maanantai 26. elokuuta 2013

Days 298-300: Ego as an Idol


24-26082013



For the past two days I've been writing about a situation in which I accepted and allowed my ego to lead me blindly into seeking fame and glory at the expense of children. I was asked to be a judge in a children's singing contest and also to speak to the audience on behalf of the entire jury. I did all of this and in my own terms I managed “well”, I was pretty to look at and comfortable to listen to, I was setting an “admirable” example to the children, I was making the “right” choice on the winners – except that this is all bullshit. I justified participating in a system (competition) that supports inequality and creates separation by thinking that this way the children “get experience on performing” (which they could actually get in a simple concert without the setting of a contest) and all the while the reason I really wanted to be there was to be seen, to show off myself and build a self-image of an admirable public figure.

The consequence of this was that I became anxious and paranoid while walking in the middle of the crowd because I started judging myself on how “well” I did on the speech and the appearance and then projected my self-judgement on others and believed them to now think less of me. I could not stand the eyes I imagined to have been on me and I had to leave.

When I was writing through all this (in extensive and messy writings which I will not publish) I came across self-hate when I realized what I had done. I need to forgive myself for falling.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate, despise and loathe myself when and as I realized I had listened to my ego when making a decision to participate in the contest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-hate will not assist and support me to grow as a being because hate is an act of holding on to the past and judging myself in the present (and future, “I will never be good enough”) according to who I was.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-hate will not assist and support me to move on because from within hate I cannot truly forgive myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I should lash myself into “being a better person” through guilt, shame and self-hate, not realizing that doing so is an act of punishing myself which will eventually kill me, either through exhaustion or through the culmination of self-hate in suicide.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not have mercy on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that making mistakes is inevitable, and that the way to deal with mistakes is not to hate myself (which will only incapacitate me and make me “even less” than I already am within my moment of falling) but to recognize the consequences of my mistake and to carry responsibility for them.



I commit myself to consider participating in contests like this from a wider perspective: what are the implications of the existence of a contest like this? What is a children's singing contest as a system? What does it serve? What are the consequences for the children? What are the consequences for the families? Who are the parents that bring their children to contests like this? Who are the children we see competing? What would rewarding one individual do for him/her and what would it do for another? [I will shortly write an essay on what I saw and have seen about all this.]

If I am asked to participate in a contest like this again, I commit myself to consider what my field of influence there would be and decide my participation accordingly; I also commit myself to discuss the purpose and necessity of a children's singing contest with the people arranging it.

--

Another thing I went through is my desire to be famous, which I have already written about quite a lot. I realized that there is a certain set of memories I need to go through to access the root of this desire, which is in the birth of my self-hate when I compared myself to my sister and later on to my female friends.

Some SF on fame I wrote earlier:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be famous.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be famous because I wanted to be loved by as many people as possible – I wanted to make sure everyone liked me, or that enough people liked me so that I'd be “untouchable” / immune to judgement.

  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the energetic “high” I would get from the adoration of the public would be the only way for me to ever handle negative attention because it would act as a “buffer” or a “shield” as long as many enough people were there to “accept” me.
  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I am “too weak” to handle negative attention and that to deal with it I “need” the “love” of the audience (the confirmation that I am “good enough”).
  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have actually been escaping my tendency to take negative attention personally and avoiding facing this point by blaming my reaction on others and avoiding ever facing what the negative attention (bullying) actually was.
  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have been reaching for fame so that it would work as a “shield” to protect me from bullying or, in fact, my own self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that being exposed to many people's attention would bring me acceptance because I had a skill (singing) that everyone I had met so far had appreciated.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I could expose as many people as possible to my skills I would be accepted and loved by all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I was actually seeking from fame was the acceptance I was not giving myself; a placebo to my self-hate. [Note to self: the birth of my self-hate would be a good point to open up – specific memories of a certain era to be mapped out.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the acceptance I would receive from the audience would never be enough to sustain me throughout my life AND death because in essence I am alone – I'm born alone, I breathe alone, I die alone; if I were to depend on others for sustenance I would have to keep on pulling the tricks that bring out positive reactions from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “adoration”, “love” and “acceptance” that I have believed and perceived myself to be getting from the people who admired me was actually me taking the reactions and experiences of others personally, believing I was the cause of another's experience when in fact I was “just” the trigger.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for others to look at me with adoration and submission instead of hate, ridicule and dominance – not realizing that I would just be exerting a sugar-coated revenge by dominating others in turn as I did not see, realize and understand that I could be equal with others as I had never seen an example of equality.



I commit myself to proceed next onto going through these memories of how I came to hate myself as a child/adolescent.

--

Forgiving the ego point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I was doing “the right thing” when I got compliments about my appearance, thinking that it was justified for me to be doing the judging/performing/appearance because I was so good at it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that by looking pretty, calm and composed I would be a good example for the children, not realizing that the children pick up who I live as, not who I appear to be, and that because I was appearing pretty, calm and composed as an image driven by the ego this is what the children will learn: to appear confident because it is a part of their self-image and because they're afraid of being anything else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “letting loose” (expressing myself however the hell I wanted) in front of the audience because I wanted to maintain an appearance and feared that breaking that appearance would mean that I would no longer be appreciated or respected.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I need to appear serene, beautiful, calm, balanced and stable to be the kind of a public figure that everyone would respect / not hate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being exposed to the public because some people might not like me and exert their disapproval on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I am exposed to the public as myself I am bound to not be liked by all as the things I have to say/express are such that not everyone wants to hear; someone is bound to react.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to be liked by everyone I would have to keep on changing my appearance according to my audience and that this way of living would be based on dishonesty: I would live as a multitude of characters instead of living as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the price I pay for “being safe” is too much; it is not worth sacrificing myself for.



I commit myself to flag any and all moments when I see myself limiting my expression for the sake of my appearance and to investigate them in writing.

When and as I see myself limiting my expression for the sake of my appearance – thinking/experiencing “I have to do this” or “I cannot do this” - I stop, I breathe and I realize I am living as my ego and serving my self-image. I ask myself: what am I trying to portray and why? I answer myself in self-honesty, not accepting or allowing myself to believe any bullshit excuses or justifications, demanding myself for the truth. I forgive myself for whatever I find, allowing myself to face and realize who I am within the moment, yet understanding that we all make mistakes and that now that I see mine I am able to make amends. I look at the consequences of this self-limitation and I carry my responsibility for what I have caused, within or outside of myself.

I commit myself to carry on with my process in order to become an example I would be happy to have children live by, and I commit myself to settle for no less.

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