1. I criticize everybody. All the time. Excessively. Very excessively, maybe.
I started watching "The Big Bang Theory" when TBS started showing it in syndication. It took me a while to get over my annoyance at the show's laugh track -- it's the 21st century, for crying out loud -- but right away I identified strongly with the character of Sheldon Cooper, and thought: He's so wonderful, such a brilliant autistic genius.
2. It took me over 20 episodes to realize that Sheldon constantly annoys all of the other characters on the show. Severely annoys them. This annoyance, Sheldon's social dysfunction, is in fact the biggest driving force of the action of the series. And all I could think, 20 shows long if not longer, was, He's so like me and He's so wonderful. Self-absorption and lack of self-awareness calling, will I accept the charges?
3. Over the past 35 years, I've never maintained a romantic relationship for more than 3 months.
4. Over 35 years ago, when I was a teenager, I maintained a relationship for 2 1/2 years, but recently I completely forgot about that when thinking over my relationships, and considered my longest relationship to have lasted 3 months.
And so, to some up,
It seems I may be a real bastard, an extremely annoying old fart who does not even honor the best things which have happened to him. This would explain some things like why I'm so lonely.
I really don't like to think of myself as nasty old bastard -- but seriously: who does? I'm guessing: fewer than the actual number of nasty old bastards. It's not at all pleasant to think of myself in this way, but here, as always and everywhere, recognizing a problem and facing it squarely is essential to any hope of ever solving it.
Okay, I may have achieved one insight from this exercise already. Maybe not a big one, I don't know. It's just that I can keep in mind how harsh my criticism feels when I focus it on myself.
Keep that in mind when I'm talking to others.
Are you aware that by creating this, you have found a fascinaing way of showing off the honesty and awareness you have of yourself? ;)
ReplyDeleteThank you for saying so. I am aware that human experience is often full of irony.
DeleteI don't find you annoying. True, we're 600 miles apart and you're my cousin, but I like your wit and intelligence. I don't always understand your posts, but most of the time I do.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Cuz. I like you too. But I think one thing which could be objectively said of me, as of most people, is that I have a lot of room for improvement. I criticize others very harshly in my blog, criticism which tries to be constructive and not just mean, and I figured, if it's constructive in those cases, it's only fair that I do it to myself as well. It also may have given me some insight into how people feel when I criticize them.
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