small thoughts part 9
In ‘small thoughts’ posts, I’m posting a collection of short thoughts and opinions that don’t warrant their own post. :) It's been a while!
I know self love exists, because I feel it and my body lives it (most of the time). I know it’s easy to pretend that self love doesn’t exist, because a (negative) ego should not exist; but in my view, seeing yourself as a part of a whole instead to cope with depression is also done out of self love. Your body wants to survive. Even if you hate yourself, there is a part in you mental illness cannot touch (for now?) that wants to heal and seek ways on how to live regardless and make it bearable. If you have to pretend like self love isn’t real because you can’t consciously do it yet, that’s fine.
But I know it is there because otherwise I would not care about what I eat or drink, about healing illnesses, about fitness, about community, about higher goals than survival, like education and hobbies. I wanna enrich my body and my mind. I wanna act on my potential. I wanna be the best partner and friend I can be.
Loving myself made loving others better, easier, healthier. Loving myself makes me show up for communities better. Loving myself makes me sacrifice for others within my boundaries and without burning out and without resentment.
Self love is seldom selfish. It doesn’t have to be. I think there’s a misconception that self love inherently includes self-obsessed navel-gazing and that in turn makes you constantly nitpick yourself and your life and focus on what you deserve but aren’t getting and therefore makes you sad, but I disagree.
It doesn’t have to be narcissistic and obsessive at all. It doesn’t have to mean putting yourself before others constantly, just in a way where you’ll put on the oxygen mask on yourself before you can help others put theirs on.
Sometimes I am afraid to show my kindness online.
My kindness naturally ebbs and flows - never truly gone, but there are phases where I really go out of my way and go extra hard, and phases where it’s just basic kindness.
But as everyone, I can have bad days or a disagreement, I am low energy, my patience runs out or I need to criticize someone, set boundaries or call something out. In theory, all of that can be done kindly or do not detract from kindness. They can even be kindness. But in practice, some people don’t respect things until you say it in a very sharp tone, or you’ll let your negative feelings show. And realistically, the second you don’t let people do what they want or you criticize them, no matter how softly, they’ll see you as unkind. Kindness, to them, is you always being unconditionally supportive.
I am a little scared of people feeling tricked when I can’t upkeep a strong habit of kindness at all times. I’ve seen it in the past, when people who made kindness one of their most prominent features (or were just being seen that way) were dragged for suddenly being unkind - like arguing with someone, being rude during a bad day or whatever. It was unfair. People felt as if they had used kindness to cover up actually being an asshole, like being kind was just an act. It makes me sad and scared that one bad moment can undo months or years of consistent kindness. I don’t know if I can be that perfect.
On one hand, I get it - there really are these love & light girlies who preach all that stuff but are really toxic, mean and gossipy in real life. I acknowledge the stories of past school bullies always posting about ‘positive vibes only’ online. But it also makes it hard to show open kindness without putting yourself in a very limiting box of perfect behavior.
Not to mention that there’s a gender aspect to it too; higher kindness requirements for women and more situations where you’re required to be kind, and normal behaviors read as unkindness because you’re not a servant, doormat, motherly etc.; looking young, feminine, maybe wearing dresses, or predominantly pink stuff increases the effects, in my experience. People, especially men, expect me to be a lot more motherly, forgiving, patient, kind and servant-like than I am.
I actually just want to act and behave like myself, without someone slapping onto me that I must be very kind or motherly as a defining trait, just to accidentally violate that invisible role and have people claim that a rude moment is somehow my true self and all the genuine kindness was a mask.
Hot take I am willing to change my mind about: I think looking back, it was a mistake that we saw people liking, commenting and following the same individual (as in, a social media account of a private person, not a company or band etc.) as a “community”. There is no community-building or organizing going on in comment sections of LA influencers, for example.
Your readers (or viewers) all consume it independently from one another. There is barely any interaction between them, and often not positive or in-depth. No one bonds over “😂😂😂” or “Agreed.” or “Good post.” or some summary of the post.
The views and likes you get are also partly people that checked you out once and that’s that. Really, the people that see you online have nothing in common most times. They’re most often not gathering under a shared message, movement or artstyle, nor are they really knowing each other, and pretending it is so has had a role in para-social behaviors. Implying you have a community or fanbase as a simple social media account or blogger is like implying the people who watch the same ads on YouTube are one.
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