SELF-OBSESSION AND THE REALLY REAL
I just finished reading this post about someone returning to office
work after two years working from home:
gopher://uninformativ.de/0/phlog/2022-03/2022-03-15--two-years-working-from-home.txt
Seeing as I woke up so early this morning that I couldn't fill in
all the time dreaming about women, I figured I might as well use it
as inspiration to write a similar sort of post that I've had in
mind myself.
'Uninformativ' talks about slowly, unconsciously, losing touch with
reality. The funny thing is that I've always felt like being
amongst people frequently (I almost said constantly, but that's
sort-of an unimaginable horror for me these days) is what
disconnects me from reality. I think I'm repeating myself from an
earlier post (inevitable at this point I suppose, I've been going
'too long'), but I remember when I finished secondary school the
extended time away from the constant social interaction (even
though it was mostly just in proximity to me rather than involving
me) felt like an escape into the real world. If I was sure of
anything, it was that I didn't want to go back into the distorted
reality where experience is shaped by social constructs enforced by
the interweaved minds around you, weaving you into their fabric by
the mechanism of ones own human nature.
No it seems clear to me that the world I see is truest when I'm on
my own, and I like it much better that way than through the lens of
other people's thoughts and emotions. That truth is perhaps really
the choice of how to view it, left up to me alone, to love or hate
anything, to love and hate everything.
This might require a certain degree of self-confidence. One thing
that I have become vaguely aware of is that over my years of living
like this, approaching ten, I may have become increasingly
self-obsessed. Whatever goes wrong in my life is necessarily my own
fault, and I easily hate myself for those failures. Not even
silently, I'll easily have prolonged sessions of shouting insults
at myself in the third person, I even enjoy it to some dregree -
there's little consequence to letting rip at yourself compared to
doing it to someone else.
But I also love myself, and perhaps here is the real depth of
self-obsession. For one thing physically I spend much of my time
naked, weather and activities permitting. I think people can often
be in some sort of denial about their bodies - fussing over flaws
they see compared with others, and indeed seeing themselves through
the eyes of others. Without sounding too weird I really like my own
body, simply as being mine, feeling it, controlling it - one
organism existing alone in the world, playing around in it however
it wills. That isn't to say I don't wish to improve it sometimes.
Lately with increased exercise I think I've possibly got it into
its best shape yet, both in terms of appearance and performance.
Maybe that's the only reason I feel this way, but still I'm no male
model, I expect I'm an average fit male in his 20s, and I wouldn't
want to be anything more. Anything more I'd be doing for other
people, to stand out to them, and then if it were the other way and
I was fatter and weaker than most I wouldn't be able to accept
that, but I think I could. Though part of it is definately the idea
that I look sexy to women, even though such women only exist in my
mind and as such are probably unrealistically 'on side'.
I'm certainly not content with my physical female relationships
being entirely imaginary, but in all other ways I really feel most
at ease in my self-obsessed reality. It's possibly all a
consequence of choosing the latter over the former. My ideal would
be to have a grilfriend who I meet up with for a day or two a
fortnight, otherwise most days not even communicating, and just
keep it like that forever. I don't know if that's even a
possibility in the real world. Most of the time I'm perfectly
contented on my own, just existing. Driving haphazardly through
some dodgy little backroads, half-lost and hungry, but excited for
what new place I might discover. Lying naked outside on the
verandah in a warm breeze. Typing this nonsese into a computer as
old as I am, slightly too cold without any clothes on, while
listening to music cobbled together in trackers 20 years ago by
people who were mostly a little younger then than I am now.
Another thing I have done for quite a few years now is take a photo
once a year of me standing naked in the same place in my house.
These days with digital photography it seems quite easy and natural
to want to keep a record of how one's own body changes over time,
yet I'm guessing most people probably don't do this. Anyway it
usually shows that I haven't changed as much as I think I have,
which I guess is keeping me in touch with reality in its own way.
One awkward thing is that somehow I get easily aroused by the idea
of photographing myself naked, I don't know what that's about but
it makes it difficult trying not to have an errection - maybe I'm a
loss to the porn industry :).
Ha 8:54AM, just in time to start work. Certainly none of
Uninformativ's commute-time meditation for me, though driving in
the city with all the traffic stresses the hell out of me so I
struggle to understand what that's about anyway. But I think I've
finally managed to complete a phlog post within time on a weekday
morning! A miracle!
- The Free Thinker.
