You're So Money

Why can't we see ourselves through the eyes of others? I wonder what life would be like if we could. So often, it seems, the "me" that we see isn't the same as the "you" that is the view of the outside world.

Take, for instance, my Brit Lit Professor. I can almost guarantee that her self-image and the image she projects are not even close to parallel. Why am I so sure? Because the image she projects is that of a vaguely sinister, highly condescending research librarian who splits her time between stacks of antiquated literary tomes, her basement dungeon where she dons skin-tight leather, fishnet stockings, and thigh-high stiletto boots while wielding a cat-o-nine-tails as she forces unassuming men to submit to her will and call her "Mistress Kitty", and her blog where she coordinates the Dick Cheney Fan Club because, after the things she's made men BEG her to do to them, waterboarding could HARDLY be considered torture!

All too often, our self-image has a tendency of holding us back from the things in life that we want, and the things which we are capable of achieving. I've mentioned before how I used to see myself as basically helpless to the things which inevitably would happen to me in life. It was a sort of learned helplessness which came from years of being told, as a child by a mother who never won any awards for parenting, that men were only good for sex, and even then weren't that great half the time. I saw relationships as an economic transaction -- I had to spend something in order to get something that I wanted in return. Most of the time, I never thought I had anything of any value to spend. For some situations, I'd spend what money I had, for others I'd spend what sexual ability I had to trade, and for still others I'd trade my natural skills as a counselor. In situations where I didn't have enough money, sex wasn't a tradeable commodity, and counseling wasn't required, I had absolutely nothing to offer. Or, at least that's what I would tell myself, repeating things I'd been taught as a boy.

Of course, the world is filled with examples of people who see themselves in ways different from the objective reality. There are people who stay in abusive relationships because they don't see themselves as capable of existing independent of the other person. There are people who think that their attempts at humor are well-received when, instead, they make everyone around them uncomfortable. There are the young men and women who, after looking at fashion magazines and television and movie stars, feel as though they don't measure up to some imaginary "ideal" of appearance and must starve themselves in order to be accepted even though they were perfectly attractive to begin with, and their attempt to satisfy their self-imposed body image is what actually becomes the horror show. I wish I could tell everyone the truth of how they are REALLY seen by the people around them in a way that would actually make a difference.

I've referenced the movie Swingers before. In the movie, Trent, played by Vince Vaughn, is fond of telling Mike, played by Jon Favreau, "You're so money and you don't even know it!" By this, Trent means that Mike, a down-on-his-luck wannabe actor in LA who just broke up with his fiancee in order to pursue a career which doesn't seem to be going anywhere, has so much to offer the world if only he would wake up and see it for himself. In many ways, despite the cool veneer that Trent projects, Mike is the real deal, a guy with all the qualities that Trent can only pretend to have.

We all have something to offer the world. We all have an inherent value. I know that sometimes it is hard to believe it for ourselves, but it is true. And we don't need to go looking hard to find it, either. We just need to look at the people who really care about us: our family, our friends, our acquaintances. Would we miss any of them if they were gone? What do they offer us that we would lose if they disappeared? Isn't it feasible to believe that WE give those same things BACK to the people we care about? And if, for some reason, we don't, is there some way we can start? Because the value of our lives doesn't have to be measured in dollars, or favors, or sacrifices of ourselves that we make to hold people tight against us like glue. The value of our lives can be measured in how happy the people we care about make us, and how readily we exchange that joy.

Have fun, and keep living life... and remember that you're money, baby!

Dance Like You Mean It

You may have noticed that I have a link in the sidebar to iDance.net. No, it isn't yet another Apple "i" related bit of marketing ploy. It's actually a website where you can download instructional videos for dance moves, most of them Lindy. I'm not really promoting them, or anything, I just think its a good place to find dance moves. The truth is, I suck at Lindy. I wish I didn't, but it's a very hard dance to get into if your town doesn't have a large Lindy community. Raleigh has a somewhat reasonable dance community at large, but the Lindy subgroup is quite small. It doesn't help that all of the Lindy dancers have been doing it for years and have become a bit jaded toward dancing with beginners.

I started dancing Jitterbug swing, a dumbed down cousin of Lindy, about two and a half years ago. To be honest, I began literally the week after my girlfriend left me. She had been dancing various styles of dance since she was a child and, shortly before we broke up, thought it might be fun to go swing dancing with me since I had shown her the movie Swingers and mentioned that I had always wanted to learn how to dance like they did in the movie. If you haven't seen Swingers you MUST rent it. The best way to describe it is to say that it is a chick flick for guys. And if you are a male Generation Xer like me you have been one of the characters in the movie at some point in your life. I'd love to sit here and brag that I have been Trent, but let's face it... I've always been Mike. Now I'm just waiting for Heather Graham to start showing up at the Elk's Lodge so I can ask her to dance!

It seems pretty pathetic to admit now, but initially I wanted to learn how to Jitterbug not as part of my quest to change my life around, but rather to see if I could impress my girlfriend and maybe win back her affections. Since I haven't seen or heard from her in at least a year I'd have to say that the plan didn't go as I'd hoped. Somewhere along the way, however, swing dancing taught me that I could live my life alone again and not have to subject myself to the self-imposed prison of work, sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat that I had created for many of the last 10 years of my "life". Swing dancing gave me an outlet to at least be around other people and not have to stand on the sidelines, staring enviously at others as they lived and enjoyed life. No longer did I have to wish that I was good enough to be around other people, or blame myself for being a "failure" at something which I had never had the nerve to even attempt.

I think that's probably one of the big keys to being a Lifer: Working up the nerve to scream aloud, in the words of Peter Finch in Network, "I'M A HUMAN BEING, GODDAMNIT! MY LIFE HAS VALUE!" And don't just say it. Mean it. Believe it. Feel it. And then at least try to do something about it. It doesn't matter if you end up moving in the wrong direction, but you've got to start moving in a direction.

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof!