Nihilist Cowboy

A Sick Man, A Spiteful Man, An Unattractive Man
2021-06-13 18:49:19 (UTC)

6/13/21 Thoughts: Inferiority/Superiority Paradox

A few days ago, I discussed the fear of turning into my father. That fear is very common with kids of mentally ill parents. He was off work today so I took him out for lunch. We ate at the old people cafeteria and I swear we were the only ones in there under the age of 100. Anyways, everything went good. I made an ass of myself because I thought it was Father's Day today. Never would have thought that I would be spending time with my dad voluntarily without fighting.

Over the course of the afternoon, I have been thinking about the similarities of our thought process towards ourselves and others. We both tend to have this paradoxical major inferiority complex with a mild case of superiority on top of it. Does not make sense does it? How could someone both hate oneself but simultaneously feel that you are living in some sort of hypothetical higher level of existence in comparison most other people? Even though I did not spend too much time growing up with my dad, I somehow inherited this paradoxical trait.

First the inferiority: Due to my upbringing, I have always viewed myself as an inferior being. I was the only child that his father left at the age of 2. I was quiet, anxious, and pathetic. The phrase: "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherent the Earth" did not apply to my life. In middle school, there were countless days that I went from 8am when Mom dropped me off to 5pm when I got off of the schoolbus. I wanted friends and couldnt make any. I wanted to be loved, but I was chick repellant. A few years ago, I came to the realization that I asked out a huge percentage of the girls in my small school, but I was never good enough.

This inadequacy sadly never went away in adulthood. I wake up in the morning and see something ugly looking back at me in the mirror when I am brushing my teeth. I see my body as grotesque, fat, pasty, and acne ridden. Even dressing with a shirt, tie, and jacket every single day, I could maybe pass for a 5. At work, I feel like an imposter and shitty therapist. During the worst days I think about my future and say: "Why would anyone ever want to actually pay money to listen to what I have to say?" I see myself as a fake therapist, pseudointellectual, and overall idiot. Do I catastrophize? Of course I do, but these beliefs are engrained into my head.

I will see an attractive woman and think to myself that I would have no chance in hell if I walked up and talked to her. I wonder what any woman would see in me that I have nothing to offer, that I am not good looking enough, a bore, fat, and whatever kind of self depreciating thought I have made that day. I judge myself for being a failure due to still living at home and see that nobody would take a 30 year old seriously who still lives in his childhood room. So in inclusion, I view myself as an ugly, dumb, failure.

What about the other side? What makes this situation a paradox? I sound like a sad fuck and somedays that is very true, but there is an other side. Somedays, I try to make a comparison to Dostoyevsky's Underground Man, but I shouldn't give myself that much credit. The first thing that comes to mind is the feeling that most of the people I am around on a day to day basis has taken the time to carefully analyze their own beliefs, values, and entire existence. From my observations, most people do not even consider any of it. They believe in the same God as their parents, the same political party as their neighbors. People do not question why they believe the things that they do. I have family members that believe that Catholics are going to hell, and Muslims are Satanic, but know almost nothing about their beliefs yet hate because they are different.

How many people do I know that have their belief that life is supposed to be, married at 21, kids at 22 and not question why. So many believe that this is the only reason for living. Why live a life without questioning. This is where my views differ from most people I know. These thoughts are what makes things so paradoxical. Living in a conservative part of the world, I would say the majority of people my age are married and/or have children. I probably would not even be interested in the majority of the people that I feel unworthy to date. Every day, I overhear coworkers who talk nothing except kids and husbands and don't see how I could ever be interested in dating someone who values only that.

I simultaneously see myself as unworthy of anything, but somehow living in a higher plane due to questioning everything. Maybe I am just angry and bitter about everything just like my father?




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