Tag: ego

093a – age, explore vs exploit, attachment

Feeling very reflective today. I think I’m not that afraid of turning 30 anymore. I feel like things have only gotten better (so far) with the power that experience and age brings. I’m still ambitious, motivated, excited, prone to chasing pleasure, prone to human longings, but I feel more grounded. Of course, these feelings of stability and security are not PURELY related to age. There’s a lot of other things that play into it— geography, community, loving people ie family and friends, romantic partnerships, anti-anxiety medication, my therapist, goals I’m working towards, and lastly art and artistic outlets; and some of these (maybe most) can be present at most ages. But whatever it is, I’m feeling good about still have over an year to 30, and then sort of having a nice “second half” of my life from 30-55 or 30-60. 

I don’t want to say that the life I envision post 60 is not valuable, but I imagine that will be very different considering the challenges that “old age” might bring, so I just feel like it’s futile to think about that right now. Obviously, one might argue it’s obviously futile to even think about anything beyond a week or two, really, but let’s keep that aside for a minute. 

The point is— I’m excited about the second half of my life. 

The numbers are just rough markers, of course.

I’m satisfied with the amount and kind of “explorations” I’ve done over the course of my 20s, and I feel good about sort of entering a bit of the “exploit” part of life, at least in the bigger picture. Not to say that I will curb my exploratory needs as and when they come up— and I think I am sufficiently exploratory by nature, and this has also been sufficiently stable over the last couple decades, despite the anxieties that come with exploration in general and despite my personal fears and anxieties. So I wouldn’t want to curb my exploratory needs too much, and my brain does devote maybe 10-20% of its bandwidth on curiosities. However, I’m learning to focus on the stability and safety that comes out of really leaning into the remaining 80-90% of the thing itself. Or (and) celebrate the good parts of what is. 

— 

In therapy we also talked about differentiating attachment (of the spiritual sense) and the real attachment (the one that exists within relationships etc). I think I’ve been mixing the two a lot over the last few years. I’ve convinced myself that I get attached too quickly and in unhealthy ways (even though that attachment was coming from my ego) and I forgot that I’m capable of maintaining and nourishing healthy attachments too. With friendships, for example— I’m actually capable of showing up in many many healthy ways. I’d like to not do myself disservice by confusing these two terms. Maybe it makes sense to think about what the healthy attachment means and looks like— do I want it? Is it a subset of love? What are the pitfalls? Why am I so afraid of it? I am not afraid of intimacy but I do find myself being quite afraid of “attachment”. So, yeah, that’s something I’ll be thinking about this week as well. 

Cheers, happy Feb! xx

017 – we have no egos to protect

Sitting on the couch and thinking about the ego again tonight. There’s a strong inner critic in me that puts me down left and right so others won’t. I’ve had negative history with people who’re overconfident and assertive that at some point I decided to “never” be that way. I internalized that so strongly that I never evaluated whether I have a choice. I want to work towards a healthy self-perception.

It makes sense that I could supposedly deal with my fears (being disliked, rejection, not belonging) if I realize that I have no ego to protect. 

I suppose it might be insane to think of these big clouds of fear and try to resolve them. I can only take them on case by case. Notice when they come up, acknowledge them, analyze situations cognitively and take action accordingly.

One thing I don’t love is how much they also show up in my language. I am so afraid of being assertive and saying anything too strongly. I am not happy with the amount of “I think”s and “I feel”s I add in my sentences. Sometimes they’re warranted, and I can let them stay if they really feel right, but right now I think I’m erring on the side of having too many.

I’m struggling with my motivation behind writing. There’s a part of me that wants to write for myself, there’s a part of me that wants to think about the readers. I talk about this struggle in pretty much everything I write these days. Should I consider if there’s ways to solve this? Did I quick google search and god there’s a ton of writing advice online. Don’t feel ready for that yet.

My fear with writing “only for myself” is whether all of this is coming across as “too self-indulgent”. I don’t really have an ego to protect though, so I could technically be okay with that. Self-work can be embarrassing when we’re starting out, and I suppose accepting that can make this easier for me. But accepting that requires continued doing, so I suppose I just have to keep building the muscle. I also know that I can only get to the potentially interesting stories that I want to tell once I get these surface level stories out.

I know that publishing everything I write has been good for me, though. It’s made me more consistent, I’ve never written so much, so consistently. But it has been a bit addictive in that I don’t always feel like going out and getting things done. Maybe that’s the self-indulgent part of me. I keep getting the feeling that I’m trying to think my way into satisfaction and happiness. Maybe I do need to set some goals for the month this weekend. Cannot keep reflecting my way out of them.

I suppose I have to look at the cost to this kind of self-indulgence (for the purpose of this post I’ll just call it that), if I want to decide whether it’s a problem. I have a couple of ideas that I want to explore and write about, in ways that could be more satisfactory (since I believe they can be more coherent and meaty in ways these self-talk posts can’t). Or, thinking about it more clearly, adding aesthetic or functional value to even a few more people could be better than only adding value for myself. 

I’ll also have to confront myself a bit, am I just lazing around when I’m doing this? Is this actually adding much value to me or am I just running around in circles? I don’t know if I’m ready to think about these questions yet.

I can think of a helpful reframe though. Once we get done with the things we need to say, we can start thinking about the things we want to say.

I’m considering adding a satisfaction rating to each of these posts. 0 being the satisfaction I get from not publishing anything at all, and 10 being the satisfaction I get from publishing something I’m really proud of (in terms of aesthetic quality or meaningful content or perceived value add to other people), I think these reflection-y posts lie somewhere around 4/5. If I can observe this over a period of time and throw in a higher satisfaction post once in a while, I should be good. I won’t tell you guys though. 🙂

I’m definitely being lazy. I know it’ll involve more time and effort if I start thinking about quality. It’s alright though, I know I could get there eventually, if I wanted to. 

It’s a new day. Sitting on a chair and trying to wrap this up. I’m feeling quite proud of the relationships I’ve built and deepened in the last year or so. Don’t know whether it has to do anything with me or their own niceness but regardless, these are things that I’m extremely grateful for.

Sometimes I consume content which distracts me from the things I wanted to write about. I don’t even remember them anymore. Detachment feels quite depressing sometimes. If I am detached from the world and detached from myself then I won’t have as much to write about anymore. Though I know that’s not true and connected detachment can be a thing, I don’t yet know how to balance the line. 

There’s a lot happening in the world these days and I often feel quite guilty for not keeping up with it. What is up with the collective pain of humanity and the numerous ways in which it shows up? Politics feels like a scary, dense realm to even think about.

I’ve jumped around a lot in this word-vomit (we’re back to calling these that, aren’t we?), so I’d like to end with an exchange of words that took place around six months back. I’d met someone new and we were talking about our hopes and dreams. Naturally, I’d mentioned writing. “What would you write about?”, she’d asked me. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”, I’d questioned back. Thinking about that wistfulness again tonight.