Sometimes I come out of a session feeling great. Sometimes I come out feeling like a monster, like some horrible, fucked-up person.

During my first session, my therapist noted that this was a mutual process. It wasn’t as if he was going to surgically remove an issue with me, it would take the both of us working together, with a progressive effort from me.

That’s what I’m doing now. I’m determined to fix myself.

Dependence

• I have a general feeling of incompetence, which leads to a lack of trust in my own judgments. As a result, I have a very difficult time making decisions because I’m paralyzed by the fact that I may make the wrong one.
  • I can trace this back from my childhood to my early twenties when my parents were overbearing and would never let me make any of my own decisions. In fact, they would make most of my decisions for me, including significant ones, like my program of study in university.
• The result is that I tend to ask people for advice on everything, although I’m dependent on Pat the most. This is because Pat is so smart and experienced, and has never, ever let me down. What I’ve come to realize, however, is that Pat is so smart because he’s already made his mistakes.
• This was linked to my anxiety, where I felt like I couldn’t handle anything on my own.
• I’ve been trying to fix this is to keep in mind that it’s not the end of the world if I make a mistake, and that sometimes, making mistakes is the only way to learn.

Unrelenting Standards revisited

• I realized that I tend to have unrelenting standards when it comes to life in general, but especially in my writing, photography, or art because I feel like this is the only way I will ever distinguish myself and be worth something. I feel like if I’m not the best, then I’m worthless. As a result, it’s difficult for me to enjoy my life, even something as simple as sitting down and watching a movie.
  • The roots of this are more difficult to trace than I initially thought. While my parents were a tremendous influence in terms of making me feel like their love was conditional, I believe a large part of this lifetrap has to do with me making up for my emotional deprivation by filling my deeper emptiness with success.
• Even when I do something that I know I should be proud of and satisfied, I feel like there’s always another thing to do, another level to reach. While this fuels my self-improvement and has gotten me to where I am now, I’ve come to realize that there’s an imbalance between the effort and the payoff. I work too hard for too little enjoyment.
• I may realize this, but it’s a hard habit to break. I have a feeling that I’ll need to fix my emotional deprivation at the same time to do so.

My understanding of Tai Chi seems to come in the form of a sine wave: the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know, and as I adjust for more and more details, other details get lost.

For the last few months, I felt like I was getting nowhere. The concepts made sense in my brain, but not in my body. My teacher has said that Tai Chi is already too intellectualized, and as a person who’s never been very physically co-ordinated and tries to compensate in SHEER MENTAL POWA!, this holds true especially for me. Until I’ve mastered telekinesis, however, I’ll be reliant on more traditional means of movement.

One thing that helped a lot is when a senior student showed me what ward-off (peng) felt like. As he stood with structure in his body, I tried to push him¹, but ended up pushing myself off him and falling over. In order to move him, I was forced to use the proper technique (since he’s considerably bigger than me), and expand with my entire body — legs, waist, arms, chest, lungs — instead of simply trying to move through him.

Then we reversed roles and he pushed me until I could channel his energy through my feet. It was the first time I ever felt grounded, instead of simply understanding the idea. I still don’t really understand it, insofaras I couldn’t explain it to someone else.

Adapting this all to the form is something else. I try to focus on one thing at time² but it falls apart in other places. At this point, I’m just trying to get all the gross mechanics to be natural without having to think about it, hoping that I’ll eventually be able to fine tune everything else.

1. It reminded me of the feeling of squeezing a rubber stopper, something with give but not much, that becomes exponentially difficult to compress. [↑]
2. Such as staying at one level without being rigid (considered “breathing”), relaxing my lower back, thinking of my body being anchored through my legs, and keeping structure and intent in my palms. [↑]

Many things to say, but this is the most relevant right now. This also happens to touch on almost every aspect of my life, and I find myself considering things from a gigantic range of angles. Unfortunately, I can only briefly touch on each of them, in an effort to stave digression.

The first and most important goal I’ve ever had was to gain a healthy amount of confidence by the time I was middle-age. This was so that I could enjoy at least half of my life as a strong individual. I set this goal because I realized that I had an unhealthy amount of self-doubt, which contributed to a depressing life and lifestyle, as well as unrealized potential.

This meant fighting off the insecurities that were bred into me, which amounted to most of my childhood. It hasn’t been easy in the last couple of years, but it’s worked. Every six months, I’d realize how much I grew. This time, I realize that I’m there.

I finally feel like I’m in control of my life. I speak to people differently. I think differently. Instead of avoiding conflict, I can meet it head on. For me, this was probably the most difficult thing to do ever imagine doing. I would plan my life around such an avoidance, from my friends to my relationships. I had a conflict phobia, an illogical fear of a specific situation, but I fought against it and won. In psychology, people overcome their phobias by remaining relaxed in the face of their fears (because one cannot mentally be relaxed and scared at the same time). I had the opportunity to do this, by placing myself in uncomfortable situations over the last four months, and approaching them cerebrally at the same time.

I also have to say that a major contributing factor to the success has been going through the D/s lifestyle with Loo. Having a submissive as experienced as she was, placing her trust in me, gave me a significant boost in confidence. She once pointed out to me while watching Secretary, that Edward Grey’s confession to Lee Holloway about previously being shy was a very accurate detail. In Loo’s experience, many put in a dominant position are able to break out of their shells, and I never understood or believed her until now.

So now that I’m here, where do I go? I’ve accomplished the biggest goal in my life, something I’d planned on working on for the next ten years, and it feels like I’ve lost a major part of my reason for living. I feel like an astronaut who dreamed of landing on the moon as a child, only to accomplish the goal and realize that he had never dreamed of anything else.

I suppose I still have the rest of my life to decide.

While John was here, we got into a discussion about hypocrisy. Being the complex person that he is, he admitted that he sees no problem with acting in a hypocritical manner. In fact, he tried to convince me to feel the same way. “You’re letting your morals get in the way of advancement”, he would say. I don’t heed any of this advice, of course, because our mindsets, goals, and relationships are founded on two different sets of values, this being one of them. Having built the first twenty-four years of our lives on this foundation doesn’t make it difficult for us to change them, but makes us indifferent to change instead. As much as we like to consider ourselves dynamic individuals, able to adapt to a situation in the best manner possible, this is limited by our desire (or lack thereof) to do so.

In any case, I find it difficult to be a hypocritical person, and in turn, I find hypocritical people difficult. The most aggravating are those who are hypocritical critics. I don’t have a problem with people pointing out my flaws. I have them, and I admit it. It’s the first step towards self-improvement. It’s also great for gaining perspective, for learning how different people interpret things (because I know that many see problems where there are none).

I do, however, have a problem with the people who freely give criticism, when they can’t take it themselves. These are the hypocritial critics; the people who judge others past themselves, when they are the last ones who should be passing judgement on anyone. This hypocrisy may stem from something as complex as insecurity, to something as simple as upbringing (especially as a result of parents who refuse to admit fault to their children). It becomes especially important in equal (non-authoratative) relationships to recognize the barriers that get put up by such a double standard.

Funny how an authoratative relationship taught me this.

it’s difficult to be upright and perverse, emotional and intellectual, impenetrable and vulnerable, without sacrificing the integrity and value of all of them.

—corus aquilo

This is the first time that a comment has been so good, it spawned another entry (although I fail to see how being a well-rounded individual has anything to do with personal identity, so I cut that part out).

In P.E. during high school, I learned that there’s no such thing as the perfect athlete. If someone builds up their speed, they lose endurance. If someone works on their strength, they lose flexibility. To be a perfect athlete is impossible, because there’s a very strict physical limitation involved.

To be well rounded in a much more general sense, to be a modern day (non-pedagogically relevant) Renaissance Man, on the other hand, is only limited by the mind. This means that many qualities do not oppose each other the way physical qualities do. One can be cerebral, intellectual, yet emotional at the same time. One can be firm and opinionated about recycling, yet open-minded about god and religion, all at once. One can appreciate fucking hard and fucking gently, because one does not take away from the other.

The key to this is a separation of self from bias. One has to be able to appreciate anything from any other point of view. To do this requires an almost purely subjective mindset, tearing oneself away of ones own bias. Only then can one improve in any aspect. The hardest thing, as noted by corus aquilo, is keeping the integrity and value of both, because appreciation, not enjoyment, is the true measure of being rounded. They may go hand-in-hand, as appreciation often leads to enjoyment, but it’s the basis of such that becomes important. There’s a fine line between those who enjoy a box of Kraft Dinner as much as 20 oz. New York steak, and those who can appreciate the two. The former is considered a person with no taste, the latter can be considered a cosmopolite.

The Olympic decathlon record holder often holds the title of “the Worlds Greatest Athlete”. It’s the only objective test of all around athletic ability, measured in speed, spring, strength, and stamina. To be a better person in the general sense, is to be a rounded in much the same manner. The measure is anything from conversational skills, to generosity, to golf handicap, to patience, to academic achievements.

The only objective test is life.