Are you there, Justice Team? It’s me, Logan. I know it’s been a while since we’ve spoken, and I’m really sorry about that. How has the Justice-Seeking been going? Truly, I apologize for not keeping in touch. I could tell you that I’ve been busy, that I’ve been traveling, that I’ve been working on other projects. And while this is true, it isn’t the truth. The truth is a bit more complicated; the truth is that I am happy.
I’m happy. Life isn’t too bad right now, and I’m really surprised. My general philosophical commitments have been communicated and remain consistent – that life is suffering, devoid of meaning beyond what you make of it, with many long, low valleys of disappointment and struggle between any fleeting peaks of joy.
I’m on a peak right now. Things are all coming up Logan. This year I’ve accomplished some things I am proud of – I was promoted in my work and in my martial arts. I’ve watched my sister and my nephew grow together, an awe-inspiring and humbling thing to see. I’ve read some good books and stolen some neat ideas from greater minds than my own. Overwatch added a hamster ball tank. Friends have been wed, and they were richly celebrated as they deserved. And most excitingly, this whole year has been spent with the company of a truly fantastic woman who makes me feel worthy and noble. We’ve traveled together, and I’ve had the pleasure of being able to introduce her to the people and places who made me who (what?) I am.
I’m feeling myself, you see.
And this is a problem! I don’t kind of know what to do with it. Partially, it is this: Happy makes me nervous. This is a well-noted psychological feature of my and other brains; Dr. Brené Brown has spoken at length about how joy can be one of the most difficult emotions to experience – with joy can comes the sudden realization that this joy could be stripped from us, that we could fall from the tenuous, joyous mountaintop. There’s definitely some of that in my experience.
But it is also more than that. It’s because being happy with myself completely neutralizes a tried-and-true Logan Life Strategy: perpetual self-improvement through perpetual self-loathing. My secret to relentless self-improvement is to perpetually disdain myself and desire to change myself into a new person entirely, a better human. In the show Scrubs, Dr. Cox explains how he maintains his physique: “The key to my exercise program is this one simple truth: I hate my body. Do you understand that the second you look in the mirror and you’re happy with what you see, baby, you’ve lost the battle.”
Mine is the Dr. Cox method, applied to moral & personal development. Read the quote above, but substitute “entirety of my personality and character” for “body”. That’s how I got things done. And it worked for me! Through despising myself, I have pushed myself to some neat accomplishments.[1]
But lately, the happiness has come. And with it, the laziness, and the complacency. Lately, I’ve felt like a good employee, a good martial artist, a good friend, and a good partner.
That makes me deeply nervous, because when I feel satisfied with myself in these domains, I don’t obsess over how to close the gap between the current hated, actual Logan and the potentially-likable ideal Logan I carry about in my head. I feel good, and then I don’t work as hard, with the result being a vague worry that things will fall apart.[2]
And so that’s where I am. Things are good, and I am a happy human. I have found some joy. I am trying to savor the ride and take in the view from this mountaintop. I am trying to learn to celebrate and carry this joy with me, and to live with that joy in the moment, acknowledging that this moment is a gift that could be taken at any moment. While I am joyous, I don’t feel the same drives as I did to work on myself and my projects; this means that I may lose some of the qualities that got me to this place where I could experience such joy.
A takeaway from this reflection is this: I ought to re-think my motivational fuel for self-development. I should move from negative emotions like hatred of self or fear of not being good enough. I should orient myself toward more positive motivations such as working to build my best self. One potential positive motivation is the desire to be as valuable and useful to my community as possible. By focusing on the community and on service, I can retain the same drive for self-development, with less negative and egocentric undertones. If I can make this shift, I move from a self-improvement paradigm fueled by negative emotion to one fueled by a positive vision of life for myself and my community.
That is my update for you, Justice Team. I’m happy, and that’s good. I’m happy, and that means you’ve been getting less output from these projects, which seems bad. I will try to fix that, while still retraining the joy and that new, surprising feeling of actually liking myself for once. If words continue to appear on this page, it means the discipline is working. Or it might mean I’m self-loathing again Guess you’ll have to tell from the tone.[3] Either way, I thank you for your patience and hope you’ll enjoy future updates, as frequently or infrequently as they come.
[1] Your mileage may vary.
[2] Voltaire said that "History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up" - meaning that civilizations rise being driven in hard times of discontent, and that they overthrow the societies that have grown weak and decadent. Assuming this is true, and also applies to individuals, this is essentially my fear - that by becoming complacent, I will lose the qualities that brought me to this joyful experience. And so Dr. Brené Brown’s point about the difficulty of experiencing joy returns.
[3] Guess you’ll have to tell from the tone?