23 October 2010

Radical Honesty Dilemma

If I posted here, or in any public forum, everything I really think, or managed to convey how I see the world, I would be committed on the spot. Anybody who cared about me would advise me to seek help. But total honesty with myself -- for me, specifically -- involves a high degree of honesty with the people I care about, because I am so intimidated by their opinions. If I'm not willing to be vulnerable with them, then how can I be vulnerable ever? How could I respect myself if I just cowered in a corner dodging bad vibes from everyone on the dance floor and never standing up and courageously getting out there and doing my own thing. Opinions are just wordtrash and emotional residue, and they only have the power I grant them.

So does everything else. (Big thought. Another time.)

I'm babbling. This isn't really about opinions, it's about honesty and self-respect. Dishonesty makes me respect myself less -- so I guess I won't be lying about the product codes for bulk foods at the grocery store anymore. (Dammit.)

Tonight I've been wrestling with a related dilemma. (Well, all dilemmas are related. It is one mind, after all.) Part of me wants/needs to go forward, and the other part is very well-entrenched exactly where it is, keeping the other part from being able to go far. They are at constant war in my psyche and the energy expenditure is draining. The entrenched part, the me that wants to go nowhere at all, is miserable and always has been and feels at home in misery. The forward-part cannot fucking stand this and needs/wants to get the fuck out of that misery space. Entrenched part cannot abide that kind of change, unknown, risk, potential happiness and success, potential despair, etc. (Emphasis: It hates success and happiness, which it does not understand or trust.) It doesn't trust anything it doesn't already know/have and cannot make the leap of faith necessary to take big risks that the forward-self desires to take. The entrenched self just holds back the forward-self so that the forward-self's repeated attempts to leap to the other side of whatever chasm I'm facing always fall short and never succeed.

The center cannot hold. This aggression will not stand, man.

So, real question I'm really asking because I do not know the answer: How do you get your whole self on board for serious change? Not just getting the balls together to start a bookstore (which I want to do), but to overhaul my personality and the way I see the world. How do you un=entrench yourself?