Vanity / a chew toy for my head, yay!
Speaking of vanity, cripes, people. I laugh at you from the bastion of good genetics and not giving a damn. You are twenty-freakin'-two years old and obsessed with aging. That's really, really sad.
'Course yeah, I'm one to talk. If/when I get old I'm not going to look it. If my mom didn't smoke and (willfully) have abysmal nutrition she'd look 35, and even with that she doesn't really look her age (unlike the stereotypical "woman thing," she will not only announce her age freely but round up). Assuming I keep reasonably healthy habits, I'm pretty well set.
Still, though, I can't fathom caring about such a thing. I guess people get that way when they feel like they have nothing else to offer the world. That's... that's sad. Of all good qualities, the cute perky little type of beauty is one of the very few with an expiration date. You could at least, if you're that insanely insecure, plan to age gracefully rather than scrabble desperately at 22 for the rest of your life. Or, you know, care about something else, because your sense of humor, empathy, intelligence, et al. aren't going anywhere. Barring certain medical problems, of course.
sad. And the funny thing is that people like that pity people like me, because I never had the one thing they consider worthwhile. I pity them because they only care about something ephemeral, and ignore everything else. They are building houses on water, then bemoaning fate when they wash downstream. You kinda made your own situation there, y'know.
Of course, I am vain myself, but it's a backwards type: I obsess about catching up with everyone else, not being perfect or better than everyone else. My vanity is defensive, not superlative. I just want to blend into a crowd. I'll never get there, of course, but that's the aim of that kind of vanity.
And I don't care about getting old. If anything it will level the playing field a smidge - people who rely on their youth will have to find other qualities in themselves, the way I've always had to. At 60 they'll be about as pretty as I was at 18, but we'll all learn eventually not to build houses on water.
Funny thing, speaking of that age. I always "knew" that intelligence was all that I had going for me. I hardly drank at all in high school and college, not even a "normal" amount, for fear of killing brain cells. Stupid but true. Now, I probably am still smart down in there somewhere, but the cabinet is locked, and I don't even know if there's anything left in it. Maybe it's from lack of challenges, maybe disuse, maybe depression, probably all of them. I don't think I was ever really superlative, just early. I read on a high level as a kid, for example, but eventually everyone learns how to read, so that skill becomes useless. At any rate, I don't have intelligence anymore, and that fact has bothered me for a long time.
What this should show me, thinking about people who are desperate to stay adolescent forever, is that when one quality evaporates you need to find another. Because bemoaning the loss of that one thing isn't going to bring it back. Maybe the cabinet will unlock, given something that actually engages my brain for once. Maybe it's too rusty now and it won't. But until then, it's time to cultivate something else. Yes, I know I don't believe that I HAVE anything else, but neither do those cute little things who whine about aging at 22, and they must have something else. Besides, even if I don't have anything else, a) thinking that isn't going to get me anywhere anyway, whether or not there's something there (it's like Pascal's Wager) and b) it's something to do.
So maybe the challenge for next year is to pretend as though I have good qualities until I either find some or cultivate them. It's a project. As well as the other project, holding onto the health stuff - not only for vanity but for actual, real-live health, i.e. there's a lot of diabetes in your family history and it'd behoove you to avoid that. (Not to mention cancer, which can't be outright avoided, no matter what my dad thinks about macrobiotic food or whatever, but it certainly doesn't hurt.)
"Fake it till you make it" comes up fairly frequently in cognitive behavioral therapy, so I'm cribbing here. (OK, not in those words, but those are the words I usually think of. And less in a phony sense than "it's uncomfortable to change deeply held beliefs and depressives are wonderful dogmatists, so pretend you believe $healthything long enough and eventually you actually will believe it, after seeing it in action for a while." I don't believe that I have any good qualities, but if I act as though I believe it, I may find that there's something there after all. Again, maybe not, but it doesn't hurt either.)
A PROJECT. HOORAY.
In the abstract sense, of course. Obviously I have enough real-world project-projects to keep me occupied, but my brain needs an abstract goal or it gets bored, and you don't want my brain to get bored, trust me. It starts chewing on itself and weird shit happens.
I had a weird dream last night that I don't remember much now. It involved walking through a long, scary path, in a building that might have looked like a pyramid. It was set a little apart from the rest of the city that I'd been in earlier in the dream, with a long walkway leading up to one side. Modern, and well-known by the other people in the dream. I don't remember why it was scary. I don't think it was violent, but there were threatening shadowy figures of some sort, and the usual tactic was to take on invisibility with a magical artifact (I am aware that that makes no sense, shut up) and slip through unseen. It was a modern building, with a lot of hallways. The beginning seemed to have normal commerce/business type stuff going on in it, and was fairly crowded, but there were also threatening things in the crowd; later it was more dark and industrial and had less normal traffic.
The first time I tried I attempted to be invisible; it was expected, I think. Later I went with equal anxiety (I remember riding a bus through an unfamiliar area to get there, an infrequently recurring anxiety theme in my dreams, and the people around were familiar with the whole gauntlet thing). That time I wound up going without the invisibility, I don't remember why - and finished without even intending to finish. There wasn't a moment of STANDING UP AGAINST THE FORCES OF WHATEVER; I just wasn't attacked/killed/whatever as I assumed I would when un-invisible (the threat was still there, but I could dodge it better than I expected), and escaped anyway, and made it through. Walked out of an unlit hallway into a city area vaguely reminiscent of downtown Liberty Avenue. It seemed to be an impressive thing to make it through.
My subconscious is weird, but probably about as subtle as a brick to the head. Though the night before I woke from an extremely surreal dream that I feel like I shouldn't have remembered, so it does have the ability.
I have a weird compulsion to do something on New Year's Eve. I haven't in just about forever. 'Course, I have weird compulsions all the time, and it's probably best to look the other way. Still. Hm. May have to email around and see if anything's up, or whip something up if not. Conversely I could finally use up the amaretto on top of the fridge drinking alcoholic coffee by myself and finishing that damn video idea. That also works.
'Course yeah, I'm one to talk. If/when I get old I'm not going to look it. If my mom didn't smoke and (willfully) have abysmal nutrition she'd look 35, and even with that she doesn't really look her age (unlike the stereotypical "woman thing," she will not only announce her age freely but round up). Assuming I keep reasonably healthy habits, I'm pretty well set.
Still, though, I can't fathom caring about such a thing. I guess people get that way when they feel like they have nothing else to offer the world. That's... that's sad. Of all good qualities, the cute perky little type of beauty is one of the very few with an expiration date. You could at least, if you're that insanely insecure, plan to age gracefully rather than scrabble desperately at 22 for the rest of your life. Or, you know, care about something else, because your sense of humor, empathy, intelligence, et al. aren't going anywhere. Barring certain medical problems, of course.
sad. And the funny thing is that people like that pity people like me, because I never had the one thing they consider worthwhile. I pity them because they only care about something ephemeral, and ignore everything else. They are building houses on water, then bemoaning fate when they wash downstream. You kinda made your own situation there, y'know.
Of course, I am vain myself, but it's a backwards type: I obsess about catching up with everyone else, not being perfect or better than everyone else. My vanity is defensive, not superlative. I just want to blend into a crowd. I'll never get there, of course, but that's the aim of that kind of vanity.
And I don't care about getting old. If anything it will level the playing field a smidge - people who rely on their youth will have to find other qualities in themselves, the way I've always had to. At 60 they'll be about as pretty as I was at 18, but we'll all learn eventually not to build houses on water.
Funny thing, speaking of that age. I always "knew" that intelligence was all that I had going for me. I hardly drank at all in high school and college, not even a "normal" amount, for fear of killing brain cells. Stupid but true. Now, I probably am still smart down in there somewhere, but the cabinet is locked, and I don't even know if there's anything left in it. Maybe it's from lack of challenges, maybe disuse, maybe depression, probably all of them. I don't think I was ever really superlative, just early. I read on a high level as a kid, for example, but eventually everyone learns how to read, so that skill becomes useless. At any rate, I don't have intelligence anymore, and that fact has bothered me for a long time.
What this should show me, thinking about people who are desperate to stay adolescent forever, is that when one quality evaporates you need to find another. Because bemoaning the loss of that one thing isn't going to bring it back. Maybe the cabinet will unlock, given something that actually engages my brain for once. Maybe it's too rusty now and it won't. But until then, it's time to cultivate something else. Yes, I know I don't believe that I HAVE anything else, but neither do those cute little things who whine about aging at 22, and they must have something else. Besides, even if I don't have anything else, a) thinking that isn't going to get me anywhere anyway, whether or not there's something there (it's like Pascal's Wager) and b) it's something to do.
So maybe the challenge for next year is to pretend as though I have good qualities until I either find some or cultivate them. It's a project. As well as the other project, holding onto the health stuff - not only for vanity but for actual, real-live health, i.e. there's a lot of diabetes in your family history and it'd behoove you to avoid that. (Not to mention cancer, which can't be outright avoided, no matter what my dad thinks about macrobiotic food or whatever, but it certainly doesn't hurt.)
"Fake it till you make it" comes up fairly frequently in cognitive behavioral therapy, so I'm cribbing here. (OK, not in those words, but those are the words I usually think of. And less in a phony sense than "it's uncomfortable to change deeply held beliefs and depressives are wonderful dogmatists, so pretend you believe $healthything long enough and eventually you actually will believe it, after seeing it in action for a while." I don't believe that I have any good qualities, but if I act as though I believe it, I may find that there's something there after all. Again, maybe not, but it doesn't hurt either.)
A PROJECT. HOORAY.
In the abstract sense, of course. Obviously I have enough real-world project-projects to keep me occupied, but my brain needs an abstract goal or it gets bored, and you don't want my brain to get bored, trust me. It starts chewing on itself and weird shit happens.
I had a weird dream last night that I don't remember much now. It involved walking through a long, scary path, in a building that might have looked like a pyramid. It was set a little apart from the rest of the city that I'd been in earlier in the dream, with a long walkway leading up to one side. Modern, and well-known by the other people in the dream. I don't remember why it was scary. I don't think it was violent, but there were threatening shadowy figures of some sort, and the usual tactic was to take on invisibility with a magical artifact (I am aware that that makes no sense, shut up) and slip through unseen. It was a modern building, with a lot of hallways. The beginning seemed to have normal commerce/business type stuff going on in it, and was fairly crowded, but there were also threatening things in the crowd; later it was more dark and industrial and had less normal traffic.
The first time I tried I attempted to be invisible; it was expected, I think. Later I went with equal anxiety (I remember riding a bus through an unfamiliar area to get there, an infrequently recurring anxiety theme in my dreams, and the people around were familiar with the whole gauntlet thing). That time I wound up going without the invisibility, I don't remember why - and finished without even intending to finish. There wasn't a moment of STANDING UP AGAINST THE FORCES OF WHATEVER; I just wasn't attacked/killed/whatever as I assumed I would when un-invisible (the threat was still there, but I could dodge it better than I expected), and escaped anyway, and made it through. Walked out of an unlit hallway into a city area vaguely reminiscent of downtown Liberty Avenue. It seemed to be an impressive thing to make it through.
My subconscious is weird, but probably about as subtle as a brick to the head. Though the night before I woke from an extremely surreal dream that I feel like I shouldn't have remembered, so it does have the ability.
I have a weird compulsion to do something on New Year's Eve. I haven't in just about forever. 'Course, I have weird compulsions all the time, and it's probably best to look the other way. Still. Hm. May have to email around and see if anything's up, or whip something up if not. Conversely I could finally use up the amaretto on top of the fridge drinking alcoholic coffee by myself and finishing that damn video idea. That also works.