2001-06-06 - 2:48 p.m.

no sense

there's this thing i say all the time. i mean *all* the time. it's "i hate when i'm a moron". i say it whenever i make some bonehead mistake. hence, it being said all the time.

i guess i've always figured it was charmingly self-deprecating. you know, like i don't take myself too seriously, but i have a sense of humor about it.

another thing i sometimes say is "yeah, i'm a moron that way, but i'm at peace with it". again with the charming self-deprecation. right? right?

maybe this is not actually a good thing. these little sayings might actually be indicative of (gasp) poor self-esteem. i know, i know, you're like all shocked and stuff. but i've been thinking today about the effect these little instances of self-sniping might have on me.

perception eventually becomes reality. to put it another way, if you tell a lie long enough it becomes the truth. to (mis)quote ray bradbury "to lie boldy, then make the lie into truth". that quote was intended to be positive and self-affirming, but it's also double-edged.

i've noticed that a lot of my journal entries (and here i'm talking about the old dead-tree variety) include the phrase "maybe that's my problem". you know what the problem with that is?

it assumes that i have a problem.

it assumes that i'm broken or imperfect in some way.

now, i know that i'm not perfect, and that i could stand some improvement. hell, everyone wants to be better than they are, and is less than they could be. even those mythical "full-realized individuals" are still human, hence imperfect.

what i'm getting at here is that i've perhaps been too hard on myself. i assume that i'm unworthy. of love. of friendship. of the perfect job. of whatever.

why?

hmmm...question of the ages there kiddies.

i dunno.

i do know that whenever i'm feeling good about something, feeling warm, feeling loved, there's always the SmogMonkey skulking around the back of my skull sharpening the knives of self-doubt. (weird image that -- i wonder if he's also honing the points of the harpoon of self-loathing and popping the top of the economy-sized tub of margarine of self-buttering -- but i digress) somewhere, somehow i always end up doubting myself.

there's no victory sweet enough that it can't be embittered.

to tangent, and focus this little session on romance (or lack thereof) in my life, (see there i go again) i keep reading on-line personal ads and seeing this long laundry list of activities and interests for people. but i can always say to myself "yeah, she shares 99 percent of my interests, but does she know about norse mythology? i mean, can she spell ragnarock, much less define it?"

the other week jo3 said he was trying to describe my interests to a third party and it ocurred to him that the only thing that all these activities have in common is that i do them. summarily, i'm a pretty eclectic dude.

so what's the upshot of all this? is there a point or am i just wandering? i guees the point is this:

right now i feel caught in a vicious cycle. it goes

1. i can't get a girlfriend because

2. i'm unnatractive, unworthy, un-everything. how do i know this? see #1 above.

another way to say this is (as the tupes say) "there's no sense in loving anyone who hates themself."

where's stuart smalley when i need him?