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unclekika · 5 months ago

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how i learned to keep fucking up and love myself anyway

I love me.

Though I struggle with guilt, shame, and anxiety, I forgive me. I’m gentle with me. I am kind to me.

This love hasn’t come naturally. It was built.

I built it, and I’d like to share the blueprint.

Start with a simple experience: I fuck up. Let’s not evaluate the exact nature of the fuckup, as it can happen for any number of reasons in any number of ways. I’m awkward. I’m inadvertently rude. I’m purposely rude. I forget people’s birthdays. I break promises. I fail to stand up for myself. I don’t set boundaries. I don’t meet my expectations. I let people down. I hurt people. I make a fool of me. Now begins the fuckup cycle.

Step 1: I ask, “Why did I fuck up?”

Step 2: An answer, “Because I’m a fuckup.”

Step 3: The logical extrapolation, “I am loathsome.”

Step 4: Question why I am so loathsome, question everything, return to Step 1

One day when I was a teenager, I was on the endless loop described above, at Step 1, “Why did I fuck up?” When some deep, dark part of me heretofore unknown came screaming back with a new answer: “Well, it wasn’t me who fucked up. It wasn’t me!”

Where was this answer coming from?

At first, I thought it was an issue of hindsight. When I fuck up in the moment, I don’t notice all that much. I might wince internally, but I can’t make it a big deal—I have things to do, places to be, people to see. It’s only later, in bed at night, that I’d really examine the error of my ways and feel overcome by it. That was when the fuckup cycle would begin. The one who fucked up was an earlier self. The later self was the one saying, “It wasn’t me who fucked up.”

So this was an issue of time displacement. Alone with myself at night, I could acknowledge I might’ve fucked up in the past, but I know better now. I wouldn’t do it now. So, it was unfair and pointless to blame me, my Later Self Who Knows Better, when an Earlier, Stupider Self really was the culprit.

This was the solution to the fuckup cycle: just be a Later Self Who Knows Better. I’d be perfect. I felt so much better, knowing that I would never fuck up ever again in my entire life. I could stop punishing myself. I did not suck. I was not loathsome. What a relief!

And yet, a few days later, I’d go and fuck up again. And it was Later Self Who Knows Better who fucked up! I knew better, and yet I still fucked up! Why couldn’t I stop myself, why couldn’t I be better, why couldn’t I stop fucking up?

But still that answer came screaming out of me from that dark place: “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me it wasn’t me it wasn’t me!”

What a lie! What a crock! What a filthy coward! I just didn’t want to be blamed. I didn’t want to have to deal with my fuckups; I didn’t want to deal with how much I sucked, how loathsome I really was. And how much more loathsome was it, that there was this voice inside saying, “It wasn’t me!” Shouldn’t I have had the courage to face the fact that it was me? To accept that I was loathsome?

Self-acceptance was surely the answer! Kill this thing inside that says, “It wasn’t me!” Kill it, shut it up, lock it in a room! Accept everything about yourself you hate!

And yet still that answer, growing weaker and weaker, “But it wasn’t me!”

At first, I’d explained this protest through time displacement, but that hadn’t been a very good excuse when the Later Self Who Knows better was always becoming an Earlier, Stupider Self by fucking up again. So what was this answer always claiming “It’s not me”?

Some people might attribute it to multiple personalities, “alters” in a system, two wolves inside of them. But just as these two selves were always displaced in time, so were they always displaced in space. The self fucking up was always in the middle of things, in public, fucking up. The self going through the fuckup cycle was always alone in bed at night. I realized I had a People Self and an Alone Self, and just like hindsight is 20/20, it’s also easier to evaluate a tense situation when you aren’t in the middle of it.

They’re not different people, these selves, but they do have different traits, just as everyone adopts different behaviors for different situations—the behaviors we have for work, the behaviors we have with friends, the behaviors we have with family. We also have behaviors for when we’re alone, and my “alone behavior” just happens to be the fuckup cycle.

They’re completely at odds, because Alone Self always knows better, because Alone Self is not the one in Situations. Alone Self is entirely separate from the world and able to reflect upon it, whereas People Self just stumbles along, fucking up and fucking up and fucking up

The trick, then, was to be Alone Self all the time, in public, with other people. Alone Self knows better, possibly because she thinks deeply and reflects and has an awareness of the feelings and perceptions of others. Just be Alone Self all the time. That should fix things.

It didn’t work.

I feel like I have a socialization mode, and running socialization mode is like running a program that takes a lot of processing power, so much processing power that none of the background programs can run. People Self takes over; Alone Self shuts down.

In some cultures we do not exist as singular beings. Instead, the “self” is a web of connection and interaction, formed by a series of relationships with people, animals, plants, the world. That’s who People Self is, a self who exists in relationship to the world and everything in it.

Alone Self cannot exist in such an environment. The western, individualized concept of the self exists alone in a vacuum and cannot thrive in communities. Alone self is an abstract, an idea, and the human need for animal society kills her. If I try to summon Alone Self into my body when I am in public with others, it feels like using a time machine and violating the most important paradox: two versions of me cannot exist in the same time in the same place.

What’s more, I can barely even remember Alone Self when I’m talking to someone. I’ll fuck up in some way—say something mortifying, do something stupid, commit some faux pas—and it will send a ping down into some hidden file in my brain. Later, when I drive away from the drive-through window, when I get to be alone in a restroom, when I’m on my way home from the party, when I’m lying in bed at night, the Alone Self opens the hidden file and is horrified to find it positively glowingwith ping after ping after ping. But People Self just went on fucking up, gloriously, without the ability to spare more than a few internal winces about what a daft idiot she really is.

What’s an Alone Self to do? Here she is, stuck in an endless fuckup cycle, but none of this is her fault! And furthermore, she can never fix it, because People Self is someone else, remote, untouchable.

At this point, Alone Self would’ve really just liked to have murdered People Self. After all, People Self is a fuckup, and meanwhile, Alone Self is everything I want to be. She’s smart. She’s thoughtful. She’s insightful; she’s wise. She knows the right thing to do in all situations. She’s the one who screamed back, “It wasn’t me!” which means she’s the one who figured out there was an Alone Self and People Self to begin with.

But here’s the thing about Alone Self: she is slow. She is socially incompetent. She cannot function in society. She is too mortified by every mistake to have a life of her own. She’s too hellbent on processing the worldto live in it. She needs People Self, or she would not be able to function in a world with other people in it.

People Self may be a fool. She may be reckless and embarrassing; she may be cruel and forgetful and mindless and unkind. She’s a drunk at a party everyone laughs at. She’s the jester in a court dancing for her meals. She’s a social butterfly, flitting from person to person, situation to situation, without awareness or control or meaning. She fucks everything up all the time, leaving mess after mess after mess for that other self to deal with—so many pings in the file.

But she’s alive. And she’s me. She keeps me alive. Without her, I wouldn’t be able to meet people or interact with them or have friends. No one would know me and so how could they love me? I wouldn’t put on plays, I wouldn’t play fun games, I wouldn’t meet new people or live in society or do well at a job, I would be running from everyone all the time, unable to speak for fear of misspeaking, unable to exist for fear of existing. I’d be perfect, but I would be a useless thing in a vacuum, a dull thing that doesn’t know how to talk or laugh or love or have fun.

Because here’s another thing about People Self—she’s the one people care about. She’s the one that people see. If I have any friends, anyone who loves me, it’s her they know, not the Alone Self who lies there alone in bed and beats herself up about stupid things no one cares about. If anyone laughs at my jokes, if anyone reacts well to me, if I get a job or a promotion or someone likes something I did—it’s her they’re rewarding. They don’t even know that Alone Self exists, since she’s a sad little shut-in who can’t even go outside.

Alone Self is the one who wallows in the fuckup cycle—in fact, the Alone Self creates the fuckup cycle! People Self never self-flagellates like that! People Self is carefree and innocent and deals with mistakes in a normal way! She feels mortified by her errors, but she goes on and lives and talks to people and does her job and has fun. Meanwhile, Alone Self is cruel, sitting there constantly judging, constantly condemning—what good does that do? All it does is perpetuate self-loathing.

And so now, in fact, we’ve come full circle: if one self should be annihilated, maybe it’s the Alone Self who’s really the issue. It’s an evil self, a mean little voice who should not be listened to. End the fuckup cycle—just be People Self all the time! That should fix things.

It didn’t work.

For some reason, I couldn’t stop the fuckup cycle. I’m still alone sometimes, and when alone, People Self does not emerge. In fact, I like to be alone, and when I am, no matter how much I tell the fuckup cycle “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” it still runs on automatic. I couldn’t seem to stop feeling guilty and loathsome and terrible, for all the terrible things I’d done, all the terrible things I am. And the net result of trying to kill the Alone Self is feeling bad for not being able to do it. Now, on top of the fuckup cycle, add another layer:

Step 5: An admonition, “Stop thinking these thoughts. They’re toxic; you’re hurting yourself.”

Step 6: A confession, “I can’t stop thinking these thoughts.”

Step 7: An accusation, “You’re so fucked up for being unable to stop hurting yourself.”

Step 8: Question, “Why are you so fucked up?” and begin again.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the Alone Self and why I was unable to kill her—who she was, what she was there for. In the not-so-distant past, I’d thought that Alone Self was everything I wanted to be. I’d thought that she was smart, thoughtful, insightful, wise. I’d thought she knew the right thing to do in all situations.

Alone Self may be an awful creature. She may lie in bed and hurt herself, condemn herself, recriminating and self loathing.

But she’s alive. And she’s me.

She isn’t just the fuckup cycle. In fact, she only runs the fuckup cycle because she’s the one whose job it is to process the whole world. People Self doesn’t have to do that! She gets to flit about, fucking up, having fun. Meanwhile, Alone Self is the one who thinks about people, who they are, why they do what they do. She thinks about herself, understanding there’s an Alone Self and People Self. She thinks about morality; she thinks about philosophy; she thinks about spirituality. She is the one who reads stories, analyzes them, loves them; she’s the one who writes stories, who writes about herself, who finds things out about herself. She is the one writing this post right now—how could I murder such a person?

Thinking about this Alone Self, I once more wished that I could be her, that I could show her to the world and share her, because she is so interesting, so thoughtful, so kind, so big, so endless. She’s a well that I could drown in—why could I not wear her face in the world?

And then I realized, since she cannot exist in public, People Self is what Alone Self has, to interface with the world. People Self is a thing that Alone Self made, a program that she wrote, and agent that she sent, because Alone Self is in a vacuum, and she needed a thing that could be in the world and live. If People Self is a socialization mode, then Alone Self is the CPU running it.

But if you run a program—if you send an agent out into the world, she has to be dynamic. She’s going to encounter all these factors that the Alone Self could not account for. She’s going to have to react in the moment and work with what she has available to her. And then, at night, when she’s alone, she can return with all the intelligence she’s gathered so it can be analyzed. There will be a lot of pings in her files, but it’s not her fault.

She really did her best.

Reader, I ship it.

I’m very lucky, that Alone Self is so strong that she screamed, “It wasn’t me,” that she hated being blamed, that she didn’t want to hurt herself by running the fuckup cycle on repeat. I don’t think everyone has that voice inside them, and it must make all these feelings so much harder.

I’m also very lucky that I do have some instinctive love for my Alone Self. I love being alone with me, because I get to spend time thinking and reflecting. I think my thoughts are interesting. I’m constantly shocked and amazed at how far the thoughts go down. I think not everyone feels that way, which can make life so much harder.

But I truly believe that the thing that really saved me is this instinct I have for story-telling, for character analysis . . . for love stories.

I had realized, through all my efforts to stop fucking up, or at least to eliminate the fuckup cycle, that I had an Alone Self and a People Self. I had realized, trying to murder each of them, that they were intimately related, that they made each other who they were. That they couldn’t live without each other.

I could have accepted that this was a tragedy, a war story, a story of dire enemies doomed to co-exist and hate it. But I could not.

Because it sounded like a love story to me.

Alone Self is a grumpy storm cloud, a brooding Byronic hero, a Beautiful Mind. She’s the Ultimate Computer, the God of an Underground World, the inside of the Earth. She’s a mother, she’s M, she’s an annoyed older sister—but she needs this one who seems younger, frailer, weaker. She needs this person who can bring the world to her doorstep. She needs this agent to go out into the world and live her life, her dangerous life, her life filled with landmines and horrors and the unexpected, a life filled with The World and the People In It, a life filled with too many unknowns to program a contingency for everything.

And Alone Self can choose to hate her agent, her sunshine girl, her manic pixie dream girl, her damsel in distress. A mother can hate her child, a big sister can judge and condemn her little sister, M can let 007 die and consider the mission a failure. A computer can choose to hate the program it is running, and Hades can choose to loathe his Persephone. The Earth can choose to revile its butterflies.

Or.

It feels easy, when you put it in these frames, when you see that these two selves are family, lovers, heroes, gods, eternal. It feels easy to see how they can be in love.

They can be in love, they can be in love, they can be in love, because that self out there in the world is trying her best, out there in the cold, with only the exploding pens the Q was able to invent for her, only the shoddy tools for communication and interaction an hermit mother imagines a Girl of This Generation might need. The only thing our sunshine girl has is Notes from the Underground. And that self out there in the world, she fights, and she fights, and she fights; she’s out there in the cold and she gets injured, and she goes on.

She goes on, and then she comes home again. She comes home again, and she could come home to someone who judges her, who asks, “Why did you fuck up?” Or she could come home to someone who loves her, who says, “You did your best with what you had,” who says, “I’ll try to equip you better next time, but sometimes, I fuck up too.”

And that manic pixie dream girl, that butterfly with her tattered wings, could say, “No, I hate you, you don’t give me enough,” but how could she? How could she, when her god lives underground, when her god is just a computer, when her god is trying her best too, I’m trying my best too, and all I can do is try to help you, because I love you. I love you.

This is my blueprint. I’m giving it to you, but I can never hand it to you in its entirety in a way that will spell out every detail, every contingency for you, because you and I can never touch. You are your Alone Self, alone, reading this—even if people are around you, you’re in a coffee shop, your living room, your grocery store—your inner self is reading this, your Alone Self is reading this. My Alone Self is writing this, and we are not the ones who interact in the world. We operate through our agents, our sunshine girls, our programs, our Persephones, and even this essay is coming through some thin filter of Who I Am when I interact with the world.

You have a People Self, and they’re the ones who will get their grubby hands on this precious blueprint. They’ll fuck it up. They fuck up all the time; she fucks up all the time; he fucks up all the time. It’s what they do, those fuckups; they take something that is perfectly pure, perfectly reasonable, and distort it, trying to make work for them as they hopelessly flail about the world, flitting restlessly as they try and fit in.

But though this blueprint comes to you, dirty and crumpled, wrinkled beyond recognition, without clear measurements, without straight lines, without the best instructions, I hope you’ll see that this blueprint is a love story.

It’s a love story, and love stories aren’t about following instructions perfectly, to the letter. They’re about discovery, about learning, about finding someone you can love and seeing something beautiful in them, processing the heartbreak, and letting love win, in the end. I hope that you can find your selves; I hope that you can learn who they are; I hope those selves fall in love. I hope they fall in love, become best friends, and forgive each other, forgive each other, because they’re all trying their best. They’re trying their best. I hope that your life is a love story.

My life is a love story. What I’ve been telling you is a love story. It’s taken me years, and years, and years to write this down, to write this love story for you, but I’ve written it now. I’ve written it now, my Alone Self has written it, passed it through all the filters into that cold and lonely world to find you—you, yes, you, who is reading this. I wrote it for you.

I wrote it for you, because, like so many lovers who find happiness, I want happiness for you, too. But it’s more than that. It’s more than that, because I think you’ll find that when you see yourself at last, see the self that you are but also the self who has to constantly deal with this difficult, cruel, unexpected and careless world, you’ll begin to see others this way. You’ll begin to see that all of us are underground, all of us are Earth, all of us are Ultimate Computers, MI6, mothers, fathers, parents, big sisters, big brothers, big siblings, and we’re all just reaching out with our fragile methods of communicating, our fragile voices and our fragile faces and our fragile fingers, blindly seeking touch.

I think you’ll find that we’re all love stories, waiting to happen, and that some of that love is happening already, because I love you. I love you. I can never know you, but I love you, because you’re here, reading this with me.

And you’re trying your best.

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