I think one of life’s greatest pleasures that one can get is to be recognized, to be seen by people. And I take this seriously as someone who doesn’t really have close acquaintances (although I frankly think the two are unrelated on the surface), and it does seem like a very narcissistic trait, but to me, I think it depends on the volume of it. Some people want a sea full of cheers, some want a hall full of applause, some want a room of nods, but some want just the smallest approval or acknowledgement.

And I don’t mean to portray myself better by saying I only want the slightest bit of acceptance. I’m aware that, by nature, I’m incredibly selfish and probably narcissistic. Which you would think still doesn’t make it right, that, by portraying and saying it myself that I have a bad nature, makes it right for me to do it. Which it is not, but, you see where this is going. A circle of me trying to appease your reassurance, sidelining my insecurities for your inconvenience.

While I’m aware that I’m not special enough to do anything remarkable (no, that’s mostly an excuse), I’m pretty sure anyone can pull off some amazing accomplishments if they simply have the attitude for it. I don’t think I do, or so I force myself to believe that I’m genuinely incapable of doing anything worthwhile. I think it stems from the fact that I was a nuisance and a genuine academic liability ever since I was in primary school, but that’s a topic for another day. In short, my insecurity perhaps was shaped by my own laziness and the truth that confides me of it ever since my adolescence, and is probably the reason I take every single causality to be my wrongdoing, perhaps out of hyperconsciousness of knowing from a young age that everything was, objectively, the course of my actions.

That causes me to have an incredibly high tolerance for getting mistreated, in one way or another, because I do feel that by the nature of how I act, I’m incredibly repulsive, perhaps not in the way people see a monster and get scared of it, but more so that people see how undefined I am and are not sure which way, or how, they could approach me, knowing that I would never approach them either, believing myself to be an existence of nuisance and trying to save someone else by not engaging with them in the first place, even though perhaps that’s not true. But one thing that is for sure is that this circle of self perseverance made me incredibly insecure and kicked my self-worth off the table a long time ago.

Perhaps, that is also the very reason I crave connection, to wish that someone would overlook how dirty I am under the rubble of my own deception and vulnerability. But I’m not sure if it’s my insecurity talking, that I strongly believe that every single connection, past, present and future, would never be significant, a failure even. Thanks to my incredibly doomy nature, that nothing really does last forever, that there’s always a reason we crossed together, and a reason that we can’t always cross together. I always try to imagine the end when the beginning was just being written.

But that was probably my avoidant insecurity speaking, perhaps my other, buried ego speaks otherwise, but they do sing the same song. That, I think, every single connection I’ve encountered and will encounter will always be at surface level. Which is such an incredibly pretentious thing to say. And admittedly it is. Although it’s much simpler all things considered, I just don’t think anyone is willing to commit to a deeper, more genuine relationship. Which is frankly a stupid thing for me to say since everything has to start somewhere, right? But my idea of surface level is wildly different. I think the term I’m scrambling to find is “biased”?

By this point you’re probably aware of how insufferable I can get when it comes to disseminating or, precisely, undermining myself. And obviously this constant degradation doesn’t just go nowhere, it manifests itself too. And it probably made me a very obviously pathetic, unconfident-looking person, and by the time I start telling them the truth about myself, I think they’re now looking at me through a pitiful lens, and now the entire dynamic is based off feeling bad for me as a person. And once the foundation starts off that way, it won’t go anywhere. I’m not sure if I could ever deviate from this?

And to change means to change for acceptance, to dismiss myself? For the better? For a chance at connection? Isn’t it a contradiction then? Not necessarily that I’m saying that I don’t want to change for the better. But if the only way that I could free myself from the misery I keep inflicting upon myself was to be a different me, I think the idea of it is a bit … tragic.