About four years ago, I came onto FB
the first time, & I played with it much the same as everyone else
does. I was just as excited by the possibilities as everyone else.
But it was here…I was able to
confront not only THE possibilities of the technology...
But MY OWN possibilities.
My potential.
Good and bad.
Just as I was able to explore my skills
and inclinations…
I was also able to confront my fears, flaws &
neurosis.
I also saw the benefit of the medium to
do something about them.
It was a first for me; at a time when I
had lived a largely unexamined life, crashing from one failure to
the next- finally I saw a way to not only socialise with other human
beings…
But be held accountable to them.
Some have asked…is this a place for
therapy?
I don’t know; FB is what you want it
to be.
Is it a place to let people know what
you have eaten, or what you are watching on TV?
I simply saw more potential in the
medium.
That’s all; my aims are not loftier,
or better- just different.
When I first came onto FB, and when I
began to examines the sins my flesh is heir to- I saw myself as a bit
of a bastard.
Literally.
I behaved selfishly, with scant regard
for the feelings of others.
This shock soon became a blog, called
the ‘Bastard Watch’.
Seems funny now, which I guess is a
good thing.
Funny I did something like that.
Not everyone understood it. Least of all my girlfriend at the time.
Poor woman.
At least she had access to my truth.
So did everyone else.
Funny business...
But that’s what I did.
I wanted to be held accountable for my
behaviour- & do something about it.
And I wondered if by recording...I might find clues to my behaviour and the correction of it...
And perhaps even encourage others to examine themselves the same way.
But it was mainly about fixing me.
It was like- I saw my behaviour as
something separate from me.
Like it was another person doing it.
I spoke of my darker self as if he were
the enemy.
Imagine if you could do something
about, say Donald Rumsfeld.
I mean…I am not a bastard on his
scale- I did not bomb Iraq, killing thousands upon thousands for
oil…but a bastard is a bastard.
Scale is semantics.
In my view- you deliberately or with
blatant disregard hurt another human being…
You are a blight on the landscape.
And should be held accountable.
It was not enough to say ‘I will stop
being a Bastard’…
I had to resolve to actually do
something about it.
The blog held me accountable.
I used the opportunity, the technology,
to explore not only the extent of my bastardry, but the reasons for
it, with a view to understanding why I do it…
And what to do about it.
It was, of course, a mixed bag.
When you aspire to something like
this…a complete dismantling of a faulty human being…
It can become all sorts of things you
don’t expect.
It became worst of all tiresome, at
times.
Sometimes...It went nowhere.
Just became a place to wallow in the
muck.
It even became a self fulfilling
prophecy; I called myself a 'bastard'…
Admitted to my nature…
Which in a way,
condemned me to remaining a bastard.
Didn’t actually STOP me being a
bastard?
I simply transferred my skills for
bastardry to the Internet!
It turned out to be a way of maximising
my efforts!!
Which meant there was certain
fundamental flaws I was not confronting properly.
(You might ask why I did not seek
professional help? I have done all that. Professional help is a sham-
the worst of all shams. Even when you can see someone- it is night on
useless. There is no practical effective sustainable adjustment of
the personality but the work you do yourself. None.)
So…I knew that from experience.
I will not go into much detail about
the way in which I was able to explore my character flaws, because I
took a camera with me, & filmed them.
Over a period of years.
The upshot of all the work?
There is no film to show for all that
work…
But there seems to have been an
improvement in who I am.
I literally feel like I am no longer a
bastard.
I have my moments…
And there are times I feel like being a
bastard- but when I am aware of it…
I STOP.
I simply don’t go there.
Which is, to my view, an improvement.
A reason for doing all this.
Given that it has worked so well…
I continue to do it.
Here.
And I have a small group of friends who
have agreed to help keep me accountable to my intentions.
Which brings us to where I am right
now.
As I look back on my work, & I ask
myself- where do I go from here?
My weapon in this battle against my
base nature has always been the truth.
I have tried to stick to the truth- as
elusive a concept as that might seem- it has served me well.
I have tried to define my truth and
align it with my core being by asking myself questions.
A good one has always been- ‘if I was
treating myself this way- how would I like it?’
Putting myself in the place of the
person I was hurting.
Empathy.
I look at myself at a turning point…at
the crossroads, and in the face of serious illness, I am asking
myself some fundamental questions of life or death.
I look at my truth.
Who I really am.
Not who I claim to be, or aspire to be-
because I know myself well enough to know these things can be worse
than bastardry- they can be a lie.
A lie we tell ourselves.
I am asking myself the questions; on
the edge of illness-
Who am I?
What do I want?
And for that, I ask myself a series of
other, more direct questions.
Questions about the questions.
What was I put here to do?
Born to do?
If I have my basic needs and desires
met- & for the most part, I do…
What do I want?
And of course it was then…I found out
something I had been hiding.
For a lifetime.
I knew it in part…
But I did not know all of it.
I mean…I knew what I wanted- I knew
what I was put here for…
In a way I have been chasing it my
entire life.
THE IMPORTANT THING- and I think it is
something we ALL hide from ourselves in one way or another…and it
has to do with the extent to which we saboutage ourselves…
Stand in our own way…
We KNOW what we want.
What we DO NOT ALWAYS KNOW…
Is why we will NOT allow ourselves to
have it.
I wanted love.
BUT I NEVER FELT WORTHY OF IT.
Never.
Never did…
Never do.
Will I ever?
If so…
How?
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