To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Saturday, April 25, 2020
 
Do you sometimes feel you have to be a little bad so that others feel better about themselves? Obviously none of us is perfect but relatively speaking when people feel you have fewer flaws they want you to prove that that is not really the case… on the other hand if you show you are as imperfect as them, as irrational as them, as given to making misjudgements as them… they accept you as one of the gang…as someone like them…as someone who is likeable… but if not…you are seen as worse because you are a little better … or in other words, you are seen as someone who doesn’t make an effort to belong… someone who doesn’t show their bad side because obviously you cannot be that good… it is unimaginable that you are better than them, the them being whoever is using their own reference point or level of badness as a comparison…

So this leads to a lot of conflict within one… conflict because it seems as if to maintain human relationships you always have to show that you are at the level of the person with whom you want to maintain the relationship… they may tolerate you for a while because they will keep hoping that someday, sometime, in something you will reveal that you are at their level… and they will keep adding to the list of occasions when you could have shown this but didn’t…they will keep repressing their judgement that they don’t think you are bad enough to be good… you have not managed to show you belong to the gang or you have it in you to belong to the gang… you have not revealed yourself enough, because, it’s not possible that you are actually better… You then have a choice of continuing to be your authentic self at whatever cost which is usually at the cost of that relationship…or becoming inauthentic… pretending to fall to their level so that the relationship doesn’t sink…

I think when I was younger I didn’t have the courage to stick with authenticity… I was scared to reveal myself to not be bad enough to be good for the relationship…I was scared to lose relationships… so I would try to be who I was not… this never really worked either because you are never happy to disown who you really are and nor are you comfortable enough in a skin that is not yours to not be found out soon enough… now that I am older I wouldn’t trade my authenticity for anything or anyone…as a matter of fact, I can’t…it’s too ingrained in me… this is sometimes seen as arrogance… sometimes that I think too much of myself… sometimes that I have too high standards… sometimes that I think I am too good to be bad…it pains me to be painted in these terms but I realise that the intention is to make me fall…make me feel small… and I do feel this way actually… do question myself…do flee inward… do wonder why I can’t fit myself into a smaller box…become invisible… fade into the background…the feeling is temporary though… you can’t force the sun to shine like a lamp :)

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 8:14 pm 0 comments
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