Nascent Being

I think the only real way I can describe the current state of existence that I have slipped into is to say that it is very, indubitably numb. It wasn’t so much of a conscious decision of mine as it was a resultant of certain subconscious influences and some unrelated, yet tangential conscious choices. I don’t know, sometimes, why I say what I say and do what I do, think how I think, and, in general, be who I am. Well, I should clarify: I don’t know those things in any exact way. It’s sort of like I have passing, haphazard knowledge of who I am, but I’m not what one would describe as a devotee of myself. Maybe I could be completely and totally aware of myself, but that presents a problem of time management and productivity; in other words, being a Buddhist monk would be acceptable if I could afford to do nothing but meditate and sweep.
To be honest, it wouldn’t bother me to much at this point if my life consisted of dwelling on a mountaintop within a Buddhist monastery, living peacefully in tranquility and harmony with myself and nature. There’s a very heavy tinge of romanticism to the idea, of course, and I’m aware of that . . . Hence why I’m not running off to denounce my current lifestyle and start anew. I’m rather fond of living how I live now, and I do accept the pitfalls of such a life. And the one, large side-effect that I am noticing, lately, is emotional absenteeism.
I feel things, obviously, but everything is sort of muffled and distant, detached and grey. The tones of the world don’t fall across my face like a flag, just subtle gradients that shift ever so slightly in the wind. Occasionally, something will happen that penetrates fiercely though this fog of apathetic neutrality, but it is fleeting and ineffectual. Everyday, I grow a little bit more numb, I think, because I’m beginning to physically feel numb. Sitting at this computer, safely positioned at a desk, there is a faint, cold chill that blows through my veins. Earlier, standing in anticipation of the police officer with the keys, my mind was lazily tracing over memories and thoughts, while my body felt intensely cold – not a biting cold, however, like the touch of Winter. It is very unlike the nip of cold weather, no; it is like a simple, uncomplicated cold. There is no wind, nor is there any frost or ice: it is simply cold. I can only equate this with being numb.
I think my heart has just been wrenched empty, and all the passions that I once felt have dwindled down to simmering ash. An event, or joke, or conversations here and there: that’ll toss kinder on the fire, but it merely flares and dies right back down, in a moment or two. Interestingly enough, none of this entails a sadness or depression, anger or frustration; both of those sets of emotions I’ve dealt with before, in spades, and am familiar enough with to know they’re not here. I still go through the motions of living, and I still . . . Well, yes, I still enjoy the same things I always have.
Which is what I find exceptionally odd, really – I still enjoy . . . Things. Writing, drawing, creativity, programming, logic, solving equations and problems, analysing arguments and dissecting philosophies, contemplating the psychology of everyone around me, myself, and the race as a whole: these are all what I truly love.
Love? Love, yes, that is my problem, and what drains me. It is easy to love activities, and it is easy to love friends and love laughter. It is easy to love what I create, and love to view what others create; it is easy to love nature and love life, honestly. All those things, I love and adore. But, there is a component of love that escapes me, eludes me. There is an utter and total lack of any sort of romantic love of another and myself.
I have a theory (and I have a lot of theories) that one does not truly love one’s self until one has loved another, because the method for that sort of love can’t be discovered on your own, but only with the guidance and example of someone else. Contentment and acceptance of one’s self, sure, is simple. The sum of the knowledge of the various parts of who I am brings me solace in my identity, and that is all that is necessary for a sense of self-satisfaction, in the end. I know what I am good at, and what I excel at, and where I fall short and what I don’t easily understand; that is fine, that is just who I am. There is no argument within myself over my strengths and weaknesses, my talents and expertise. Let me digress for a moment and deviate onto another topic, and return to the one at hand, afterward.
Something that people don’t like to face is the fact that there are people who carry images that are not attractive. “Everyone is different and beautiful.” No, no we’re not. Sure, everyone is different in ways, but “you are not a beautiful snowflake.” I know that I am not handsome or pretty or any such adjective, by the standards of society, because I can openly compare myself with those who are. I do not have a face, body, mind, or soul (or any of that crap) that people generally like, and it’s that simple. I will not say that there has never been and will never be – or aren’t, right now – people that think I am attractive; people can be attracted to anything. That is the beauty of human beings, that we, as individuals, can find the most repulsive and vile thing alive and divide ourselves enough from the collective mass of the race to declare our own, personal approval of it. That is me: there are very, very few people in the world who will decide, on their own, to think of me as appealing to look at or be around. Also, there are very, very few people in the world who will decide, on their own, to think of you as appealing to look at or be around . . . And you, over there, and you, and you, or you -- it goes the same way for everybody. No one is universally beautiful, because that is a concept we made up.
Universal beauty is a myth, at the end of the day. We, as a society, construct these ideal images to model our males and females on, and rate them against, but they are nothing more than shallow, superficial facets of the greed, lust, and other despicable traits of our human nature. If there was not a man who could make money off of red lipstick, or some sort of profit, then red lipstick would not be “pretty.” If there was not a fashion designer who would profit highly off of the sale of that off-the-shoulder, silk dress in the department store window, then that dress would not exist and it would be impossible for it to be “pretty.” What I am getting at is that everywhere that you see products and ideas of the nature of a standard appearance that is “pretty,” it’s a corporate lie (to sound very antiestablishment). Nowadays, to me, it sounds kind of hokey to say things like that, but it’s the truth that I’ve discovered and I know other people who have uncovered the same reality, underneath the velvet blindfold. No one person thinks the same way as the next in regard to what it means to be beautiful, at all, and it is retarded to practice a game where we all pretend to agree on who’s “Hot or Not.” Aesthetic taste is entirely subjective and wholly personal, and making it a profitable business and viable venue for sales and marketing is a disgraceful blemish of modern society that my disdain toward and disapproval of can not be expressed enough times.
Granted, there are some things which are naturally pleasing to the human eye: curves, soft lines, and symmetry – to name a few examples. However, the level at which this natural, aesthetic pleasure extends is quite short, because there is no reason that I am wrong to say that olive complexes are more attractive, and you to say that pale ones are. It is when we try and argue -- nitpicking away at our subjective opinions -- that stress and worry over self-image becomes an issue. If we were all to, collectively, throw our hands in the air, and say, “You know what, there’s nothing wrong with thinking that anything is attractive or beautiful, ever, at all,” then maybe there wouldn’t be all this idiotic strife over how to look on what day of the week during whichever season of the year. Fuck it, people, I think that sumptuous hips and full figures – preferably including nice, shapely buttocks – is more attractive on a woman than scrawny waists and heavy chest. Do you know how absurd it sounds, to me, to write that out, for whatever reason? Society has managed to implant in me this subliminal embarrassment over the fact that I think Britney Spears is not all that lovely. Peer pressure on a grand, immeasurable scale has put in all of our brains – well, maybe not all -- that there is supposed to be people who just are undeniably attractive. No, no, there really aren’t. I think Nicole Kidman is fucking gorgeous and I don’t know why, but I do. My individual psychology has lead me to find the combination of traits on Victoria Silvstedt to be better than those of, say, Pamela Anderson. There’s no right or wrong answer, here: no multiple choice, no A, B, C, or D. Fuck that bullshit.
I have managed to become horribly wrapped up in this tangent – I only meant it to be a short deviation. Still, my point is that . . . Well, I had a lot of points, but the big one that I started off with the intention of delivering was that self-image is superfluous and, thus, not worth worrying about. I look like how I look, and that’s how I look, and there’s no reason – no need -- for me to feel any emotion about it. I don’t love my face in the mirror, and I don’t hate it. It’s the face I have, and I’m resigned to keeping it the way it is, give or take, for the remainder of my life.
So, back to that theory of mine: there is no love for one’s self until one has love for another human being, and that person reciprocates that love. This holds true, as far as I can tell, for everything about one’s self; there is no genetic, instinctual reason to have love – which is just an emotion, don’t forget – until love has been displayed. Love is something which is not part of the world of nature, if you ask me. It is not helpful to the survival of a race to love anything, or anyone; in some cases, it’s detrimental to survival. Therefore, until someone actively loves you, you will not love yourself, since it is opposite to survival instinct.
I suppose I should expound on the fact that I do not think this is a bad thing, so much as I find it to be a confusing and subtle thing that people overlook. I do not love the way I look because nobody has ever loved the way I look. I have absolutely no idea how to do so, unless it is demonstrated how. On the other hand, people have hated the way I look, so it is very natural, almost reactionary, to do so, myself; moreover, it is an endurance to overcome such a behaviour, because that is unhealthy. This is a very difficult sort of idea to convey, I realize, so let me use the devices that which society has laid out for me to utilise.
Take the typical romantic comedy wherein there is a girl who is “the ugly one,” who nobody has ever loved and to whom no affection has been shown. However, there is a boy who is popular but smart, funny but sensitive, et al: he has a girlfriend, and she is “the popular one.” Everybody loves the girlfriend, and she is adored and worshipped (blah, blah, blah). Through the course of the movie, certain trials and tribulations will cause the boy to see the flaws of the girlfriend (she is, inevitably, shallow and self-centred), the strengths of the “ugly” girl (invariably, she is intelligent and kind), and his error in the pursuit of a girlfriend based on popularity and/or looks. He, then, dates the “ugly” girl, who emerges from her sad cocoon of low-self esteem and becomes a smiling, happy princess.
Alright, now that I have outlined the example, let me extrapolate from it what it is I mean. As clichéd and dull this movie plot is, it is oddly real to life in ways: that “ugly” girl had never thought of herself as “pretty” until the boy asked her out. Is this because she does not believe in herself and who she is? No, because, in the usual case, this girl, on her own, does what she likes and is very successful at it – perhaps, she is a poet of choice word, or an actress of secret magnitude. In this case, the girl is not truly unhappy with herself, because when one is depressed, one is not typically prolific in any way. She may hate her appearance and social status, but that is because that is always what has been given to her and it is what has been bred into her mind as the “truth;” that, in my opinion, is the real tragedy of these romances.
What, invariably, happens in the mind of the “ugly” girl in these sort of movies is this set of thoughts: “Nobody loves me, nor does anybody think I look good. Wait, he loves me and thinks I look good? I guess I am loveable and do look good.” Not necessarily the most in-depth and perfect description of this mentality, but it suffices for my purposes. This simple, three-step process is human nature, and it is how things tend to go, with few exceptions.
There is an alternative to the line of thoughts present above, and they are these: “Nobody loves me, nor does anybody think I look good. Wait, why do I care about what they think? I am loveable and I do look good.” However, the catch to this is that if someone has really never known what it means to be loved or admired, then he will not know how to act or feel about it. It becomes a mantra to him: something to be said, over and over, in hopes of making it true. Eventually, it may very well become true, but not usually without the help of another. From my experience, what tends to transpire is that he will find someone, they will uncover his hidden insecurity, and together they’ll work through it.
I should say that I don’t think either mentalities are all that great, to be honest. They just seem to be the predominant trends in human psychology. Which one am I? I suppose I have tried to find a middle-ground, a road between the high and low ones, per se. If I were to describe how I think, it would look something like this: “Nobody loves me, nor does anybody think I look good. Well, I hope somebody will, someday, love me and think I look good. Until then, nobody really does love me or how I look.”
Before I end this, because it’s becoming too long, I should point out exactly what I was addressing: love, in the romantic sense, and attraction to someone’s appearance, as a whole. Not necessarily just the physical shell, but also the “look” of the personality traits. Ugh, I really could’ve done this in a better manner, but I’ve lost the zeal to write, anymore. Sometimes, I just don’t know when to stop and create an ending point where I should.

Adios.