Duplicator

"I think most of us would be horrified to meet ourselves and discover what everyone else already knows about us."
-B. Watterson

The point that I've been consistently returning to is that everything of the last six months has been done before ... by me. There's nothing new here. The difference is that this time I'm the one on the other end. Of all the actions, mistakes, sins, and choices made, I've just never had to face them this way.

The difficulty I'm thus having is reconciling recent events with the idea that I've done the same things in the past. It's forcing me to come to terms with something I've never anticipated- myself. I'm seeing myself and my own previous actions in a way I've never been able to articulate or understand before. This new knowledge has already been both impactful and, perhaps more importantly, painful.

I'm trying not to lament my past actions or choices as I sort things out. There's little sense in doing that aside from dealing with my own feelings. The most significant thing to take from this is the decisions I will make in the future.

For 22 years, my personality and character have been built on fear. Most of the other base facets of how I behave- the obsessiveness, the perfectionism, the need for acceptance- can be traced back to that original quality. Sometimes positive outcomes have resulted from it, not the least of which include my professional and academic achievements. But when it comes to people ... to love ...

You can never really understand your impact on others until someone else impacts you the same way. It's the reason why I love teaching music. I know what it is to be taught by a good teacher whom I respect and want to make proud. It's the reason why I hope to be a good father someday, because I know what it is to have the best one.

And, like everything else in the world, it goes both ways. You can't understand the hurt you cause someone else unless you've been hurt the same way.

Now, regardless of how you feel about the show, I'm going to end with a quote from South Park. Butters articulates my current feelings very well.

"Oh, I love life ... yeah, I'm sad, but at the same time, I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like... it makes me feel alive, you know. It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feeling is like a beautiful sadness."
-L. Stotch

Happy Jueves Eve.