The "Real" Me

There's a narrative I've seen a lot lately that goes like this: "I know I'm happier when I <do a thing> (read a book, exercise, etc), but I keep getting distracted by <thing> (usually social media, etc) even when I know that it makes me unhappy. Why is there a disconnect between the real me and the thing that I end up doing?" And my continued reaction is that framing it this way is completely opposite of reality, and in fact makes you feel worse over time as you repeat this line of questioning based on false premises.

The real you is the one that likes twitter. The real you is the one that chooses Doritos and sitting on the couch. The real you likes gossip and drama and can't back down from an internet fight.

The real you is a lazy monkey, right?

Because of course that is physically exactly what we are: "calories are scarce, let's do as little as possible to consume as much as possible" is hard-coded into us as survival because for millions of years, that's what kept us alive and reproducing until the lineage ends up here, with you and me.

The scarcity changed, but the firmware we're running is just out of date.

So I don't buy any aspirational nonsense that the "real you" is the one who reads and drinks organic tea and never engages with curiosity about the news or what's happening on facebook or whatever.

We know it's not true, and continuing to believe a lie is ultimately damaging to the very psyche who is explicitly trying to be whole and genuine and authentic.

Self honesty is the very thing we're after here, right? So why is the self-honest idea the exact opposite?

Cool, so, back to the beginning:

"I know I'm happier when I <do a thing that takes energy> (read a book, exercise, etc), but I keep getting distracted by <low energy option> (usually social media, etc) even when I know that it makes me unhappy. Why is there a disconnect between the real me and the thing that I aspire to be doing?"

And this should be way more obvious: we do the lazy thing more often than not because it's the lazy thing.

Okay, so that's easy and self-honest and fair. We understand now that the 'real you' and the aspirational you are flip-flopped and that the aspirational thing is hard.

This removes like 90% of the tension of the original lamenting statement. People are upset, depressed, existentially disappointed with themselves because they feel like the 'real them' should be doing the hard things that they clearly aren't doing, and then getting down on themselves for "failing" to be "authentic" to the very thing that no one should expect themselves to be authentic or defaulting to anyway.

Of course that would be hazard fraught! It's a logic ouroborus.

So. The moral is exactly what we just described: understand that the 'real you' is the lazy version doing whatever obvious things you're 'disappointed' in yourself for defaulting to.

You're not failing down to that level, you're actually just doing exactly what it biologically and physically makes sense to do. Heck, we even go so far as to blame the news cycles or the twitter developers or whoever for "pulling" us "down" to this level, as if we should be surprised when a dog eats a weekend worth of food immediately if we put it all down at once in front of them. We're angry because we're feeling "robbed" of our supposedly-default-but-not-actually higher-level aspirational selves.

You're not. We're not.

We're just not designed to read and meditate in some pastoral idyllic countryside, as much as we'd love to do that all day, every day. Wrapped up in a cozy blanket, tea on the table.

We're bad at that. If we were good at it, we'd all be doing it right now. Why are you here reading this?

Right? It is not our default position. And it's not some excuse's fault: oh, you have a job you hate or it's society, maaaan - what do you spend every sunday doing? Every evening? Every morning? Because if it's not that thing, it's probably not your default. If you were good at it, you would just be doing it and this wouldn't be an issue or thought even on your mind at all.

Part II is doing work to do the things that require work.

So the answer is clear: just buck up and do the things when and if you can. Never feel bad about 'failing' to do them, just feel bad when you choose to not do them if you want.

You're not failing your default, you're failing your aspiration.

This is a bright revelation, I think: we're so concerned about being less than even zero. About being sad excuses for even humanity. We're not! We're exactly what humans are, and the fact is humans are just sort of dumb apes that like to lay around. Have you ever been to the zoo? They don't do anything for hours.

Buuuut, if you do aspire (and I believe we should) then you gotta choose that thing and work and do it.

It's hard. Reading uninterrupted is hard. Running is hard. Meditating is hard. They are not default things, even if they are occasionally natural things. Things we feel like we should be able to do, but clearly can't.

Especially not all at once, right away.

I absolutely adored this scene and this quote when it came out.

"It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day, that's the hard part. But it does get easier."

Go. Fight. Win. It gets easier.