You Like Me

"I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"

-- Sally Field, accepting her Oscar for Places in the Heart.

Over the months I have painstakingly collected and lovingly displayed for all to see as generous a collection of plaudits, kudos and huzzahs as a man could ever hope to obtain.  These trophies on my mantlepiece are my pride and joy, tangible evidence that you like me, right now, you like me. 

You see, I am very insecure, sometimes crushingly so.  I never believe I'm good enough.  The voices in my head are loud, insistent and depressingly well-informed when it comes to my shortcomings, shy and understated when it comes to my strengths.  Those rare times when I sit back and really believe I done good, those voices pipe up to remind me that I just got lucky, that next time I'll fail and everyone will see me for the fraud I really am.

Insecurity isn't all bad.  It can be a great motivator, for by refusing to allow me to believe I'm good enough, it constantly goads me to get better.  It never allows me to rest on my laurels, or even rest at all.  It's pushed me higher than I ever expected to get, but then that's probably just my insecurity speaking, taking credit for whatever I've achieved, since of course I'm not good enough.

My insecurity leaves me hypersensitive to what others say about me.  Although seldom heard, thankfully, discouraging words can plunge me into a deep depression, my insecurity having depleted my reserves of esteem, leaving me defenseless with nothing to keep me afloat.  How I envy the thick-skinned!  And encouraging words, well encouraging words should be controlled substances for an insecure person, for at first they trigger this incredible rush of euphoria, completely silencing those nattering nabobs of negativity in my head, then allow me to settle into a sustained feeling of well-being, a feeling that must explain the smiles I often see on the faces of normal people, until my insecure voices roar back to life to remind that I'm really not that good, I'll never live up to those nice words, I'll just disappoint them, and the party's over.

For instance, in June last year, after I'd written of my admiration for Jane Austen, Alan Sullivan of Fresh Bilge wrote that I was a "modern Austen acolyte."  My first kudo!  It set off the euphoria/well-being/crash cycle, at the end of which I was left wondering how I could possibly live up his words, how long it would take him to realize his mistake and take them back.  For a week I was paralyzed, unable to write, worried that anything I wrote would trigger the inevitable backlash.

Then A.C. Douglas wrote of Outer Life:  "The writing is consistently literate, wryly intelligent, and not infrequently, screamingly funny."  I remember staring at the screen as I read those words, unable to believe what I was seeing.  After my euphoria/well-being/crash cycle ran its course, I was left with my insecure voice telling me I had to write "screamingly funny" every day or else everyone would leave.  Of course no one writes screamingly funny everyday.  Most days I don't even try and when I do try, I usually manage maybe a halfhearted chuckle.  But I was convinced that without screamingly funny I'd lose everything.

Behold my twisted insecure mind!  Ugly, isn't it?

I started to collect the nice words, worried that if I didn't they'd disappear, as if I'd dreamed them or something.  I posted them on my About page and would look at them from time to time, reminding myself that yes, I may be a loser but at least I'm not a complete loser.  But the words didn't disappear.  They kept coming.  In blog posts, emails and comments.  From people I've long admired, from people I'd never heard of, from people I now admire, from people I'll never know.  They kept coming.  And people who said nice things repeated them, confirming that they still read me, that the scales hadn't fallen from their eyes, that maybe I wasn't a fraud after all, that maybe I actually measured up, that maybe I was good enough.

I've never experienced anything like this in my life.  Such generosity of spirit, from complete strangers no less, sustained for so long, well it's completely overwhelmed me.  My old euphoria/well-being/crash cycle has broken down, stuck for good on the well-being part.  My insecure voices, ordinarily so influential, are now muted when I write.  They continue to cause their mischief elsewhere but, perhaps for the first time ever, I feel secure, deeply secure, about something I care deeply about. 

And I have you to thank for that.  All of you who took the time to write such nice things.  All of you who dropped a few kinds words in my comment box.  All of you who sent those encouraging emails.  All of you who keep coming back to Outer Life, reading what I write. 

Now I know exactly how Sally Field felt that night.

Thank you.

Comments

[Misspent]

{hugs}

[David]

Oh, shutup. Get over it. Get back to work. (writing.)

D

[kmsqrd]

I know how you feel, I wigged out when Stag actually called me a writer.

[Scheherazade]

I'm glad you're feeling it, because I don't say it nearly as often as I think it. Several times a week I read your blog and say, "Exactly. He's describing it exactly." Even if it's a feeling or an experience that's not familiar, you are credible, descriptive, authentic, and accurate. And funny. So I feel like your experiences and observations add to my world. Keep doing it.

[DarkoV]

No higher a compliment can I bestow on you than that you are my daily dose of mental Metamucil.
Cleaning out the detritus blocking up the morning vision.
Reconstructing personal dilemnas/tragedies into short narratives, admirable in their compactness, tightness, and wit.
And all the touching human connections you make with your readers while still maintaining your cloak of invisibility.
Why compare your methodology with others; uniqueness is rare and should be recognized as such.

Oh, yeah. One more thing. Your right hand "Better Blogs" section is always an area to lose oneself for an hour or two. Gotta go; still trying to shake off yesterday's "That Old Phrenology". Seem to be staring at people's heads just a bit too intently.

[Vanessa]

Perhaps - horror of horrors - you actually deserve the plaudits?

[Keith]

Now you've gone and taken the beauty of full disclosure to a place that scares even the likes of me. Your post becomes the double-edge blade that cuts at both your own weaknesses and the weaknesses of some of us who happen by. Your point pokes straight into the heart of many of my own insecurities.

Did I actually just comment? Now, after only thinking about it all morning? There was a time I would have worried nearly to death what to say and how to say it, not to mention my fear of what those reading my words would think. I would have stood there, frozen in the headlights of your words like a deer, afraid to even move.

All I'm trying to say is that I understand the trauma of placing words together, one after another, then sending them out into the world to fend for themselves.

As far as Outer Life is concerned, let me say just one thing. Your use of words shows there is no end to the number of perfect ways this confusing language of ours can be strung together.

[Girl Detective]

How is this for ironic identification with today's entry? I found this site a while back after it had been recommended more than once at Mental Multivitamin. I liked it here so much that I added Outer Life to my feed aggregator so I could visit with each update. Then, imagine my surprise when I one day came to visit, and found my own site listed in Better Blogs! I clicked through, because I doubted that you meant me. But here's the kicker, which I hadn't even been doing consciously till I read your entry today. Each time I visit, I still check to see if my site is still listed under Better Blogs. My own lurking insecurity fears that someday you'll realize that mine isn't a Better Blog, and remove me from the list.

Congrats on having a breakthrough. Obviously, I've still got some work to do.

[DarkoV]

Yo! Mr. OL!
Yeah, you reading all of these comments.
Can you self-imolate in this pyre of plaudits?

[stephenesque]

Blogs like yours are the reasons why I stopped reading magazine columnists. Your stuff is so much more interesting than their's. And it's free! Free and better. You can't argue with that.