The Bipolar Otaku

Once in a while, I also love finding bits of your own philosophies or personnal set of unwritten beliefs presented in text, conveniently stated words you could never have crafted yourself.

This time, it was actually a book within a book. The book within is called "The Basis of Order", found in the book "The Magic of Recluse" by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. The outer book is about a young man who is exiled from the island of Recluse, where the practioners of order magic live, until he can prove that he won't become a source of chaos on the island. So the inner book is one he studies on the way to finding is way and deciding if he wants to serve chaos, order or try to balance the two.

So anyway, the quote is this:
Love no one until you can love yourself, for love of another is merely empty flattery and self-deception for one who cannot accept himself pretense.
While I've never really put it into words, I think I've really held this in some corner of my mind for quite some time now (probably since really beating myself up majorly in 98?). Though I sometimes try to pursue some love or another when the opportunity seems worthwhile, I still don't feel ready for it, and basically for that reason. Or is that just an excuse for when I fail? Maybe it's just that, but I'd rather not think so. Foolish pride...

You know, these days, I think I can honestly say that I am significantly better about my self worth and my self esteem than I was, say 6 years ago, even if I had a bigger ego then. But still I wonder sometimes, how much do I still lie to myself? I do it to make myself feel better, I do it to make myself feel worse. I guess I'm that sure everyone does, but I still feel bad about it.

I really need to just stop thinking or worrying about love. I tell everyone that I have, one way or another. Sometimes it's the three-groups-of-friends story [If your not familiar with that, I can categorize my friends and coworkers into the groups: those married with kids, those divorced with kids, and those never married. Theyall speak with one voice and say "Don't get married." The only exceptions are the recently married idealists.], or the heartbroken-over-the-last-exgirlfriend explanation [who, honestly, I've been over for a long time], the too-much-work-and-no-time cop-out, the simple nah-I-don't-think-it'll-work-out escape, the more direct stop-trying-to-set-me-up whine, or the I'm-not-ready evasion [as presented here in this post]. But in case it isn't obvious, I still think about it all too much. Just gotta stop... It doesn't help that people (friends, family, doctors) imply that now that I have a house, it's almost natural that some woman will somehow pick up on this fact will track me down and marry me (damn golddiggers). Well, what ever happens, I hope it is... um, how about 'blessed', that might be it.

You know, now that I've thought of it for a while, I hate finding bits of my own unwritten philosophies written in the books I read. It makes me think too much, and prove how screwed up my head really is. Really, it's the fault of my rambling during my blog writing, but if I blame it on my writing, I might stop doing it. Then, I think I'd be really screwed in my head.