Last night, I watched “Birdman”. It’s a phenomenal movie, and I highly recommend it, but this post isn’t about the movie – it’s about how I felt afterward. It got me thinking about passion, about catharsis, about my identity – the one I’m building, brick by brick, with everything I do. About honesty, especially with oneself. About self-perspective.
But better than the movie is that rare feeling of being awake. The kind of awake that only happens once in awhile. The kind of awake where you see yourself without judgment, objectively, but still with a passion and a self-love that pushes you to honestly critique yourself, and to accept those critiques, and from a clear perspective that’s so difficult to attain.
What I am is a potential that carries itself as though that potential has been expressed. It hasn’t. I point to the baby steps I’ve taken to say “Look. Achievement. Progress.” To tide myself over. To satiate myself in small ways. Maybe because I’m too lazy, too afraid, to really run. Because maybe I’m not as good as I think I am, and I’m afraid to discover it. Maybe I’m too lazy to push myself, and I’m terrified to realize that, and face my own disappointment. But in the meantime, the identity I’m building is the guy who takes baby steps, and then accepts congratulation. For what? To hint at potential that I never express?
I’ve always done just enough to get by without being bothered. I never really applied myself in school, or in work, unless I was directly challenged, and then, it was usually only to attempt to prove someone wrong (rather than prove myself right).
Certainly, there have been aspects of my life where I’ve given my whole heart – MMA in college, writing, relationships – but even there, I’m guilty of coasting. I’m now doing the same thing to myself – I’m doing just enough to stave off self-disappointment – to keep me from bothering myself. It’s a quiet, passionless marriage to myself. How many years can slip away behind that gray veil of going-through-the-motions?
If I’m honest, what I really want to do is surprise myself – make myself proud. I want to fall in love with myself again… but like falling in love with anyone else, it doesn’t happen without reason. I can’t believe in myself without giving myself reason to believe… and what good is believing in yourself if you never get to prove it?