The Self-Importance of looking in the Mirror:
And making sure you understand what you see there.
And making sure you understand what you see there.
Too often am I presented with the circumstance of people able to look at their world and see all the things wrong with it. Too often I see a world of people swallowed up by the constant need for outside validation, by an over-active sense of empathy poorly balanced by an ability to take a good, long look at what’s going on behind the scenes in the mirror. Too often I see people taken down by a desire to be compassionate, to be understanding, to be fair, and balanced. Too often I see people being honest with the entire world around them, but staring at their reflection and telling themselves bold faced lies about what they see there. Too often I see people brushing aside their own lines in the sand to make way for someone else. This is why I think that’s no way to live, at all.
The world is full of people and things that will tell you ‘this is how to live, this is the right way to be, this is how to be healthy and happy and carry on’. I’ve been known to, for a lot of people, be one such force in life. Hell, this whole goddamned monkey show is, pretty much, to that point. It’s taking a long, hard, look at what’s actually going on in front of me and finding a way to retell it back to the lot of you with the appropriate shadings of insanity I tend to perceive in it. There’s something about it, however, that I do my best to try and tell you all.
What I see, what I say, what I think, isn’t the way I think it should be for everyone, but rather something I see that, to me, doesn’t work or doesn’t make sense. It’s something I look at, examine in a three hundred and sixty degree fashion, and, if I find nothing about it that fits what I see as a model for good and honest living, then I attack it like a swarm and present evidence for an alternative way of thinking. This does not mean, in any way, that I am right. It does not imply that my way is the way it should be, the only way, or even the best way for anyone but me.
I see a lot of people looking at this, at what I write, and a handful of other commercials and other forms of pandering media, and simply accepting that this is the way to be without a whole lot of thought on the matter. I see people taking what they see, what they hear, putting a personal brand-stamp on it, and tra-la-la-ing though fields of absolute bullshit – which says to me they’ve paid absolutely no attention to the things they’re claiming to use as dogma, mantra, or whatever pseudo-spiritual-life affirming wisdom based term they choose to apply. This, in black and white terms, is a huge problem – and it’s insulting to boot.
I understand it’s easy to sit there and do this, because it saves you the trouble of actual, perspective thinking. I can see the appeal there, but this is still a cautionary tale of self-told lies and a warning about taking in what’s in front of you without thinking about it.
We live in a world where compassion and empathy are expected, commercialized commodities. We’re expected to think about how other people feel, we’re expected to see and feel the way other people do. It’s common consensus that, if you don’t do these things, you’re a selfish, greedy, asshole. If you don’t do these things, if you don’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes you can’t fairly formulate an opinion on what they’re thinking or doing. If you don’t do these things you’re a bad, bad, person and the world will hate you for it – and I challenge that notion to the fullest.
You’re worth more than the simple and thoughtless adoption of the present idea; I don’t care what the idea is and who you are as a person. Every damn one of you is a person of their own experience, their own perspective, their own ideas, their own thoughts, feelings, and so on. None of you should be sitting there, staring at whatever screen it is, even if it’s someone’s face, and simply accepting anything that comes off it without taking a moment to stop and think of how it applies to you.
If you simply take empathy to a mandated level of making excuses for someone else, then I will think you’re an asshole because you’re pissing all over something and someone – yourself – without even thinking about it, and I have no time for people covered in their own vocal piss.
It’s one thing to look at a situation and try and figure out how an outside perspective can be validated and make sense. For instance, if you have a partner who feels insecure about everything that you do, it is sensible to take a look at that and try and understand why. It is a fair expectation of emotional compromise to try and put your perspective behind their eyes and understand just what’s going on inside their head. This makes for a valid perspective and understanding, this is fair compromise, and this is what relationships, regardless of what level they’re on, work.
On the other side of the coin, if you’re one half of a relationship where you’re making excuses for privacy invasions, being blatantly mistreated and socially objectified because ‘someone’s had a fucked up life’, then you’re not doing them any favors at all. You’re pandering to their existence, you’re reinforcing everything that you’re trying to help them with, and you’re ultimately selling yourself with some backwater notion about an altruistic endeavor. You’re effectively fucking over everyone involved because you’re simply unwilling to take a look in the mirror and be honest with yourself about what’s really going on.
It’s in this sense that I actually advocate being selfish, where I strongly suggest sitting down in front of a mirror and telling the rest of the world to just fuck off, and take a long look at you for a change. Deal with the guilt, put it out there too, but really look at what’s going on around you. Look at your life, look at your world, look at your relationship, look at your boyfriend or girlfriend, look at your marriage, and ask yourself the questions that are, ultimately, the only ones that really matter: Is this what I want? Am I happy with this? Am I doing this because it’s what I believe, or just what I feel I should be doing?
Asking these questions is entirely selfish, because you’re putting yourself before anyone or anything else in your life, and it is one of the most important things you can ever do for yourself. It is not a bad thing; it is nothing that makes you insensitive or greedy. It does not devalue you as a person, just because you put value on yourself enough to look at your life and make decisions based on what you’re actually seeing, rather than some impromptu, emotional decision based on the consensus of appeasing your over-active conscience and trying to be the ‘better person’.
This is one of the biggest problems I see with the notion of ‘being selfish’. Just about everyone will stand up and say “YOU SELFISH BASTARD” and rarely, if ever, do you hear about the pragmatic, if not outright good, side of being selfish. Nobody wants to look at being selfish as one of those things that’s vital to living a continued and happy existence, because we’ve painted it up all up and black and turned it into something really only favored by serial rapists, child molesters, public masturbaters and murderers who like to choke out prostitutes in seedy motels with dirty sheets and broken air conditioning.
I counter this by saying that anyone who is incapable of being selfish deserves a wide berth. Anyone who is unwilling, for whatever reason, to put themselves first in life, is setting fire to their sails and dooming themselves to a lifetime of charred maps and sailing in circles.
It’s these frustrated and unkempt individuals who’re some of the most dangerous beasts that prowl the world in which we live. They’re too caught up in the commercialized altruism, in giving money to starving African children, but stoning the poor bastard who came up with the idea because he likes fucking himself in public. It’s these people who sell themselves out to be ‘good’, who shut down anything that’s bad, never mind the big picture, and refuse to acknowledge that they’re the most important people in their universe, that one should strongly consider running away from in abject terror.
They’re the people who’re always putting themselves out there selflessly with warm smiles and hugs for the world, the people who are always remembered as ‘such a nice guy’ before walking into a fast food restaurant and smashing someone in the face with a twelve gauge round because the cook forgot to hold the ketchup. It’s people like this that, again, serve as an illustration as to why being selfish, from time to time, is one of the most important things you can do for yourself as a person.
If you’re unable or, worse yet, unwilling to put yourself first then you’re ultimately repressing your own desires and aspirations for life. I don’t trust these people on principle because they don’t look at what they’re doing, and can’t really trust themselves. It’s these people who change when they drink, or make excuses about doing drugs because it makes them do things they don’t want to do. It’s these people who make excuses for being abused by themselves or others, and these people who walk around in endless circles, drooling and crying on their shoes.
Life is all about what you, the amazing bastard you are, living it. It’s about you making the right choices for you and trying to get those choices to line up in a way that lets you carry on the way you want to and be happy. This is why it’s important to look in the mirror, look at the world around you, look at what’s happening right behind you, and figure out, from a selfish perspective, if it’s what you want for yourself.
This practice doesn’t make you an asshole and anyone who tells you otherwise deserves a full on dose of claws and teeth. Being selfish doesn’t mean you’re an asshole. Being selfish doesn’t make you a bad person. Being selfish means that you’re looking at the world out of your own eyes and making the decision that’s best for you. If that happens to line up with your altruistic intention of doing good by your fellow man? Great, that’s an noble ambition. If it doesn’t, and you’re sticking around anyway? Congratulations on fucking yourself.
Just to be clear, however, this is not saying there is nothing good about trying to be an altruist or that your empathy and compassion are wasted skills in a bankrupt wasteland of bullshit. Both of these things are, on paper, noble, but you’ve got to temper them with good, old fashioned, bouts of self-indulgence and taking some time to put yourself first. Without you, your life will not go on, and there is absolutely no point in living life for anyone but you.
So if you want to go out and life, trying not to step on toes? I’ll stand up and clap my hands for you. If you set out promising you’ll never step on a toe or put yourself first? I’ll call you a twisted, strange, beast, a liar, and steer clear of whatever ocean you have decided to call your own.
Again, the point of life is to live it, and if you’re living for someone else, to borrow a phrase from the internet generation, “You’re doing it wrong.”
The world is full of people and things that will tell you ‘this is how to live, this is the right way to be, this is how to be healthy and happy and carry on’. I’ve been known to, for a lot of people, be one such force in life. Hell, this whole goddamned monkey show is, pretty much, to that point. It’s taking a long, hard, look at what’s actually going on in front of me and finding a way to retell it back to the lot of you with the appropriate shadings of insanity I tend to perceive in it. There’s something about it, however, that I do my best to try and tell you all.
What I see, what I say, what I think, isn’t the way I think it should be for everyone, but rather something I see that, to me, doesn’t work or doesn’t make sense. It’s something I look at, examine in a three hundred and sixty degree fashion, and, if I find nothing about it that fits what I see as a model for good and honest living, then I attack it like a swarm and present evidence for an alternative way of thinking. This does not mean, in any way, that I am right. It does not imply that my way is the way it should be, the only way, or even the best way for anyone but me.
I see a lot of people looking at this, at what I write, and a handful of other commercials and other forms of pandering media, and simply accepting that this is the way to be without a whole lot of thought on the matter. I see people taking what they see, what they hear, putting a personal brand-stamp on it, and tra-la-la-ing though fields of absolute bullshit – which says to me they’ve paid absolutely no attention to the things they’re claiming to use as dogma, mantra, or whatever pseudo-spiritual-life affirming wisdom based term they choose to apply. This, in black and white terms, is a huge problem – and it’s insulting to boot.
I understand it’s easy to sit there and do this, because it saves you the trouble of actual, perspective thinking. I can see the appeal there, but this is still a cautionary tale of self-told lies and a warning about taking in what’s in front of you without thinking about it.
We live in a world where compassion and empathy are expected, commercialized commodities. We’re expected to think about how other people feel, we’re expected to see and feel the way other people do. It’s common consensus that, if you don’t do these things, you’re a selfish, greedy, asshole. If you don’t do these things, if you don’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes you can’t fairly formulate an opinion on what they’re thinking or doing. If you don’t do these things you’re a bad, bad, person and the world will hate you for it – and I challenge that notion to the fullest.
You’re worth more than the simple and thoughtless adoption of the present idea; I don’t care what the idea is and who you are as a person. Every damn one of you is a person of their own experience, their own perspective, their own ideas, their own thoughts, feelings, and so on. None of you should be sitting there, staring at whatever screen it is, even if it’s someone’s face, and simply accepting anything that comes off it without taking a moment to stop and think of how it applies to you.
If you simply take empathy to a mandated level of making excuses for someone else, then I will think you’re an asshole because you’re pissing all over something and someone – yourself – without even thinking about it, and I have no time for people covered in their own vocal piss.
It’s one thing to look at a situation and try and figure out how an outside perspective can be validated and make sense. For instance, if you have a partner who feels insecure about everything that you do, it is sensible to take a look at that and try and understand why. It is a fair expectation of emotional compromise to try and put your perspective behind their eyes and understand just what’s going on inside their head. This makes for a valid perspective and understanding, this is fair compromise, and this is what relationships, regardless of what level they’re on, work.
On the other side of the coin, if you’re one half of a relationship where you’re making excuses for privacy invasions, being blatantly mistreated and socially objectified because ‘someone’s had a fucked up life’, then you’re not doing them any favors at all. You’re pandering to their existence, you’re reinforcing everything that you’re trying to help them with, and you’re ultimately selling yourself with some backwater notion about an altruistic endeavor. You’re effectively fucking over everyone involved because you’re simply unwilling to take a look in the mirror and be honest with yourself about what’s really going on.
It’s in this sense that I actually advocate being selfish, where I strongly suggest sitting down in front of a mirror and telling the rest of the world to just fuck off, and take a long look at you for a change. Deal with the guilt, put it out there too, but really look at what’s going on around you. Look at your life, look at your world, look at your relationship, look at your boyfriend or girlfriend, look at your marriage, and ask yourself the questions that are, ultimately, the only ones that really matter: Is this what I want? Am I happy with this? Am I doing this because it’s what I believe, or just what I feel I should be doing?
Asking these questions is entirely selfish, because you’re putting yourself before anyone or anything else in your life, and it is one of the most important things you can ever do for yourself. It is not a bad thing; it is nothing that makes you insensitive or greedy. It does not devalue you as a person, just because you put value on yourself enough to look at your life and make decisions based on what you’re actually seeing, rather than some impromptu, emotional decision based on the consensus of appeasing your over-active conscience and trying to be the ‘better person’.
This is one of the biggest problems I see with the notion of ‘being selfish’. Just about everyone will stand up and say “YOU SELFISH BASTARD” and rarely, if ever, do you hear about the pragmatic, if not outright good, side of being selfish. Nobody wants to look at being selfish as one of those things that’s vital to living a continued and happy existence, because we’ve painted it up all up and black and turned it into something really only favored by serial rapists, child molesters, public masturbaters and murderers who like to choke out prostitutes in seedy motels with dirty sheets and broken air conditioning.
I counter this by saying that anyone who is incapable of being selfish deserves a wide berth. Anyone who is unwilling, for whatever reason, to put themselves first in life, is setting fire to their sails and dooming themselves to a lifetime of charred maps and sailing in circles.
It’s these frustrated and unkempt individuals who’re some of the most dangerous beasts that prowl the world in which we live. They’re too caught up in the commercialized altruism, in giving money to starving African children, but stoning the poor bastard who came up with the idea because he likes fucking himself in public. It’s these people who sell themselves out to be ‘good’, who shut down anything that’s bad, never mind the big picture, and refuse to acknowledge that they’re the most important people in their universe, that one should strongly consider running away from in abject terror.
They’re the people who’re always putting themselves out there selflessly with warm smiles and hugs for the world, the people who are always remembered as ‘such a nice guy’ before walking into a fast food restaurant and smashing someone in the face with a twelve gauge round because the cook forgot to hold the ketchup. It’s people like this that, again, serve as an illustration as to why being selfish, from time to time, is one of the most important things you can do for yourself as a person.
If you’re unable or, worse yet, unwilling to put yourself first then you’re ultimately repressing your own desires and aspirations for life. I don’t trust these people on principle because they don’t look at what they’re doing, and can’t really trust themselves. It’s these people who change when they drink, or make excuses about doing drugs because it makes them do things they don’t want to do. It’s these people who make excuses for being abused by themselves or others, and these people who walk around in endless circles, drooling and crying on their shoes.
Life is all about what you, the amazing bastard you are, living it. It’s about you making the right choices for you and trying to get those choices to line up in a way that lets you carry on the way you want to and be happy. This is why it’s important to look in the mirror, look at the world around you, look at what’s happening right behind you, and figure out, from a selfish perspective, if it’s what you want for yourself.
This practice doesn’t make you an asshole and anyone who tells you otherwise deserves a full on dose of claws and teeth. Being selfish doesn’t mean you’re an asshole. Being selfish doesn’t make you a bad person. Being selfish means that you’re looking at the world out of your own eyes and making the decision that’s best for you. If that happens to line up with your altruistic intention of doing good by your fellow man? Great, that’s an noble ambition. If it doesn’t, and you’re sticking around anyway? Congratulations on fucking yourself.
Just to be clear, however, this is not saying there is nothing good about trying to be an altruist or that your empathy and compassion are wasted skills in a bankrupt wasteland of bullshit. Both of these things are, on paper, noble, but you’ve got to temper them with good, old fashioned, bouts of self-indulgence and taking some time to put yourself first. Without you, your life will not go on, and there is absolutely no point in living life for anyone but you.
So if you want to go out and life, trying not to step on toes? I’ll stand up and clap my hands for you. If you set out promising you’ll never step on a toe or put yourself first? I’ll call you a twisted, strange, beast, a liar, and steer clear of whatever ocean you have decided to call your own.
Again, the point of life is to live it, and if you’re living for someone else, to borrow a phrase from the internet generation, “You’re doing it wrong.”
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