For weeks I have been trying to write about “being yourself.”\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a slippery topic.<\/p>\n
I once wrote the following: “To write truly, just make sure you are yourself when you sit down to write.”\u00c2\u00a0 (And I should have added, “Keep on checking as you go.”)\u00c2\u00a0 The trouble is, I have a big struggle with being myself, myself.<\/p>\n
The most helpful things are so simple that it’s no fun writing about them: pay attention to the air in your nostrils; tell the truth, or at least, don’t lie; focus your eyes; keep your own counsel; do what’s right so you can sleep; be poised for action; don’t refuse to be “here,” use your imagination to lighten-up parts of your body.<\/p>\n
After a while the whole thing sounds crazy, and the truest things sound craziest.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, that’s a beginning.<\/p>\n
I picture myself at nineteen.\u00c2\u00a0 I am the passenger in a shiny Chevrolet driven by the young man I am dating.\u00c2\u00a0 We are driving across the industrial belly of Seattle, on our way to a nightclub.<\/em><\/p>\n I am tensely pretending to be what I already am– a nice, attractive nineteen-year-old girl– and desperately trying to think of something that a nice, attractive nineteen-year-old girl might say.<\/em><\/p>\n My date turns to me with a disconcerted look and says, “Don’t strain, for God’s sake.\u00c2\u00a0 Just be yourself.”<\/em><\/p>\n I don’t remember what I thought next, but it must have been something like this:<\/em><\/p>\n “Oops! Oh no!\u00c2\u00a0 What have I done?\u00c2\u00a0 He sees though me!\u00c2\u00a0 What if he never calls me again?\u00c2\u00a0 How can I fix this?”<\/em><\/p>\n And, not knowing what else to do, I would have intensified my pretense of being who I already was.<\/em><\/p>\n Because I had no idea what it meant to be yourself, not then and not for a long time afterwards.<\/em><\/p>\n The feeling of being not-yourself is a smarmy feeling.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel ashamed all the time.\u00c2\u00a0 The moral judgments are unrelenting.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re kind and nice, you’re on your case immediately: “I’m so insincere, so sugary, so slimy, and so awful– I bet people see right through me.\u00c2\u00a0 Why can’t I be spontaneous and sincere like everybody else?”\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re bad, as we all are sometimes, then you’re<\/em> bad, of course:\u00c2\u00a0 “The real me has put in an appearance, and\u00c2\u00a0 I’m bad to the core,” you think.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no way out between being slimy and inauthentic or rotten through and through. For weeks I have been trying to write about “being yourself.”\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a slippery topic. I once wrote the following: “To write truly, just make sure you are yourself when you sit down to write.”\u00c2\u00a0 (And I should have added, “Keep on checking as you go.”)\u00c2\u00a0 The trouble is, I have a big struggle with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-filosofia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"