May 21, 2006

Love of Self

Once, there was a little boy who loved his mum and who loved his dad and who loved learning. Sometimes his brother would borrow his things without asking, so he kept them all in a big and well organized pile, which he checked regularly.

One time, when he was about four years old, he decided that he was going to make some kind of soup. He got a washing-up bowl and put into it some water, some lilac blossoms, and some kidney beans. Then he left the bowl in the darkness of the garage for a couple of weeks. When he came back to check on it, the smell was so disgusting that he almost threw up. Lilac made him feel sick for a long time after that.

When this little boy was six years old his parents got divorced. He knew that the movers were coming to take his dad's stuff away and he felt really sad; he thought that he was never going to see his dad again. When his brother's camera arrived in the mail, loaded with a new film, he took it around the house and photographed all of his dad's stuff; things like the stereo and the Chinese, carved mahogany trunk.

As he grew up, he learned to be ashamed of himself. He learned that he was worthless. He learned that he could not have what he wanted; as soon as he felt that he wanted something, he learned that is was a sign that he couldn't, and shouldn't, have it. He learned that he was unlovable, unattractive, stupid, and geeky. He learned that he could be good or adored, but not both. He chose to try to be good mainly because he had learned that he didn't deserve to be adored anyway. In fact, he had learned that not only was he not good but that didn't even deserve to be good.

When he was eight he had an idea. He wondered what would happen if he made a device which enabled him to look with one eye into the other eye. It would be a u-shaped tube with two mirrors in it, one at each of the bottom corners. He had a very strong feeling that if he looked into it, he would go into an ecstatic state of consciousness. So he started looking for pieces: some mirrors and some boards. While he was looking, he kept stopping and thinking how silly it was; after all, he thought, he could just look in the mirror to produce a similar effect and that didn't seem to happen, although he hadn't really tried it. But then he would remember the feeling that it was for real, so he carried on looking. He couldn't find the pieces and eventually gave up.

At about eight, he was in his dad's bedroom in his dad's new house, the house where his dad had lived with his new wife. He was looking through the drawers. They were filled with gadgets, wires, watches, and remote controls. He was looking for his dad, but he couldn't find him. His dad had died. Today he has lots of gadgets.

As an adult he found himself creating a world which reflected what he had learned as a child. People around him told him that he was unlovable and stupid. Even when they weren't telling him that, it's what he heard anyway.

Finally, he came to the end of the road. He was fed up with life and he asked the universe what was going on. The universe answered and he was given a tiny bit of self-love. It was just enough that he could believe it when someone told him that they liked him, that they really did like him. He found more people that liked him and he spent a lot of time with them, which made him feel really good.

Then he found that there were people who loved him and that there were people who were attracted to him and people who thought that he was cute too. It started to seem like a dream; like his wildest fantasies were coming true. People really liked him and they thought that he was lovable, cute, and attractive. It was amazing to him; like a miracle. He loved and appreciated those people so much. And he started to learn from them that he was lovable, good, attractive, deserving, adorable, cute, likeable, smart, and cool.

But then, after a long time, he started to realize that there were people who didn't like him. But even more importantly, he realized that these people spent their time putting him down and criticizing him in order to feel better about themselves. There had always been people like this, but he had been so used to the way that they had treated him that he hadn't realized that it wasn't a problem with him. He had been spending so much time trying to prove to them that he was worthy of them liking and loving him; trying to prove something that he hadn't even believed himself; trying prove something which was, in fact, not true, because they hated him.

Finally, he realized that their dislike of him was their problem and that he didn't have to put up with the way that they treated him. Finally, he decided to walk away from the people who made him feel bad, the people who hated him. Finally, he decided that he was going to spend his time being with the people who made him feel good, the people who loved him.

And that's about as far as he'd got when he wrote this.