my penis, meeeaahh
My whole life, I've felt like I have been letting somebody down. I have put this on many people over the years, many of which probably weren't deserving of it. While I have sometimes tried to work towards atoning for this vague sense of failed accomplishment, I have in fact spent a great deal of time rebelling and hiding out from what, in my mind, has seemed to be some concept of grand destiny.
Tonight, drinking a glass of milk while not sleeping, staring at a presently downed charcoal depiction of the dour face of one of my many long dead ancestors, I think I finally figured it out. All my life, the images of my progenitors have stared joylessly from their photos and paintings in the hallway at me, and all throughout my growing up I was acutely aware that I had it easier then any of them ever did, and that the advantage this granted me should allow me to surpass them. This started long before I ever had the personal resources, in either cognitive maturity or general life skills, to accomplish what I perceived this would mean.
Realistically I know that everyone has a family history. It is one thing, however, to know that you came from some place, and another entirely to see them staring at you every goddamn day, as if waiting for you to do something which has yet to be explained as the thing you were meant to do. My imagination makes me write stories behind things, and I guess this is what came out of having a hundred faces that look like something between excerpts from a history textbook and my father.
Every day of my life I have spent passing by all those dead eyes in which I have not done some grand and weighty thing has knocked loose another drop of shame into a fathomless reservoir of self doubt and self loathing, which has only served to engulf any potential further achievements within its depths as I have attempted to hide from a judgment I could never possibly be found by as anything other then lacking.
How does one live up to the combined expectations of history, particularly when they are voiced by your own mad brain? Call it an incarnation of my own fear of inadequacy, or a simple self critique turned cyclical, or whatever you want. Back during the time when I still believed in things like a concretely understandable afterlife, in which the residents might be able to peak in on terrestrial affairs, in my darkest childhood moments I imagined that those ancient and austere figures could not possibly be happy in the here-after, seeing where their bloodline has lead.
I know what you're probably saying. Wow Dan. You're fucking crazy. Yeah, maybe. I think my coming to this realization is a good thing. I have found a variety of ways of saying this to myself before, many of which I have aired in this very medium, but it's something I have a history of battling with. Life is right now. What you were effects your right now, but it doesn't dictate it. The trick to surviving one's mistakes in life is forgiving one's self for them, embedding the lessons that can be gleaned from them, and moving forward.
For the first time in some time, I really feel like I have things going for me. School is going well, I have a concept of who I am and what I want, and I've started actually working towards accomplishments rather then quietly dreading their arrival. There are times I wish desperately that I could hunt down and tell off the people in my past that I let walk all over me in my self-inflicted victimhood, but that anger is in itself misplaced. I was a part of that equation as much as they were, and again, we live right now, going forward. Within my own life, I am a fucking god.
It's 4:00 in the morning. I am a sleepy fucking god.
Tonight, drinking a glass of milk while not sleeping, staring at a presently downed charcoal depiction of the dour face of one of my many long dead ancestors, I think I finally figured it out. All my life, the images of my progenitors have stared joylessly from their photos and paintings in the hallway at me, and all throughout my growing up I was acutely aware that I had it easier then any of them ever did, and that the advantage this granted me should allow me to surpass them. This started long before I ever had the personal resources, in either cognitive maturity or general life skills, to accomplish what I perceived this would mean.
Realistically I know that everyone has a family history. It is one thing, however, to know that you came from some place, and another entirely to see them staring at you every goddamn day, as if waiting for you to do something which has yet to be explained as the thing you were meant to do. My imagination makes me write stories behind things, and I guess this is what came out of having a hundred faces that look like something between excerpts from a history textbook and my father.
Every day of my life I have spent passing by all those dead eyes in which I have not done some grand and weighty thing has knocked loose another drop of shame into a fathomless reservoir of self doubt and self loathing, which has only served to engulf any potential further achievements within its depths as I have attempted to hide from a judgment I could never possibly be found by as anything other then lacking.
How does one live up to the combined expectations of history, particularly when they are voiced by your own mad brain? Call it an incarnation of my own fear of inadequacy, or a simple self critique turned cyclical, or whatever you want. Back during the time when I still believed in things like a concretely understandable afterlife, in which the residents might be able to peak in on terrestrial affairs, in my darkest childhood moments I imagined that those ancient and austere figures could not possibly be happy in the here-after, seeing where their bloodline has lead.
I know what you're probably saying. Wow Dan. You're fucking crazy. Yeah, maybe. I think my coming to this realization is a good thing. I have found a variety of ways of saying this to myself before, many of which I have aired in this very medium, but it's something I have a history of battling with. Life is right now. What you were effects your right now, but it doesn't dictate it. The trick to surviving one's mistakes in life is forgiving one's self for them, embedding the lessons that can be gleaned from them, and moving forward.
For the first time in some time, I really feel like I have things going for me. School is going well, I have a concept of who I am and what I want, and I've started actually working towards accomplishments rather then quietly dreading their arrival. There are times I wish desperately that I could hunt down and tell off the people in my past that I let walk all over me in my self-inflicted victimhood, but that anger is in itself misplaced. I was a part of that equation as much as they were, and again, we live right now, going forward. Within my own life, I am a fucking god.
It's 4:00 in the morning. I am a sleepy fucking god.