Piece of Shit

I often feel like a piece of shit.

It's fine with me, I lean in. I find the way I am grotesque to be delicious in its own way, and I love writhing in discomfort at seeing the fundamental way I am, what can possibly arise in me, the way I fuck up.

Boy, do I ever fuck up.

People with the sight see the nuance in my writing; please understand, that is the nuance of my fuckups as I see them too. They are varied and many.

I fuck up and fuck up and fuck up again and that IS how I learn. I fuck up and write about it, literally coaching myself through my fuckups to plan for the nuances of how it can be a little less fucked up next time.

I'm also the piece of shit who knows this is selfish. I am wanting a less fucked up situation so that I have a better time. That's some weakass shit, I want it exactly how I want it and this is the fit I'll throw to have it that way.

Fuckups fall in the category of Anything. Anything can happen, anything can arise within me. Anything is what has been created here on earth, because creating Anything is the prerequisite to creating art.

The most neutral way I can understand my past is that I was trying things out. I was trying out rage and blame. I was trying out beautiful love and profound forgiveness. I was trying out conflict and resolution, I was trying out being loyal to those willing to hurt me.

I was trying out both what I saw and what I imagined could be. I was trying Anything.

I can forget how little kids know. How little they know, how kids are in the know. They don't know this world at all. They're walking around, trying out Anything, seeing how it goes.

Kids are totally cool with their propensity to do Anything. They'll slap you across the face, pull your hair, sneeze into your eyes and give you the sweetest smile. Kids are at one with the way they can be and do Anything; this is deep wisdom.

Affronted by this, our culture teaches children that they absolutely cannot do Anything. They must do some things in particular. They must absolutely not do certain things.

Mishandling this becomes an attack on the propensity to do Anything. If I am compelled to do what I should not do, is something wrong with me? If I have done what I knew I shouldn't do, even knowing I shouldn't do it, am I a bad person?

I am simply trying out some of the Anything I am capable of. Does it really go how they say it will go? Can I really be sure? Hang out with a kid long enough, you'll see that they cannot be told.

Kids cannot take our word for it, especially when they can't understand words yet. They will not hear that the curling iron is hot or that the branch is too high or too weak to hold them. They must FEEL to learn, they must experience that if they do not keep a grip on their toy it may fall on their foot and hurt them. They must feel to learn, they must slip to know what is slippery, they must get wet to know that it makes them get cold; they fall to learn balance, and falling, and catching themselves. They don't know anything about anything, so they have to try Anything.

The same is true of me. That child is still within me, every child I ever was, and also this adult, growing ever more conscious of how little I know, how little the adults I learned from knew, how little good information is out there about what will really feel right to ME.

Anything might arise in my mind, and Anything might be something I try out. The way that I feel ashamed of some of what I've tried out is what I learned by trying it out, by seeing it through, by making another choice for myself—my integrity rests on these personal evaluations I have made, the way I commit to act in ways I have personally chosen based on my evaluations. My integrity does NOT depend on a past built of goodness or right actions. My integrity does NOT depend on the opinion of any other person in this world.

My integrity is what I do about my constant fuckups, it's my willingness to see them, my levity with accepting them, and my work to strengthen what I evaluate as weakness. My humility helps me love the way I am limited. With humility I recognize the asset of my every limitation and preserve or provide for the asset if I wish to overcome the limitation. Because I love limitations, and I love that I am limited, I am eagerly willing to look at how my limits are functioning. This willingness to see founds my process of integrity, which is never a stagnant state but an easeful practice of maintenance.

With intimacy toward myself, I can love and laugh at the way that I can do Anything, and I have. I can cringe at myself, I can writhe with it. My best friends twist the knife for me, criticizing me outright, telling me how horrible I am and I luxuriate in the awfulness of my being, the way I am capable of Anything and the way I feel ashamed of that.

Whether it's something innate functioning as guidance or something I was taught to evaluate in a particular way, I don't have to let shame take me out. There is no need to be ashamed of my shame.

It's simply another feeling. I tell my friends about it and they help me make it worse till it goes away.