"I pick things up
I am a collector
And things, well things
They tend to accumulate
I have this net
It drags behind me
It picks up feelings
For me to feed upon
There are times, plenty of times
I wish I could let it go
But they start to breathe
And they start to grow inside me
There are times, plenty of times
I wish I could let it go
But they start to make me think
Things I don't wanna know"
["The Collector", Nine Inch Nails]
A long time ago you had a blog called "naked and unbound", named so after a quote from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Between there and here, you've gotten pretty good at the naked thing, writing quite vulnerably about how you feel and who you are. But perhaps you're not as unbound as you should be. You did your Torn Curtains project, and you've confessed aplenty, but many things were, in ways, just decoys. They were the obvious things that others would have known anyway. You've kept fastened a great many invisible chains for yourself. And it's time to start unfastening them. It's time to start leaving them behind.
Someone once told you that you were the most self-aware person she'd ever met, and she was right. You are incredibly self-aware. And that's a good thing - or at least it would be if you could just stop weaponizing it against yourself. It's the reason you are able to learn, and change, and grow, and become better. And you have consistently done that. You are not the same person now you were ten, twenty, thirty, forty years ago. You know that. You love that. You enjoy that. And well you should.
You once told someone that the journey of self-discovery is both a blessing and a curse. But it wasn't for the reasons you gave, what you thought at that time. It's because you've never been able to put the genie back in the lamp. You can't not peer into the abyss. You keep looking and looking, trying to obsessively tear out every last weed while missing out on the beautiful garden you've grown. You question every act, every motive. You wrote a blog post called "Cowardice" about your inability to apologize for a few hurtful things you said in your early 20s that are likely long forgotten by the people you said them to, and you've been too afraid to publish it, and no one's ever read it, such that all you've really done is given yourself yet another chain to add to your burden. Every time you come to write, it's sitting there waiting to punish you, because you won't delete it either. Because that would be "dishonest" somehow, and - one of your favorite quotes of late - you're 'the most principled person I know, sometimes to the point of stupidity'. Why do you feel this need to punish yourself? You're not even punishing yourself for things others are aware of. That's why I say the chains are largely invisible. You kept yourself in a constant state of self-judgment for things others don't, can't, won't ever know.
Why?
Is it because you still feel guilty about having selfish feelings as a child? You pressed down any inkling of selfish thought in light of your situation until it turned to secret shame, and when your mother died it exploded in self-hatred. But wanting things, or wanting things to be better, or wishing things had been different - and as a teenage boy no less - was not a crime. It was not wrong. It was human. It was normal. And you came to terms with it long ago, or talk like you've come to terms with it, unpacked it, understood it, and yet.... invisible chain, isn't it? I'd say it was "forgivable" but there's nothing here to forgive.
Let it go.
Let. It. Go.
You need to start cutting yourself some slack and forgive yourself for all these invisible burdens you carry on your shoulders that you can never seem to put down, burdens that not only are most others around you completely unaware of, but things so they'd easily forgive, and you should too. Let's get into that!
If any teenager you know made the mistakes you did, in the context of the time you did, you'd forgive them without a second thought. Even by today's standards, removed from context, you'd find most of those things so easily forgivable. And yet you set aside the context and instead condemn yourself to forever try to "make up for" mistakes you made as a child nearly forty years ago.
Stop pouring over every mistake you think you've made along the way. Accept yourself as imperfect and stop holding yourself to a higher standard than you hold everyone around you. You are so reasonable. You tell people - and it's mostly true - that you have incredible patience for people (and little for software or machines). But you leave yourself out of that equation. You have no patience for yourself. You aren't being fair to yourself the way you are so adamant about being fair to others. You are a person too, and deserving of that same patience.
And the other childhood thing... You wrote back in 2017: Salvation from the yokes of expectation we wear is not found in satisfactory answers to the questions; it can only come from not asking the question.
You haven't stopped asking, and it's about time you did. But here's the answer simple and plain in case it helps:
You are not, were not, could never be a disappointment to your parents or family in any way. They wanted you to be happy and successful - whatever that means - and you're both of those things. You're more than just those things: you're a good person. Perfect? No, of course not. Stumble sometimes? Sure. That's called being human. But not being a doctor or lawyer is simply because in the context of the times, what you did become is not something they could have imagined anyway. Look at the family you've made. Look at the home you've made. Look at the friends you keep. Look at the life you have. Dare to think you've failed? No. No you haven't failed. Not in the least.
You beat yourself up about never finishing a university degree while failing to note you instead forged yourself a career in a field that all but didn't exist instead, and then gained the experience and reputation required to become an expert in that field. And before the imposter syndrome begins - bullshit - you hold a certification less than 200 people in Canada have. You'd bloody well never have used multivariable calculus again in your life, and your life is no less rich for not having done that course or any of those other courses. You walked a strange path, but you made it work, and look at where you are now. Look. If you posted on LinkedIn you were open to work you'd have a dozen offers inside a week. That much you know. That much you believe. But still with the wondering 'who knows I never finished?' You think your coworkers would think less of you? Try them. Try one tomorrow. Try one of the one's whose mind you really respect. You don't need to, because you know from the respectful way they talk to you that you've already won them over. Remember that weird compliment from "Bobby Fischer"? Yeah you do. You remember it because it stuck with you. It was victory. It was validation. And from someone whose bar was set higher than anyone else you ever worked with. But just because others don't say it doesn't mean they don't feel it. His... manner.. was the very thing that enabled him to be so bold, even if it was a bit clumsy.
You fret over being fair while espousing fairness isn't the right tack to begin with, and yet you're incredibly, painfully fair. When has anyone ever accused you of being unfair?
You're incredibly honest, but somehow feel it necessary to point out that you do so from a sense of practicality rather than altruism, as though that somehow diminishes the fact that you're painfully honest.
That same thing, in the larger scope: you constantly assess your own motives and question whether a good act for any reason less than pure is somehow no longer a good act. Good acts are good acts. Why do you feel this need to ask yourself 'why?' you do ever single thing you do, to justify and weigh and measure it?
Let it go.
And then there's those last few things, those things for which you don't believe you could ever forgive yourself, those things you won't even allude to here. They're going to be harder, but let's not rule them out just yet.
Let's work on this much first. After all, it's only Chapter One.
You'll reread this in a week and find a typo and frown over it. I dare you to not fix it. Let yourself be just as imperfect and you let others be.
And maybe next time, with a little more forgiveness, with a little more self-compassion, you won't write yourself a letter that reads like a chastisement. You'll need to forgive yourself for this too.
Always with the meta, Patrick. Climb back out of the spiraling abyss.
Start by watching Revolver again.
Hey, look, a less than perfect, easily-digestible sendoff! :P
Was that an emoji? Oh, you're a wild man now. Pretty sure there's a few sentence fragments above too. Clutch your pearls, old man.
