On feeling one’s own self
(This s a bit navel-gazing and not a relevant essay about anything. Just a bit of thinking about myself on a weird day. So you probably just wanna skip this one.)
People have very different ways of feeling themselves being in the world. I think it’s mostly something one develops during childhood/youth when you try to find out how to be.
My way of being has always been about performance, about doing things, about work and results. All parents leave some scars in their kids and that’s one I inherited from two parents who grew up very poor and reached through hard work a certain level of security (that they both never felt).
Talking with a good friend a few das ago I realized something I kinda need to chew on and work on in the next year: My mode of feeling myself is very bad for me.
I have basically one skill, one thing I am good at. I can take more than many others. Many people are talented, exceptionally smart or beautiful, massively strong or fast or whatever. I can keep running at a wall till I manage to get a whole into it. Which is “useful” to a certain degree: When a few months ago I did the “walk 100km in 24 hours” thing my partner and friends had no doubt I could do it even though it would wreck me for at least a week (which was true, it brought be a few really horrible days). Because that’s not about skill, it’s just about willing to keep going regardless of how much it hurts. Which is what I can do.
This has gotten me places. I have cheated myself into many situations I had no right to be in, I have no special academic credentials or relevant organizational backing, have not written any relevant books or whatnot. But mostly it was about just keep going.
But it’s not great for one’s own mental health or feeling like one can just be. I kinda have to run myself into the ground to feel valid, to feel my own strength and ability. Being kinda hurts.
There’s probably a gendered component to it, structural forces in the world that reward this kind of behavior given the person I am and the roles I have gotten into. But I am very tired of it.
I turned 45 today and it’s late in life but I still think I need to figure this shit out. Let’s hope an old dog can learn a new trick.