Look Back in Danger
Two sides to everything and shame is no different. Shame can be a guide and shame can claim that which it has no business owning.
I’ve spent a lot of time suffering and fretting and generally feeling pretty shameful about the things that I have not accomplished in life. The truth is that no one cares. And no one cares in a good way. No one is disappointed that I have not revolutionized the art world with new conceptions or re-imagined artistic themes. No one spends their time wondering when my next, or first, great novel is coming out. The people I love and trust could care less about these unspoken goals that I’ve manufactured. Thank you for your inconsideration friends and loved ones!
But maybe I care? And I do, to some degree. Feeling that it is important that I’ve created something and then feeling bad that lately I’ve not done a whole lot of creating could be positive. Such reflection could be stimulative. Instead I’ve spent more effort generating and then succumbing to my own supra-lofty goals than is remotely justifiable. The real problem (problem being that which inhibits accomplishment) is that I’ve sought the disaster of living in the past. The only part of me that has thrived is that part which feeds on the morose. This is some leftover remnants of depression - surely. What else but depression seeks to kill your vitality with your own emotions?
The truth that I can see about it now, now that I’ve tried to sort it out with writing, is that depression chose my most cherished part of me to kill. I say depression “chose”. Depression is like the trinity, an impossible orchestration of being. It is both within you and without you - but it is not your self. It is a distinct and individual enemy. Too often, though, this enemy is so close that you have no chance to see how it distorts your mind. It is phantom limbs and doom-colored glasses.
This lack of clarity is what has transformed my shame. Instead of impetus, shame has laid claim to the very faculties it should have emboldened. Writing this down has let me see this. Thank you, words; thank you, phrases; thank you, paragraphs.
