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Thursday 12th December 2024

8039/20980
I was thinking about myself today, as I very occasionally do and I thought that I am a bit surprised that my career isn't going a better than it is. Then I thought, also I am a bit surprised that my career is going as well as it is. Seemingly two contradictory opinions, but nonetheless I was able to hold them both simultaneously and believe them both to be true. I am both too useless to be as successful as I am and too talented to be as little appreciated as I am. Sometimes, I guess, I am two different people. I should try and do a podcast about that.
Is this just me or is everyone like this? Unable to understand why you're not more appreciated, whilst also not being to able to comprehend why anyone appreciates you.
Some people seem to be very cocksure of themselves and everything they do, but I suspect that confidence hides an even deeper insecurity. Imagine not being able to laugh at yourself or to admit your failings. Even to yourself
I suppose my combination of arrogance and lack of self-belief is what has fuelled my working life. How was I ever so brazenly self-centred to stand up on stage and try to make people laugh whilst still being the person who had to bolt from social gatherings out of fear that I might impose myself on others? I don't know. But if I wasn't capable of being both things at once then I could not be the self-derogatory comedian than I am today. My uselessness is the source of most of my material and yet I am able to express that uselessness skilfully enough in order for people to pay money to watch me. Not as many people as I think should be doing that, obviously, but more than I could reasonably expect?
When I was younger and worried I'd never lose my virginity (I was 28 years old at the time) it struck me as impossible to believe that out of all the people available on the planet earth, anyone would choose me to fall in love (or just in bed) with me. I wasn't even in my own top million best people to have sex with and yet ironically I seemed to be the only person prepared to have sex with me. And we did it a lot. I guess we both got off on being intimate with someone who we weren't that attracted to. I considered myself to be straight, yet I only had experience with someone not only of my own gender, but my exact physical match. Self-loathing narcissism.
Luckily it turns out there were other people out there who weren't that choosy. Quite a lot of them. How could it be that many? Also why wasn't it many, many more? How can I think both questions are valid?
Then I met my wife and even though I thought she was the greatest person I'd ever met, I still somehow felt that I was worthy to be her partner. How could I be that arrogant? If I really loved her and wanted her happiness I should have scoured the earth for the most perfect human being available for her. Not just presumed that I'd be that guy.
I should have got them together and watched them pair off, feeling happy that I had done something so noble and right for the woman I loved. Her happiness, surely, should be my only concern if I loved her. Did I really think I was the one who could bring her the joy she deserved? How do we convince ourselves that love is selfless, when it clearly exhibits so much self-interest. Unless you really believe you're the best possible person your partner could be with. In which case you've got other problems.
We all must know we're not good enough for the person we're with, if we truly love them.
We're all pretending we are in the hope that they won't find out. Don't worry though, so are they. It still works.

I think today's queasy realisation that I have two conflicting beliefs about myself came from comparing myself to others and feeling jealousy, whilst also realising that their success was deserved. I look around at others and realise that I am doing so well and also that I'm doing so badly. I suppose it's all just about having perspective that flows in more than one direction. Self-worth and self-criticism - you probably need both. I am doing better in life than I could ever realistically have hoped and yet there are always ways I could be doing better. It makes perfect sense to believe two opposing things.
The key is finding the balance between them, like the up and down lever and the left and right lever on a remote control. I am both brilliant and terrible at that.

Don't let your mind chew away at you.
Believe in yourself, but you know, be realistic.



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