WISDOM RETROFIT
I Like Me
This beautiful bag of mostly water
Loving myself is one thing. Liking myself… That takes some work.
~ ME
I’m starting to like myself. Like, holy shit. If you only knew. If you’d spent any time inside my brain, you’d not have thought it possible. I mean, the things i’ve said to myself, about myself. I wouldn’t even say those things to the ones responsible for me being this screwed up. I don’t want to bring down the tone of this piece by being specific. Pretty sure i don’t need to anyway. You already know because you’ve probably said terrible things to yourself, about yourself, too.
Years ago i was asked what my greatest fear was. It was during one of those courses that seekers like me are wont to take. It was a deep, intellectual program that asked questions like, “What are you pretending not to know?” (If you inferred a sarcastic tone in that last sentence, you’re correct. Feel free to carry it through to the end of the paragraph.) On the third level of the course, we did a fire walk and went on a zip line (not at the same time, but hey, that might’ve been more fun) and then we were declared an intellectual giant and given leave to talk down to all the unfortunate peons who hadn’t paid way too much money just to feel superior to others.
My greatest fear was and is death. Thanks to how deeply and thoroughly i was indoctrinated into my family’s religion, i still wrestle with that fear. I got some much-needed relief the day i realised that if the god i was raised to worship is real (for which i see no evidence), i wouldn’t worship him anyway. Still, the vein of acquiescing to religious authority without question, and acceptance of dogma without investigation, runs through me. If i were a tapestry and religion a thread, the pattern of my life would be shot through with it. If i started pulling out those threads, the fabric would fall apart.
To return to the occasion of my being asked to name my fears. We were partnered up, sat on chairs facing each other, and were instructed to name everything we were afraid of, stream-of-consciousness style, with no editing. Well, all this fear flew out of my face like projectile vomit, like acid.
