2003 09 17

I remember one time a couple of years back, some woman going off on me for my having related some loneliness I was feeling at the time. She read me the riot act about how low it was for women to seek approval only through the acceptance of men. To this day I'm still trying to figure out how she inferred that from what I said. Actually, no, I know why - she is just one of those who assumes that all women think that way, and for such a seeming independant person as she was, it makes one wonder about her own views of herself, women in general, and the interaction of the sexes.

To set the matter to rights, I was not then, am not now, nor am ever likely to be, the sort of person who can only find fulfillment by seeking the approval of members of the opposite sex. To be quite frank about it, the thought of being such a woman is repugnant, and I'd have myself keel-hauled ¹ before allowing myself to fall prey to it. I know that's far too vehement an opinion, but it has the advantage of at least being true, if overly dramatic. Men are not the yardstick by which this female measures herself.

I was watching one of those horrible TLC shows a while back, where they get a person from one walk of life, to train for three weeks to see if they can fake it at another type of existence. This particular episode had a female Harvard law student attempting to fake it as a football cheerleader. She was told by an acting coach during her training period pre-test, that she lacked confidence. This was not the case at all. She had it a-plenty, she was just used to measuring her worth by her brains, not by her body or by her looks. While that sort of confidence appeals to me more, it's still as unbalanced, though perhaps somewhat less unhealthy, than seeking approval only through the approval of others.

I think it was Thomas Hobbes who said that man could measure himself only by measuring himself against others, and I suppose that's true to a degree; but allowing that curiosity over the doings over others to become the only way in which one can see one's worth, goes deeply into the obsessive. Perhaps Hobbes only meant it in the same vein as no one can truly know what they look like until they look into a mirror.

In good and bad ways, I, too, have spent far too much time in the past judging myself only by what I saw in others. It was a good long time before I realised that this would always show myself as a failure, or always show myself superior by only at the expense of cheapness - and cheapness is no way to build onself up.

When we look at the seeming successes in the lives of others, we have a habit of seeing only a perceived end result - never the means by which the result was achieved, and never usually the truth of the end result. We see only what our minds trick us into seeing. We could look at a person and consider that they may have a great deal of money or popularity, and be envious of it, but what we rarely ever think on, os how that money and popularity were earned. It may seem rosy-tinted to some, but the means by which a think is attained, are a large part - to me - of defining the value of the attainment. If someone is popular only because buy that popularity with sex, money, or otherwise, is that popularity worth anything? No. Is it worth being envious of? Not at all.

I think one of the most degrading things I've ever done - to my own spirit and the existence of those around me - is harbour the base desire to be first in something. I wanted to be better at something than anyone I knew; have something no one else I knew had; have one thing that set me apart from the crowd. Schei, but how such a thought held me back. It prevented me from seeing any of the things of worth I did have. That thought, along with so many others, has been left far behind - but I'd be a liar and a hypocrite if I didn't admit that every once in a while a twinge of it stills rears its ugly head. Now, though, I have the tools to cope with it, and the understanding that such things don't mean sweet fuck all.

I think the difference now, is that I have learned some modicum of self-respect. I may not always like myself very much, but I respect myself - enough not to compromise what I know is right, for me, in order to gain things that I don't want, need, or would despise myself for using cheap means to get. There are some things that, though unpleasant, are better to experience than the compromising of the ideals that you use to keep yourself strong, sane, and whole.

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1: Funny how so many of my favourite things begin with K. Okay, not many, but at least a couple. Keel-hauling is my favourite form of torture, Kuru my favourite disease; and no, I don't mean them in any sort of sick, perverted way, I just find them fascinating.