I live in my head more than I live any place real. I prefer songs about mountains to actual mountains, the future or past to the present. I mean, I’m in North Carolina right now, and I would rather listen to the song “Carolina in My Mind” and think about being here, than be here.
The goal of spirituality or any other form of self-improvement is, to me, to be able to sit in the now with no distractions and to feel at peace. To be happy with myself without thinking of who I should turn into in the future, to be happy with my present experience without dreaming of what my life needs to become later. I’ve heard that life is what happens while you’re making other plans, but what makes me sad is that life seems to be what happens while you’re trying to think of something else.
It has taken me a long time to realize that ignoring reality does not change it. It sounds obvious, but I don’t think I’m the only person who has tried to overcome problems by pretending they don’t exist or don’t bother me. Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” And there’s nothing the unhealthy part of me likes more than a famous person backing up my denial and other toxic coping mechanisms, but it’s not that simple. A lot of stuff is not in our control. We are given our personalities for better or for worse, and we can think about how we should be one way or another, feel one way or another, and it’s not going to change the truth at all.
You can insist the floor is clean because it should be clean, or you can admit it’s not and get rid of the dirt. What hurts will still hurt even if you tell yourself it doesn’t; what you want deep down you will continue to want even if you think you shouldn’t need it.
I think it requires a lot of self-love to be honest about who you are. We all have reasons to be ashamed of or even to despise ourselves, and you won’t let yourself see the extent of that (to make the best of it) if you don’t believe in your other redeeming qualities. You can’t develop real confidence without self-awareness. The ego is fragile when it’s running from the truth.
There’s no point in running from anything. You won’t end up somewhere better, or anywhere different at all. Why can’t we be happy with what we have? Why is it so hard to admit we have enough? And if we have enough, why are we unhappy?
I like the constancy of reality, though. I can hate someone or love them, and it has nothing to do with whether they deserve either. My feelings are one thing, the other person is probably many different things, and both exist separately from each other. I could be convinced their karma is coming, and they will instead live a happy life. It doesn’t matter what I think.
I hate what I write sometimes because it shows where I’m pretentious or trying too hard or feeling sorry for myself. But I would be all those things whether I wrote about it or not, and it would probably be obvious to everyone else anyway. It just doesn’t matter.
It is what it is. It will continue to be. There’s no point in pretending we aren’t fucked up because we are, everyone is, so what? That’s nothing new to the world. The ocean has watched us have the same problems for thousands of years.
I could go outside and breathe in the fresh air and smile, or sit inside myself and worry about my weight and if I was right about x, y, and z—and forget that I’m not that important. Or remember it and be free. We want to be something and important and special and why? It doesn’t change that we still are nothing more than what we are. We tell stories about our lives but it doesn’t change that story or no story, it all exists just as it is.
I could worry about whether I ought to publish this and what someone reading it would think (and I will a little bit), but not putting it out there doesn’t change my thoughts, who I am, or how many people might find both me and my thoughts obnoxious. I think we are unhappy because we hide from the truth. We think keeping ourselves from being exposed to it somehow changes it. But the truth is our friend. It’s us, when we put the blinders on and hide from life, who are not.
Half-Blood Kuwaiti 