An Informal Introspection

Being alone.

It's... it's just not good for you.  Sure, you can do it, but it's just not good for you.  You develop a view of life where you just take yourself too seriously.  Even when you're laughing at yourself, you just take yourself too seriously.  You are happiness.  You are joy, peace, love.  You are virtue; you are sin.  You are depression; you are hard work; you are rest.  You cease to be yourself; you become what you do.  You're alone – people no longer hurt you, but you drag yourself down.  You hate yourself when you are evil; you're on top of the world when you are goodness.  Nothing anyone can say to you can hurt you because it actually makes no difference what they think – you are what you do.

You can live your whole life single; just don't be alone.  People will hurt you – I guarantee that everyone you meet will hurt you if you take little things to heart.  But it is worth it.  Because you doubt yourself; you question life; you want to sit and just cry.  But you doubt yourself – that's very important.  Not just because it forces you to put yourself in God's hands – you can be a hermit and do that.  It's because when you live your life alone, you don't doubt yourself – you only change yourself.  You don't like something about yourself – you you change it and become someone else – because that something was you, until you changed to something else.  When you have friends, you realize that your quirks are valuable – maybe you don't have to rearrange your whole existence in order change one thing that you don't like.

There's nothing wrong with being independent.  There's nothing wrong with loving a secluded life.  There's nothing wrong with being afraid of people – you darn right should be.  They will prove to you things you don't want to admit.  For one thing, you have value outside of what you do.  For another, that trait that you've struggled with all your life because it's just so deeply ingrained in your being?  There are people who are more than happy to accept and understand you.  What's more, you'll fall hopelessly in love, and you'll find yourself questioning everything you do, hoping that it's the right thing to avoid fading into the sea of faces.  And you'll do things that you would have been too proud and too shy to have done before, but it'll work.  And you'll cry yourself to sleep in agony and bliss.

At the same time.

And what's more, you'll fall in love with yourself.  You'll kick yourself until you're black and blue, but you'll love yourself to death.  And you'll love other people to death like you've never loved before.  –If you just be yourself.  Or rather, if you let yourself shine through you – because it's yourself that's been the trouble all these years.  Just don't be alone.  Or you'll cover yourself up.  You'll wither and die underneath the facade of what you do.

So be embarrassed.  So hate yourself.  So bury your head under your pillow and wish the day never happened.  Fidget with regret at a lost opportunity.  It's those moments that make up living; it's the lack of those moments that make up existing.

With tremendous love,

 Self