becoming myself

There's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their "discomfort" like a favorite shirt. (Jhonen Vasquez)

Wearing their discomfort like a favourite shirt. Perceptive. Strange the way we have pet problems/neuroses the same way we have favourite drinks. The things we won't let go of. The things we take out and stab into our own skin just to make sure that we aren't letting ourselves heal. Because if we let it go, we can no longer excuse ourselves with it, right? What we are is then the product of our own efforts and not the responsibility of those who caused us pain. Surely it's easier to keep blaming someone else for our inability to be who we are. Isn't it?

I saw the movie 'I Heart Huckabees a few months back. Love it or hate it, the movie is thought provoking, and the thought that buzzed through my head all the way home was the one posed to Brad near the end of the movie:

How am I not myself?

I love that question. I love its perspective. So often we see ourselves as being in state A and wishing we were actually in state B (if you think I'm talking about Texas and California, you're not getting it). This question says you ARE state B. Those concepts you try to live by, those things you know are logically sound, those things you think you should be - that's who you are. They make you really you. You are in state A because you aren't being true to your real self.

So how am I not myself when I refuse to change things that should have been changed a long time ago? How am I not myself when I hang onto old hurts and punish no-one but myself? How am I not myself when I refuse to let myself seek happiness, for whatever reason? And why is my discomfort a favourite shirt to wear, a favourite pain to cry over and excuse myself with? Why do I remain lost when I know the way? Am I afraid to be myself?