... image.

"'When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. [...] There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do you call one's self? [...] I know that a large part of myself is in the dresses I choose to wear. I have a great respect for things! One's self – for other people – is one's expression of one's self; and one's house, one's clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps – these things are all expressive.'
[...]
'I don't agree with you,' [Isabel] said. 'I think just the other way. I don't know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any measure of me; on the contrary, it's a limit, a barrier, and a perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly, the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don't express me; and heaven forbid they should!'"
– Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady


This caught my attention as I recently had almost this exact exchange with a friend of mine. I tend to take the latter position, but, especially as it's laid out here, I feel pretty strongly ambivalent about this debate. I suppose that's indicative of my history with myself. I've spent the last "age" of my life learning to dissociate my sense of self from superficial or inanimate things. But that world view can get to be a bit passive. Perhaps passive isn't the exact word I want. I'll try to explain.

The passivity comes from a disinclination to give a hoot about outward appearances, I suppose. I don't always portray myself in the best light because my apartment, my clothes, whether I washed my hair today, even what mood I'm in at any given moment; to my mind these things are not representative of who I am. I view my "self" as the subtext, the idea behind the words. Words themselves can be limiting, and can be as much a barrier to communication as they are a help.

That being said, words are a help. Obviously my ideas would not be communicated at all without the help of words. So, with that analogy in mind, I'm entering into a period of learning how to better express and present myself. It's a very interesting creative challenge. I think ultimately the important thing is to try to match the internal self with the presented external self as much as possible. Over all I still land on the side of "you are not your fucking khakis,"but I have certainly taken my image more into account lately. I often feel misunderstood, and although that's bound to happen no matter what, it may happen less if I'm more careful about the way I express and present myself.

However, I guarantee I will still have days when I go to the grocery store in my pajamas. And maybe that's part of the image I want to convey. That I'm someone who is capable of articulate self-expression in every aspect of my life, but I'm also not that uptight about it.

I welcome feedback on this topic, and I'd be very interested to know how you the readers approach this issue in your own lives.

... self-loathing

Today I hate myself.

Let's be clear. I do not condone self-loathing as a lifestyle, but as a mood it can be very useful. It is my belief that no self-respecting individual has become so without experiencing their fair share of self-hatred. It's a catalyst for growth.

So today, when multiple elements of the life I want came knocking on my door and I had to turn them away due to poverty, ill-health, and the simple fact that this past week I've gotten out of practice when it comes to being ready for opportunities... well, it kinda made me hate myself.

I've spent all day half-heartedly starting projects: cleaning (a bit), writing (shitty) poetry, knitting (and unravelling) various projects, contacting friends (and then flaking out on them), stretching (well, thinking about it), and basically continuing my existence as the useless lump I've been for the last 2 weeks. Except that last week I had the excuse of being deathly ill. This week I'm just being lazy.

And I HATE being lazy.

So get your lazy ass up and do something, you say. To which I reply, yes. You're absolutely right. My excuse is gone, only the habit remains. And thank god I'm fully equipped to get that awful feeling of self-disgust in the pit of my stomach when I'm behaving in a manner that I consider to be repulsive. (Repulsive for ME. If laziness is your thing and it makes you sublimely happy then I'm all for it. For YOU.)

The beauty of self-loathing is that it's absolutely unendurable. It's the emotional equivalent of extreme nausea. They both usually mean you've done something you shouldn't have done, fixing the problem is going to be very unpleasant, but afterwards you'll feel much better. And I can tell you, after being lazy, anxious, and indecisive for 2 weeks, getting myself to get up, get dressed, and leave the fucking house, is almost as difficult as throwing up. But once I get out there the toxins are purged and I can breathe again.

Solving this problem has been extra vomity today because on top of the vast inertia sitting on top of me, is a big fat pile of poverty. That's like eating rat poison and then finding out you can't puke it up because you ARE a rat and rats can't vomit. Ok, it's not that bad, I'm not going to die from it, but the self-loathing has been especially acute today due to the fact that most of the things I would usually do to solve my lethargy problem involve paying subway fare at the very least. Which I, quite literally, can't afford. The urge to vomit increases.

The good news and the bad news is that right now all I can do is wait. The wheels are set in motion, life is on the up and up, but until my paycheck clears my bank account I'm stuck. Well, so it goes. Perhaps this instance of self-loathing is of the "wait until it passes" variety as opposed to the "sorry, but you're just gonna have to puke your guts out" variety.

And, hello, I have a paycheck that will be clearing my bank account. If that's not good news I don't know what is.

But in the meantime, I've had enough of sitting around. I'm just gonna have to get more creative with my problem solving. I'll just have to, you know, grow. And, uhhh, use my brain. How awful. But if it weren't for hating myself today, I'd just continue to sit around waiting. Thank you, horrible feeling of self-loathing, for lighting that fire under my ass.