on hurting others
I've spent a great deal of mental energy ruminating about things I've said and done. Those thoughts that come when I lay down in bed or have any real moment of silence. Replaying my words, practicing other things I could have said, trying to decide how bad the thing I said was.
Very little of these thoughts are really directed toward those I may have hurt. They're focused on me, my social performance, my reputation, my embarrassment, me me me.
The anxiety says I need to focus on myself and improve and be perfect and never hurt anybody. It's too much pressure. It's not realistic. It's extremely self-centered.
And it's fundamentally flawed, this idea that I shouldn't hurt other people. The idea that my loved ones shouldn't hurt me.
We should hurt eachother, at least sometimes. It shouldn't ever be the goal, but it is a real side-effect of being a person, and when we try not to hurt anyone, we don't show up honestly, we don't respect our own wants and needs, and we hurt ourselves. We also hurt our friends by misleading them about who we are.
This struck me a couple days ago over a pretty mundane interaction. My bestie sent me an interaction between them and an a.i. and they thought it was cute. I replied "boo i am an ai hater". I hit send.
I started to worry about how they'd feel about my reply - they might be upset, might feel rejected, might be upset at not having my social approval.
But any other response is pretending that I'm on-board with a.i. stuff. Any other response is a fake, an attempt to have a pleasant external situation at the expense of my internal situation. It sets a precedent that I'll share in this kind of joy with you. But I won't. And even if I play nice, I'm not sharing your joy here.
I owe that to you. The honesty. To show up as I am. And that's what i want from you too. Even if it hurts.