loved for your mere existence

some reflections after reading gilead by marilynne robinson

when i was reading the novel gilead by marylinne robinson, this line, written from a father to his son, stopped me dead in my tracks and forced me to put the book down:

“you see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. your existence is a delight to us."

that is such deep love: to love the raw being of someone, the unfiltered existence of someone, the real being that is down there beneath all the expectations and agendas of other people which keep the nature of that being hidden behind masks. the being that exists independently of social convention, career tracks, and whatever socially constructed concepts of age, gender, fashion, race, and sexuality have warped who they are in the eyes of other people

the worst is that we ourselves often are so absorbed by these constructs that we are constantly performing them out rather an allowing ourselves to be our selves: in that case, not only can we never know whether others love us for our mere existence: we also can never love our selves for our own mere existence, because we have buried our true existence beneath so much fabricated bullshit that we ourselves are never able to even actually see our selves! instead we see a fake self: we see a self foisted upon us by the world, a self that has emerged from how we think we need to perform for the world (a vast beast composed of many lies and fictions) to accept us. after performing this self, and falling short of this self’s expectations, we even think we hate ourselves! but what we hate is the phantom self, a monstrous ghost composed of all the shit made up about us, all the shit we have even come to believe is true

some live their whole lives acting out the role of their phantom self. obviously if there is a serious mismatch between the merely existing self and the fabricated phantom self, there is cause for an alarming degree of social anxiety: if we are constantly interacting with people basically while pretending to be someone we are not, we can never be sure anyone has actually even seen us, and so we can never be sure anyone actually knows us, and so we can never be sure anyone actually likes us either

so yeah, as someone who has often struggled with social anxiety so crippling that i completely freeze for hours, this marylinne robinson gilead quote sent me down the road of all these thoughts and, yeah, really kept me up late at night for a while. i thought about all these people in my life and wondered: do they love me for my mere existence? do i even know really what my mere existence is? have i ever truly simply existed? sadly i realized that i had not ever simply existed: nor did i know how to do such a thing: and my social anxiety steadily intensified in the aftermath of finishing robinson’s book because now i knew i was performing, knew i wasn’t just existing, but didn’t know what to do about it, didn’t know how to fix it! i needed to figure out a way to simply exist or i could never be at peace

because when we keep our authentic selves held down and suffocated by our automated compliance with the expectations, preferences, and social conventions of others, we can never know for sure if we are loved for our existence rather than for the way in which our existence has been twisted into something imaginary within the mind of another person. when they see us, they don’t see us: they see an entity they have fabricated in their minds and applied to the image of our bodies. they do not love us for our existence: they love us for the value which a fictitious version of us adds to their lives. it is only when we release ourselves to be truly authentic that we discover who are the people who really, really, really love us for who we are

what i wanted was to be known. what i realized is how much of what i love and adore i was keeping buried deep inside my psyche for fear of the lack of alignment between these passions and the fabricated phantom self whose scripts i tried to follow

the little things began to bother me. i kept hinting to my friend how much i loved butterflies, and he kept reacting dismissively, quickly advancing the topic. something bothered me: he doesn’t know i love butterflies: and it’s not just about these butterflies, it’s about all these other things that suddenly feel connected to the butterflies in that like the butterflies… they are buried, they are kept dead

i became increasingly open with my butterflies: butterfly bracelets, butterfly necklaces, butterfly tattoo, butterfly emojis. i’d never uninhibitedly expressed my love for butterflies because such expressions were seriously misaligned with the fabricated phantom self whose scripts i acted out. when people were surprised by my butterflies, and when they made weird faces at me, i felt affirmed and seen. when people told me they liked my butterflies, when they said i looked pretty and cute, i felt affirmed and seen. one of my old friends sent me butterfly hair clips

another friend called me and made me understand the gravity of my actions. he warned me that there would be “consequences” for me wearing butterfly bracelets. but the judgment in his voice left me feeling so at peace because the butterflies were just one of many many ways i was finding to allow myself to merely exist and the consequence of an old friend disengaging from me, or judging me, or even not speaking to me, was so incredibly worth it to me. the love i feel from the friends who love me when i’m wearing my butterflies is so much better than the love i’ve received from friends warning me about the “consequences” that come with my butterflies

it doesn’t matter what he thinks anyway because a week later i had such a fun night with my friend adam in seattle! i was out and about with my bracelets, butterflies, scrunchies, necklaces, and women’s shirts: i was feeling great! a girl told me i was pretty! adam told me how happy he was for me, he hugged me and said he loved me, and then we got super high on a sunday afternoon in downtown seattle: we went to a few bars and we dipped into a tattoo shop at 9 pm: i finally got a butterfly tattoo, an act which so many in my life had warned me against. i changed the colors in the design from green and blue to pink and purple. “that’s fucking sick,” adam said, and then we went to the gay bar and danced for a few hours. i ran my hands through my hair like a girl would do and then two guys told my friend they thought i was cute

i guess i could sum all this up, dear diary, with one simple conclusion: no matter who ends up rejecting us for being ourselves, we can be so much more at peace if we find a way to stop performing. i feel so naked now without my jewelry!!!

(artist: zack taylor)

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