- Where success can be measured with increasing accuracy, so, too, can failure. On the other side of self-improvement, Cederström and Spicer have discovered, is a sense not simply of inadequacy but of fraudulence. In December, with the end of their project approaching, Spicer reflects that he has spent the year focussing on himself to the exclusion of everything, and everyone, else in his life. His wife is due to give birth to their second child in a few days; their relationship is not at its best. And yet, he writes, “I could not think of another year I spent more of my time doing things that were not me at all.” He doesn’t feel like a better version of himself. He doesn’t even feel like himself. He has been like a man possessed: “If it wasn’t me, who was it then?”
Ding ding ding I wrote this poem last fall: Metamorphic ideation, The obsessive re-creation Of the self Fears of inadequacy Always injuriously Feed the fundamentally Empty internal monologue Track a, track b, Both can't crack me, But make me empty My thoughts to this page; Unable to unwind, Turn it off and get high Forget and let it all go-- All this I forgo In favor of words. Fire finds fire fights Friendly fire battle Does it even matter Am I good enoughMeanwhile, parents continue to feed their children the loving, well-intentioned lie that there are “no limits” and they can “be anything,” which leaves the kids blaming themselves, rather than the market’s brutality, when they inevitably come up short.
Constant cogitation,
Me and my wife have talked about this same phenomenon, where we're told that it's not the system that's broken, but it's us. It seems like a probably unintentional, but really insidious control mechanism: if most people are convinced that it's them who need to change, the idea that the problem might be systemic doesn't really occur. Especially now in the age of social media that gives us curated glimpses of the "best of" of our friends' lives, we have this tendency of thinking that it's just me that's broken, and everybody else is somehow much better at this.