psyche

That feeling is recurring more frequently now. The feeling that the entire world has to be fought. For most of my life I’ve generally believed that there are more good or at least neutral people than there are “bad” people but there are moments - for example, while witnessing acts of police brutality or watching a news report which is not-so-subtly relaying the cheery announcement that the machine is slightly more fascist than it was yesterday. I feel like I am so saturated with the false connotation of “good” and “government” that I might as well be a complete idiot.

There won’t really be anyone to turn to in the end. In the long term, things can only get worse; it is the way of the world! I’d better shape up and find a nuke bunker or a batcave or something. I am not going to think “That’d be paranoid” and end up dead in however many years.

Pax

It’s easy to experience something brilliant and want secretly to dedicate your life to it. I’ve phased through a lot of things. However, I’ve realised that to take on the world, real or fake, I’m going to have to call upon everything I am and ever was!

I am every Wikipedia article I’ve ever read, every film I’ve seen and every obscure book I’ve tried to digest. I’m every corny TV show that has flashed before me and every piece of profound poetry that has lain before me. I haven’t forgotten. I am every point I’ve ever lost, grinding my teeth and sweating as people lunge into my unprepared torso, and every checkmate - and there have been many - I have grudgingly accepted. Every wrong note I’ve played in front of so many people, every extra session I stayed for at the gym! Every volley I muffed with my unlucky tennis coach, every computer I’ve crashed, every person who’s laughed at me and every person I’ve laughed at. Every plant I watered, pair of eyes I looked into, regret I’ve had, experiment I’ve botched.

I am surprisingly inadequate as a middle-class person but feel enriched in some way. Everything I have witnessed - mistakes and all - I carry forth into the world. When whatever I have to do makes itself known, … boy will I do it!

Pax

While maybe not always displayed, I think there is present a struggle between the high and low ends of self-esteem. I thought this was something that only affected me, being a narcissist, but interestingly everyone I’ve expressed concern to about this seems to suffer from a similar thing. I looked up “Superiority complex” on Wikipedia, expecting a redirect to “God” or “Messiah” complexes but it seems that it did in fact refer to something created to compensate for an inferiority complex! There appears to be massive confirmation of what I had suspected for a long time: as if parallel to bipolar disorder, these two conflicting complexes continue to mess up any stable worldview I might adopt.

Speaking of worldviews, I think it’s no longer possible for me to rationally assess the huge number of data being fed to me through various inlets (mainly mass media). I can’t really live my life thinking “I am upset about the very real and very horrific suffering of loads and loads of people” because it would eventually destroy me. Similarly, I can’t ignore most of the world. At the moment the situation with this is similar and probably connected to the superiority/inferiority complex thing; I am sometimes feeling very bad about poverty etc. and sometimes don’t care at all. My problem is that I can only embrace extremes of behaviour, motivation and performance (yes, those overlap a lot). I guess I’m going to have to find some middle ground eventually.

A final note on modesty and humility with regards to actual self-image: I don’t really think these words offer much for me to work with as they’re ambiguous enough as to become useless.

These are the distinctions I think ought to be made:

•  Acting in a superior way
• Acting in an inferior

Remember that your outward appearance is not necessarily a straight-up reflection of what you believe; you may act proudly and outgoing-ly when you’re in fact somewhat worried and nervous or act like a shy, modest person while in fact thinking about how you’re better than everyone etc. Of these, the most important distinction to make is the one between perceived humility (because someone acts modestly) and genuine humility (which might not be represented properly in someone’s actions - they might act proudly but actually be very down to earth and just have a slightly altered external personality).

It must take some really quirky but perceptive understanding to evaluate yourself properly as not all-important when you are by nature the centre of your own experiences!

Pax