Battling my Ego
Yesterday was Regan's wedding which, needless to say, was absolutely amazing. I'm unbelievably happy for her. When I woke up today though, I had this depressive feeling of self-loathing. It was probably due to the fact that I imbibed a little too much last night. Anyway, while it was not pleasant to feel like that, it led to a period of self-reflection on my drive home from Louisville. I was thinking about who I am and how I came to be this way. I ultimately realized that I am a superficially confident yet insecure person. When I was a kid, I got picked on a lot, just as many kids do. However, for me it felt pronounced because of how outgoing I am and my proclivity to speak my mind. That lead to many situations where I would put my foot in my mouth, or just be incessantly vocal about absolutely nothing. This lead to a good amount of teasing. Furthermore, with the exacerbation of all my flaws due to my marching drum corps, I finally set on a personal journey to become a better person. What I realized today though, is that my idea of a better Bryan is completely superficial and I am a completely fake person.
In my feeble attempt to distance myself from my past, I have become a quasi-humble pretentious person, which is to say that I attempt to carry myself like a pseudo-intellectual so that people will take me more seriously than in the past, but set out to offset it with self-deprecation and inadequate attempts to seem easy-going. This means that by trying to create a sense of legitimacy to my person, I actually am a shallow individual that has based this self-constructed caricature of myself off of what I really wish I were or maybe even just how I think society would want to see me. I act more confident because I am really scared and lonely. I act like more of an intellectual because I often fear that I am inferior than the people I am surrounded by. This dicotomy of actions versus feelings is so bizarre to me. How is it that I have created this new fake image to make myself "better", but now feel as if I may be a worse person because of it? I have come to realize from this that my ego completely controls me. I've been told that one of the "great" things about me is that I don't care what people think. While this is somewhat true, it also dialectically opposes the truth of the matter which is that I both subconsciously and consciously desperately care about what others think of me. When I think about all of this, it causes me to wonder if anybody is really genuine. We all create an image of ourselves that we want others to perceive as true, whether or not we are actually how we are performing. Everything a person does shapes what others see, but the fact that people still choose what they want to disclose may negate any sense of what a person feels like is true with a person. This whole concept is somewhat somber to think about, but it has also allowed me to look inward and think about what I can do to deconstruct this ego that has dictated my actions for so long. I need to be strive for complete autonomy. Only through this can I reach peace and be set allow someone else to see who I am and be with another person. And if that were to not happen, I would be ok with that. That needs to be my goal. To be who I am. Nothing more, nothing less. I need to be able to live with myself and not feel abashed about the things that make me who I am. I can be a great person, but only if I allow myself to be genuine with how and who I am. My ego is getting in my way. It's interesting how the union two people could lead me to want to find true autonomy. Like I said before though, only through autonomy will I ever be ready for something more from both myself and others. Right?
In my feeble attempt to distance myself from my past, I have become a quasi-humble pretentious person, which is to say that I attempt to carry myself like a pseudo-intellectual so that people will take me more seriously than in the past, but set out to offset it with self-deprecation and inadequate attempts to seem easy-going. This means that by trying to create a sense of legitimacy to my person, I actually am a shallow individual that has based this self-constructed caricature of myself off of what I really wish I were or maybe even just how I think society would want to see me. I act more confident because I am really scared and lonely. I act like more of an intellectual because I often fear that I am inferior than the people I am surrounded by. This dicotomy of actions versus feelings is so bizarre to me. How is it that I have created this new fake image to make myself "better", but now feel as if I may be a worse person because of it? I have come to realize from this that my ego completely controls me. I've been told that one of the "great" things about me is that I don't care what people think. While this is somewhat true, it also dialectically opposes the truth of the matter which is that I both subconsciously and consciously desperately care about what others think of me. When I think about all of this, it causes me to wonder if anybody is really genuine. We all create an image of ourselves that we want others to perceive as true, whether or not we are actually how we are performing. Everything a person does shapes what others see, but the fact that people still choose what they want to disclose may negate any sense of what a person feels like is true with a person. This whole concept is somewhat somber to think about, but it has also allowed me to look inward and think about what I can do to deconstruct this ego that has dictated my actions for so long. I need to be strive for complete autonomy. Only through this can I reach peace and be set allow someone else to see who I am and be with another person. And if that were to not happen, I would be ok with that. That needs to be my goal. To be who I am. Nothing more, nothing less. I need to be able to live with myself and not feel abashed about the things that make me who I am. I can be a great person, but only if I allow myself to be genuine with how and who I am. My ego is getting in my way. It's interesting how the union two people could lead me to want to find true autonomy. Like I said before though, only through autonomy will I ever be ready for something more from both myself and others. Right?