I like to believe that I would behave heroically in a disaster situation. I like to think this because it makes me feel good about myself. Conveniently, it is very unlikely that I will ever actually have to do anything to prove it. As long as I never encounter a disaster situation, I can keep believing I’m a hero indefinitely.
Similarly, I can safely believe that I am the type of person who would donate a kidney to a loved one, give a million dollars to help save the animals, and survive a biological disaster due to my superior immune system and overwhelming specialness. As long as no one I love ever needs a kidney, I don’t become a millionaire, and my immune system is never put to the test by an antibiotic-resistant super flu, these are just things I can believe for free.
It gets a bit trickier when I want to believe a thing about myself that actually requires me to do or think something. The things I am naturally inclined to do and think are not the same as the things I want to believe I would do and think. And I’m not even slightly realistic about what I want to be. I’m greedy and conceited, and I feel like I deserve to be impressed by myself.
Unfortunately, I am not disciplined enough to maintain my behavior up to the standards of my ridiculously optimistic self-image, and I possess a great number of undesirable qualities, so it’s a daily struggle to prevent myself from ruining my own fantasy.
But, against all odds, my gigantic ego continues to attempt greatness. And every day, it falls extremely short because, as powerful as it is, it is not even close to as powerful as what it’s up against.
The most basic level of maintaining my self-image is just holding myself back from acting on my impulses. I am constantly bombarded by bizarre, nonsensical urges, and if I didn’t care about my identity, I would just do all of them.
Fortunately for other people, it would be insulting to my identity if I did these things, and this successfully scares me away from becoming a menace to myself and everyone.
But I still have to know about the impulses.
My ego hates getting out of its tower to deal with this shit. It’s got more important things to think about, like how virtuous and meaningful it is, and it has a hard time doing that when it is constantly distracted by the urge to do weird things to people. It wants to focus on being a good person, not just a barely not horrible one.
Being a good person is a very important part of my identity, but being a genuinely good person is time-consuming and complicated. You don’t have to be a good person to feel like a good person, though. There’s a loophole I found where I don’t do good, helpful things, but I keep myself in a perpetual state of thinking I might.
The fact that I think about doing nice things feels almost like actually doing them. I get to feel all the good feelings without any of the inconvenience. It’s disgusting how proud of myself I am for things I’ve never done.
I also feel disproportionately good about myself whenever I’m presented with absurdly easy opportunities to do the right thing and then actually do it.
I’m even proud about not being a dick in situations where it is theoretically possible to be a dick. I don’t feel especially inclined to be a dick in the first place, but I still feel proud that I somehow manage not to be. Based on how good this makes me feel about myself, I must subconsciously believe everyone else in the world is a horrible monster.
It would disgust me to know I’m like this. When I look at myself, I don’t want to see the horrible, loophole-abusing monster that I am. I want to see a better person. Someone who is genuinely good and doesn’t need to resort to lies and manipulation. Because deep down, I feel like I’m better than this. Like I actually am a genuinely good person who has been invaded by someone else’s shitty thoughts.
I am just the helpless vehicle for a lesser personality, forced to endure it against my will. I live in fear of it, hoping it won’t attack me and make me think things that I’m ashamed of.
But it always does.
I’m legitimately terrified that someday, someone I love is actually going to need a kidney. I’d like to say this fear stems from concern over the health of my loved ones, but it’s mostly because I don’t want to find out how I would react to someone needing one of my kidneys. I desperately want to believe I would seize the opportunity to help a loved one without a second thought for my own well-being, but I’m almost certain it wouldn’t play out like that. First of all, I really, really wouldn’t want to give away a kidney, and that would make me feel weird about myself. I’d feel selfish. Because I am.
And if I was not a match, I’d be relieved, which would also put me face-to-face with some uncomfortable truths about myself. If I was a match, I would probably end up letting go of a kidney, but not before fully exhausting my mental arsenal of escape routes.
What I am is constantly thrust into my face while I’m trying to be better than I am. Even if I’m actively doing all the right things, I can’t escape the fact that my internal reactions are those of a fundamentally horrible person.
I don’t just want to do the right thing. I want to WANT to do the right thing. This might seem like a noble goal to strive for, but I don’t actually care about adhering to morality. It’s more that being aware of not wanting to do the right thing ruins my ability to enjoy doing the right thing after I’m forced into doing it through shame.
A lot of other people are better than me. When something causes me to become aware of this, it makes it more difficult for me to be satisfied with the way I am because the way I am seems so shitty compared to the way these better people are able to be.
And this, of course, highlights how petty I am, which is also something I don’t like to think about.
Which highlights the fact that I don’t like to think about how petty I am, which makes me feel like maybe there are other things about myself that I’m avoiding.
Because my identity is based on so many things that aren’t true, it doesn’t have a built-in fact-checking mechanism, and sometimes discrepancies arise.
This is quite uncomfortable because it means I need to pick a side.
But I don’t like picking sides when it comes to my identity, so I usually try to ignore it or find a way to trick myself into thinking it isn’t a discrepancy.
I would never have to know about any of this if I was sneakier about it or if I had more reasonable expectations for myself, but I keep noticing while I’m contradicting the things I want to believe are true.
This triggers an uncomfortable level of self-awareness where I’m dangerously close to discovering how full of shit I am.
