Egocentric – Sunny With a Chance Of Armageddon

Day 01 : Something you hate about yourself.

As a chronic self-loather, I can find at least a hundred different things to hate about myself in the next minute. Okay, go!

I’m short.
I’m overweight.
I’m awkward.
I’m a self-loather.
I’m sometimes passive-aggressive.
I’m a dirty liar to myself.
I’m sitting here making this list to prove myself.
I’m not sure I can come up with enough ways to loathe myself.

Seriously? That was it?! Add another to the list. I can’t think on my feet.

Notice something above? All of the items started with I’m. I. Me. That’s the biggest problem of them all.

It’s all about ME.

: It really is.

See? I even included a real life picture of myself, (skillfully edited for privacy), to prove my point. That’s the first thing I did when coming up with a graphic for this post. I whipped out my camera and took about 10 photos until one came out the way I wanted.

Perhaps, I’m being overly sensitive to the notion that I am self-involved. It is the furthest thing from what I want to be. However, I cannot seem to think of a subject without being, well, subjective. All of my knowledge. All of my emotions. My opinions being based on a combination of those in my experience.

Those are all of the ideas and thoughts that are translated from consciousness to some form of communication. It is a very egocentric way of being, and it is absolutely distasteful. There is a certain disdain toward the concept, and a loathing for embodying the trait. No person wants to consider themselves as being self-absorbed. Most of us aim to be altruistic. However, there is an uncertainty that concept exists in the purest form. Is it possible for a human being to be completely altruistic?

See what I did in that last paragraph? I removed any self-centric words. I used to make a practice of it. In college, unless it was specifically an opinion piece, we were encouraged to removed any subjective words. It made my writing sound ten times better, and removed bias while displacing blame.

I originally made a practice of it here, unless I was giving a first person narrative. That’s what Pendulum started with: a narrative.

But, I’ve been writing so much on the subject of me, my experience with bipolar disorder, and my life over the last six months that I’m not sure where to draw the line anymore.

Back to the subject egocentricity versus altruism. Perfect altruism is a work in progress. The process of attaining perfect altruism is more important than the infeasible objective of embodying it. That is my own self-discipline. Others first, unless I am really running on empty. Because, I cannot expect others to return my kindness and help me see to my own needs. Tending to myself is what I think of self-sufficiency, rather than complete selfishness.

That’s where the lines go down in the sand. They shift with the tides. I have to carefully determine what is a need and what is a want. The things I need may eventually become wants, and vice versa. I may need leisure time at one point, because I am overburdened. At another, it may be a recreational want, because I am interested in those things more than I am in activities that revolve around my responsibilities.

More than that is the question of self-esteem, assertion, overbearing, narcissist. Where does the line go down? Back to self-loathing, I know I have plenty of that. Only recently have I come into some self-esteem through firm demonstration of my positive characteristics and talents. When and where does one love themselves too much?

: Self-esteem gone wrong.

I have always had strong feelings about this subject. A person crosses the line between confidence into arrogance when they become delusional about their own shortcomings.

So, why, again, do I feel as if it’s all about me?

My thoughts have been unusually introverted and my expression reflects that. I talk about me. I write about me. I think about me.

There is a careful balance between egocentricity and altruism. I am in the midst of that juggling act as my personality takes on certain shifts. Throughout my treatment for bipolar disorder, I have noticed the plates shifting, changing the landscape of my own self. Sometimes, it is difficult for me to differentiate between what is illness and what is personality. For both the good, and the bad.