Dear Future Me

This blog, back in the days of its inception at least, was supposed to be like a journal. Not a diary, or a confession but a journal. In it I, in my wisdom, had planned to write down a lot of things that happened to me, and how I dealt with them. In the (now vain) hope that going back a re-reading my entries would provide the 'present' me, i.e. the one actually sitting here typing this post at this moment, some guidance for how I should act.  It was a long shot to hope that 'past' me would be able to write down something useful that would allow 'present' me to be a better person.

That was one of the ideas back in the beginning, and it was a noble idea, but like most noble ideas it all starts to go potty when humans are involved. In particular when I am the human being involved. I look back at the past 5 plus years of this blogs 'life' and I realize I am not one iota better as a person than I was when I started it. In fact, and I pretty sure I would get universal agreement on this, I am almost certainly a worse person than I was back then. Early on I listed a list of 'flaws' that I possess, and when I go back and revisit that list I come to the horrible conclusion that instead of getting shorter the list has gotten lengthier. Which is, in many, many way, quite depressing. One of the main things a journal can be is a way for the past you to give advice to the present you. Sadly, if the present you isn't just not the type to listen, or just doesn't care to heed advice, the journal just becomes a source of angst.

 It allows you to go back and re-read all the mistakes you were making back then, and then when you realize you are making those same mistakes plus a few extra, it all ends in tears.  You had the hope that you were on the upswing of the 'being a better person' scale, only to come to the horrid realization that you are really on the downswing. It is a real kick in the teeth. After all, now what do you do? You can't trust 'past' you, you can't trust 'present' you, and you aren't 'future' you yet. And as you stand there in the pissing rain, because you don't have enough sense to come in out of it, you begin to realize that maybe you've topped out. Maybe the type of person you are now is the type of person you always were, and are always going to be. Maybe self-improvement, like home ownership, is just a big fat rip off, or some fucking myth created by the self help industry to be able to sell more books.

All the thinking you can do, (and you can do a lot of thinking if you try) doesn't seem to either help, or change things. All the vows to 'do right' and to 'start making some changes' are lies as soon as they leave your lips. Lies you tell yourself to make 'present' you feel better, and to give 'present' you the (vain) hope that 'future' you will be a better person. If only 'present' you puts forth a little bit of extra effort, and tries to start acting 'right.' It was a dream, and as you know from your years of experience with dreams, very few of them come true. Nightmares, now they come true with all too frequent regularity, but dreams, those remain as slippery as goose shit on glass. And it is the dream of being a better future you that was part of the impetus for this blog in the first place. Now, that the clear realization has hit you like a ton of bricks, where do I find motivation now? I would say I am open to suggestions, but I realize I won't get any, and even if I do, I am such a lousy person I probably won't listen to them anyway. A tout a l'heure.