I am not composed of cells and tissue. I am composed entirely of awesome.
So are you, provided you haven’t forgotten that fact.
It’s an easy thing to forget, really. We live in a sad, fettered world that’s all about the gains and advantages, the one-upmanship and quick victories, the lionization of the false self-image at the expense of demonizing the other, among other poison of the patriarchy, and all of the other things that makes people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin into ‘world leaders’. And when that world is coming at you in all sorts of forms, from the latest round of bad news from across the globe to someone close to you buying into nonsensical gossip that completely ignores facts, suddenly, we forget to be awesome.
Our viewpoints get skewed away from making the world around us better, and towards more self-centered goals.
When I see it happening, I tend to get angry. Because we are capable of being so much better than that.
I take a lot of stress on myself in trying to understand the positions others are in when they say or do certain things. This is especially true if I have some personal knowledge of or experience with a given person. “So-and-so has said and done X in the past; why are they acting in this contrary way now?” The answer is never simple; you can’t cut a complex individual with Occam’s Razor. First of all, cutting people in general is cruel and downright rude (unless there’s some sort of consensual act occurring, in which case, please have some antiseptic handy, and check in with your partner often). Moreover, if we want to be imagined complexly, and not merely reduced to a caricature of our inborn traits or the perception of our rumored outward showings, we must imagine others complexly as well.
That’s been my philosophy for a long time. And in spite of everything that’s happened to me, I refuse to change it.
One thing I’ve really struggled to integrate into that philosophy is the cold fact that not everyone will appreciate my efforts, or even acknowledge them. Because this thing I do where I treat others the way I want to be treated means I don’t always assert myself or leave room for myself to be myself. That tends to give others the implicit permission to treat me in a reductive fashion — to take advantage of me, use me, in some cases abuse me, and in others, discard me like a broken thing that no longer serves a particular purpose.
You see, being reductive is easy. It requires less thought, less time, and less consideration of others. A particular person may be more interested in furthering a personal agenda; they might distance themselves from a perceived threat, be it a threat of person — “this is someone who could hurt me” — or a threat of position, i.e. “this person could make me look/feel foolish/ineffectual”. They might even get triggered by the hint of past trauma, or are too indoctrinated into a particular zeitgeist. In all of these cases, reductive perception is the quick way to resolve a situation. You get to keep your place in the groupthink, you have an easily influenced bunch of cohorts at your beck and call, and you can paint your perceived enemies with the same, broad brush. Simple! Easy!
I may be hard-wired to make things harder than they have to be for myself (more on that later), but I will be damned if I take the easy way out in this regard.
Come to think of it, I already have been, if you ask some folks.
They’re not bad people, though. They’re not evil villains out to destroy people like me.
They’ve just forgotten to be awesome.
Being awesome isn’t about winning. It isn’t about getting what or who you want. It isn’t about always getting your way. Your victories do not make you awesome. Your friends do not make you awesome. Your game collection, your bank account, your liquor cabinet, your list of potential booty calls, your Instagram — none of that, in and of itself, makes you awesome.
You know what makes you awesome?
Asking hard questions to get the facts. Making hard choices to make the world suck less for a stranger. Standing up for people who aren’t able to do so. Getting out of your own way enough to make room for others who are getting held back. Seeing something inside of yourself that needs to change, and no matter what, changing it. Doing things for yourself that are positive, happy, progressive, and constructive, of your own volition, with your own permission, that do not hurt others, and that stoke your own fires. Occupying the space you occupy without being afraid that you don’t deserve to occupy it. Being yourself and owning what that means, even if it means you’re going to make mistakes, because like it or else, you’re merely a human being.
But doing that stuff I just rattled off means you are the most awesome human being you can possibly be.
Try not to forget to do that today.
And if you do, that’s okay. Don’t forget the next day. And the next day. And the day after that.
The world needs you to be awesome.
So be the awesome you want to see in the world.
Tuesdays are for telling my story.
