’s why being twenty-five feels no different, in essence, than being sixty or ninety—he interrupted.

Agency

While people may share certain behavioural aspects, owing to a whole slew of societal and some biological factors, it is counterproductive and senseless to define them all by means of a dichotomy under a massive spectrum, i.e., as men or women, as though humans were devoid of individuality, or as though their biological sex assigned to them at birth were the most salient charateristic of their agency, or as though they had no agency.

People are individual organisms and should be regarded as such. The fact that we all inhabit one specific community doesn’t mean we should be analyzed solely as a collective, especially when we’re striving to determine the nature of each one of us.

I’m a man, yet that category is not the major constituent of my identity. And if you judge me based on my gender or biological sex, you’d better think twice as your predictions about me are more likely than not going to be inaccurate.

Musical attachment

Don’t you hate it when you notice that your favourite songs of all time are riddled with crappy, misogynistic, homophobic, and racist lyrics?

It’s awkward and unpleasant when you find yourself rocking your body to the sound of those songs while you’re aware they really suck but you can’t help it because they mean so much to you emotionally–they’ve been there for you and bring out tons of memories along. And it’s too late, your whole childhood and past experiences are attached to them. You’re hopeless wishing you hadn’t listened to them at an early age, putting the blame on people surrounding you for their bad taste in music or regretting that you didn’t speak the language of those songs.

It’s over.

Friend zone

We need to come to terms with the fact that unrequited love exists in spite of how painful it is. We just have to embrace it and deal with it. Nonetheless, as much as ‘friend zone’ and non-reciprocated love are similar in meaning, the former one is nuanced by an inappropriate demand from the person put at a disadvantage, wittingly or unwittingly, explicitly or implicitly, that has to do with their wish to have their love reciprocated, even though they’ve been repeatedly told it’s not and will never be, but somehow they keep on hoping that it might be returned down the road if they behave accordingly, and at that blurry moment you pass from enduring a natural, healthy unrequited love to becoming diseased in the friend zone.

People are not vending machines you put friendship tokens in until sex pops out, either, as movies make them out to be. No one owes anybody anything in the love or sex department. It seems obvious, but sometimes you must restate the obvious.

Philosophers

The striking horror of life varies from person to person, but it’s highly regulated by the degree of distraction we get to experience. We turn to entertainment when we’re caught up in painful chaos or boredom. Impoverished humans seek out distraction, but it comes in small quantities and low-frequency, so that enables them to have a more precise outlook on what life really is. Conversely, affluent people are given a myriad of different kinds of amusement, but fail to fulfill their most inner desires, the reason being that nobody can’t be absolutely content with their life, no matter the possessions, places or partners; it’s simply not possible. Besides, they’ve been living in a bubble most of their lives they can’t even figure out what they truly want.

Yet, wealthy people strive to reach out to that level of fulfillment since they snapped into consciousness. That’s their goal in life: to become happy. In the meantime, people facing thorny problems are always prioritizing survival over satisfaction, but the moment they’re not under unbearable pain, they resort to entertainment as a way out. Hence, both groups constantly avoid the aforementioned existential horror of life, everybody does. Who would be silly enough to think about that kind of stuff on a regular basis anyway? Now, that’s something a person who is neither wealthy nor poor can answer. Middle-class people own philosophy for a reason, do they not?

Hypocrisy

It’s not unusual to come across someone who claims that hypocrisy is wrong and harmful, yet they they behave hypocritically at some point during the day as they are human beings. The truth of the matter is you fall into this spectrum of inconsistency way more often than you’d think. It’s extremely hard to deliver on your promises and to act according to what you believe in at all times. So, what is it about pretending you’re free from hypocrisy?

First off, it’s pretty difficult to set your principles and organize your thoughts into categories, let alone being coherent to those ideas at all times for the rest of your life. There will always be moments when you will fail to be faithful to your visionary perspective on life, and that is OK.

Whether you are convinced that being a vegan or against any form of violence is at the peak of ethics, and you strive to be the best person as you can possibly be in accordance with those principles, chances are you will be a hypocrite to some degree. Maybe you’re secretly into cheese cakes, and you drool whenever you think about having a slice of it — that is hypocrisy, technically speaking, as you’re probably speaking out against the unfairness of animal suffering on a regular basis, yet you’re craving for that cake. You just keep it to yourself.

Don’t get me started on capitalism.

However, as I said, that is totally OK and expected — you’re just a human being. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Embrace your flaws and go on with your life. It would be convenient, though, that next time you feel the need to criticize hypocrisy, dare to think twice and realize we’re all a bunch of hypocrites.

The trick is to avoid being a hypocrite as much as you can.