I find myself in a good mood, my thoughts start to feel free to fly around and form something beautiful, expressive and clear. Then I think, ah that’s a good time for writing. Because I liked what is in my mind, it’s pretty, so showing it must do me good, I think. It will fulfill the need inside me to achieve something, to have an output, to look at things later and say yeah I did that. People could call me a good writer, and who knows maybe it will also inspire someone, so he will look at me with respect. I must do it. This goes for a few seconds. Like a fleeting feeling. I then get distracted and the day goes on. But my mind has now added a task on my mental to-do list, I have to find some time and write. I find time eventually and I sit down, but there is a problem, my mind doesn’t feel the same anymore, can’t find the same good feeling of clarity, that beauty has demolished. Now my mind is busy and disorganized, it’s ugly. But I need to write! I had a good image of myself if I did it. I try to recall the mindset I was in when I was feeling good about myself, as if that was a file that can just be opened. It doesn’t happen, so I hate myself and my mind. All the feelings of self-love and narcissism convert into self-hate and shame. Then I shift my focus away from myself and externalize the new feelings of guilt into projection and attack on something unreal, and blame it for what I am feeling. I hide, I still write, but I lie.

That is a simple scenario of how I would project my feelings of shame onto something I like doing. And through it I want to be liked, acknowledged and praised. It will help me feel accepted and validated. It will distract me from seeing what I am trying not to see in me. Because I believe that the only way I can be worthy, is by being perfect. We are obsessed with beauty. About perfection. We don’t accept the ugliness inside us, our fragility. Only if we seem strong, positive and invulnerable, we will become respected. But we run away from ourselves, and we end up feeling exhausted, stressed and we hate ourselves, and we hate others.

But the way things are is not the way the world must work. I like to write but I don’t find anything to justify why I write. I don’t believe I know anything more than you do. So what can I give you to make you like me? I question myself, and I don’t feel good about most of what I have already achieved, I would go back and read something I wrote then I delete it because I don’t think it’s done what I wanted it to do, I wanted to be called “right” about it, but it’s not. So I take it back. I don’t want to say something that will prove that I am unworthy of your praise. So I have to be careful, and I have to try to be more right next time. This is what would my brain tricks me into believing. I should only show beauty. I have to hide ugliness and imperfection. But the way things are is not the way things should work. I don’t have to prove the beauty and perfection of what I am giving. I don’t have to look for value in what I am presenting. I am allowed to show ugliness, because it exists, and it doesn’t matter where do we hide it, it will still be somewhere, it has to be. We wear masks that don’t fit us because we are too afraid of being exposed. But we are proven wrong every time we are tricked to think that the way things are is the way things must be. We see someone removes the mask to us, we judge them and push them away, then we envy them and wish we could remove our masks to someone too. When we do it, we find something.

It’s a search, we all look for something. I am searching for home, because I don’t have one. But I keep believing that I deserve it only if I am worth it. And I am worthy only if I am perfect, only if I am pretty. But it never worked. So I go back and surrender, just for a minute. I stop trying, I don’t care for acceptance, validation and praise. I look at ugliness, and I can’t help but seeing beauty. Because I look at something real for once. The minute passes and I go back to the old search. I try again. But I carry on with me some of the ugliness this time. So when I feel tired of reaching the sky of my expectation and imagination, I can look at the ground of reality and enjoy the touch of it. And every time I go back I take more of me with me on that journey. At the end I don’t find home where I am looking for it, but I look back and I realize, that I have been there every time I connect with my self, when I find some comfort within the fear, when I sense stability in the face of the unknown, and when I find the beauty in looking at the ugly.