nathanael.ink

Do you know what it’s like to be stuck as myself? You can just come and go from me, as you like, but here I am still in an endless state of being. Being absolutely myself. Some mean to resolve this paradox by concluding they must love themselves, but I am skeptical that this resolves it at all. For what is the paradox, after all?
(1) Persons can leave the company of undesirable persons
(2) Oneself is undesirable
(3) Oneself is a person
(4) Therefore I (person) can leave the company of myself (person)

If the conclusion is false then which premise is it that is misleading? It seems so sloppy to just add “other than oneself” to (1). A little ad hoc, don’t you think? So they try to attack (2) with everything they’ve got. They insist it is necessarily false. For if it were not false then the conclusion would follow, but the conclusion is clearly absurd! Whatever the case may be, it is a terrible way to live, trapped here with such an undesirable person.

You understand, don’t you? Of course not, you’re not me. If you dislike me you’re probably not reading this therefore only those who are at least remotely amused by my inky expressions are here to begin with therefore it’s unlikely you relate to the sensation of just out-rightly detesting Nathanael and therefore maybe cannot completely conceive of why someone might; well they do. Lots of people do.

But…you are you, aren’t you? You can’t leave, you can’t change, you can’t hop in some other body and take a vaca. But, come on now, have you seen the scorn I receive from those who once have know me so well? Someone is convinced I’m a psychopath. Someone is convinced I’m not well learned and talk out of my ass most of the time. Someone thinks I’m an egotist just living to stroke my pride a bit more. Someone thinks I’m terrible at my job and would be better of quitting and finding a job more suited for my strengths. And you know the best part? I’m mostly certain they’re right…

but…hm… you the reader, you have that to. You, who is also a person all the time. No matter what. All your super serious fuck ups you really just can’t do anything to take back… there they are. They’re on some figurative calendar buried in your nervous system. From the way your hands tingled that first time, to how your body rumbled as hatred roared out something dreadful, there is no date you can truly mark out… but everyone else knows it, they remember it, and they can’t mark it out either, and you’re half afraid it’ll happen again any day, and you’re half grateful they were too afraid to confront you about it, but you’re mostly mortified that that person is still you… a persistent identity doesn’t sound so good anymore… but you hold those same things against me, and I hold them again you, and we against them…

god I hope this self loathing is really just me… what if it was everyone doing it? …shit man. That’s not any good at all… all my self loathing just became empathy…