Today… I was going to write about how inadequate / fat / small / insignificant / lost/ ridiculous I feel, & how long these feelings have been permeating through my brain (consistently for a few weeks now).
Today… I was going to write about all the things I need to do: I need to exercise; I need to eat better; I need to dress better; I need to look better; I need to feel better.
Today… I was going to whine about the diamond ring / the pair of shoes / the tube of mascara / the new car I want. I was going to mope, wallow, & pout about every little thing that makes me uncool, unpopular, unhip, unloved, & unwanted.
I was going to go on & on about those silly things, those wretched lies… until I read these words:
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There has been a constant thought-ad campaign running since I was a little kid, though I like to pretend it has become more sophisticated as I’ve matured.
The basic message has always been the same: “You are not enough.” The longer version goes like this: “Face it— you were never one of the cool kids. In fact, you’ve never been close to cool. For this transgression, you shall forever remain unworthy of the blessings in your life. You are inadequate in ways you can’t even describe or pinpoint. But if you do THIS, if you get THAT, if you believe the other thing, then you might, maybe, possibly, be okay (but only for a little while).” I’ve become the worse kind of consumer– a consumer of unmeetable expectations. …So much time in life has been lost chasing the morphing ghosts of Cool, when I could’ve been learning how to be Kind.
Along with the hundreds of other images of women (& men) that we see every day on the TV & movie screens, the faces on the magazine rack form one vague but cohesive personality, one superhuman ideal that shifts slightly (& profitably) with whatever style is seasonally declared. This superhuman figure embodies a perfection of sexuality & a fulfillment of lifestyle. Call her MegaGirl—a superhero whose superpower isn’t anything specific. She doesn’t really do anything. …It’s not about what she does. It’s about what she has. She’s got IT. Just don’t ask what IT is, because you won’t get a straight answer from anyone. IT is a shadow; IT is a whisper; IT is something we could never possess unless we buy into the image & its accessories.
MegaGirl is the bane of the existence of every actual girl & woman I have ever known or loved. …Her ominous voice of judgment lurks in the back of their skulls. Even those women who revolt against MegaGirl’s oppression, those who’ve read or written a thousand essays denouncing the objectification of women in all its subtle forms—all of them live with MegaGirl. She is a psychic force to be reckoned with on that rack.
The mental impulse to chase an image of perfection is what keeps us coming back for another serving of inadequacy. …Of course, our modern culture of manufactured desires only intensifies the feeling of this inadequacy. We are utterly bombarded 24/7/365 by advertising meant to show us something we don’t have (but could rent pieces of, because, after all, we’re worth it!). The more bombarded we get, the less space we have to examine how our ideas of perfection are manufactured at the mental source, how they fountain out of our own insecure self-image.
When we have no way to rest with the present moment, its ups, downs, and scattered vicissitudes, we become rampant consumers of our own experience & colonizers of our own minds. We start using our natural resources to impose oppressive ideas of the way we’re supposed to be. This is how I find myself craving the latest iPod when a few years ago a cassette Walkman was more than enough. This is why so many people care where that A-list person of the moment eats breakfast…
There are certain traditional characteristics that an enlightened person is supposed to possess, certain ways such a person acts & moves through the world. A Buddha [which is just a Sanskrit word meaning "someone who is awake"] doesn’t act any differently whether she is among other people or all by herself. She doesn’t put on any façades; she doesn’t wish she were someone else; she doesn’t say what she thinks other people want her to say; she doesn’t worry if other people think she looks all right. She does look all right. She is all right. She has no affect, zero pretense. Her presence is 100% authentic. & that authenticity makes her a powerful person. Her inner strength comes from an underlying feeling of total adequacy. & this strength radiates out from her to the people around her, as if she were a living billboard blazing this slogan: “You’re great as you are. No joke.” She’s not trying to sell an image of herself to anyone–especially not to herself. & for this feat, she is, you could say, “extra” ordinary.
It sounds great, right? Being completely comfortable in our own transient skin sounds like an ideal way to be…
(From the book “One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, by Ethan Nichtern“; pages 16, 17, 22, & 23.)
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It was with those words that I was brought back to true reality. It was with those words that I was brutally woken up to the kind of harshness I impose on myself daily, both directly & indirectly.
I only started reading this book a few days ago — at the recommendation of Jonathan, who is part of the author’s project — & already I’m enamored by it.