429 words on letting them judge
Fuck you, you don’t get to tell me who I should be.
They want you to be easier to look at. Easier to deal with. Easier to love. Every time someone says, “You’re growing,” what they really mean is,
“You’re finally becoming less of a problem.”
The world wants you manageable. Composed. Quieter. More patient. Less emotional. Less needy. They want your fire, but only if it warms them. Never if it burns.
Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations,
“We care about ourselves more than other people but care about other people’s opinions more than our own.”
No surprise the thing that people regret the most is not living a life true to themselves. Not doing what they wanted, not chasing thier dreams.
People minimize themselves and let the world decide what “acceptable” looks like. They make themselves small enough to fit their idea of healed. Of worth. Of lovable.
I have been one of them. And it’s cost me.
It cost me me.
Charles Bukowski writes in one of his poems about masturbating in his car while watching a stranger in a miniskirt wait for a bus.
It’s disgusting.
But he wrote it anyway. Not to glorify it. But because it was true for him. He didn’t flinch from the rot inside himself.
He knew he was a failure, a creep, a fucking weirdo, but he didn’t try to hide it. He wrote about it in his poetries and handed it to the world and said—
This is who I am, and I don’t give a shit if you hate me for it.
Whenever I find myself thinking of others’ opinions too much, I read Bukowski. Not because I admire the man—but because honesty like that, even when it’s vile, is still more real than most things that go viral.
A good example is always worth more than good advice.
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I’ll write the book.
I’ll lose weight if I want.
I might even get plastic surgery.
But only if I’d still do it in an empty room with the lights off and no one waiting to clap.
This culture made me chase things I never wanted so they’d finally treat me right. I was trying so hard to “improve” that I forgot I was allowed to say,
Fuck you. You don’t get to tell me who I should be.
Nietzsche said,
become who you are.
Not fix who you are.
Not sell who you are.
Become.
So I am trying to be. Like Bukowski and so many other weirdos, and it’s messy. Loud. Sometimes ugly. It won’t sell well on Instagram. And it’s nothing like the self-help bullshit they promised would save me.
And the best part—
You don’t even have to like this version of me.