Personal Growth

I truly wonder at my own foolishness sometimes. It's clear that I'm stuck in a rut. I used to think that college would be all about personal growth, but the only directions I have grown in have been those which were already in progress, or those which I certainly do not desire to have any growth in. On the other hand, I have to consider that maybe I have gone as far as I want where I want to go, and any change from now on will not be my desire. Clearly, it is a touch narcissistic to claim that I am as well developed as I could want to be, but sometimes the only conclusions I can come to are the only conclusions I can come to.

If this is true, then what is the point of trying to achieve anything from now on? I find that I am very much stuck in my own conception of myself. I cannot bring myself to like authors I do not already like, unless they are very similar to those I already admire. I cannot like movies that do not fit a particular mould, which invariably shifts every time I watch a new movie, but cannot include others that do not at that point in time fit the mould. I cannot do things which I do not already do, for fear of failing, or simply not enjoying myself. No no, that is not true. More accurately, I cannot do things which do not fit my image of myself. In fact, that image is pretty rigid, and that might be a reason I find myself so profoundly boring. The rigidity is quite amazing. Most people are able to adjust slightly according to the circumstances. I am completely unable to. This is what bothers me. To a great extent, I have not really changed since before I can remember. Perhaps I am a touch less shy now, slightly more confident of my self-worth, at least externally. But I am essentially the same person. This is through the major period of change in my life. If I do not change through my teenage years, it seems unlikely that I will change in the foreseeable future. The implications of this are quite depressing. If I find myself boring now, and I do not change, how can I stand myself for the next forty or whatever number of years? Hmmm, quite a challenging prospect.

But can I then redefine myself if I wanted? The problem with this is that even if it is possible to change myself, which I believe it is, I would not want to, for as much as I am trapped within my conception of myself, my conception of myself is trapped within my conception of myself. It is self-perpetuating in the sense that I must fulfil my face to myself, to steal a term from Erving Goffman. I present an idea of Au Dazhou to myself, and it is then immutable. I must maintain the consistency of that idea of the person, or everything will collapse upon itself. When this happens, I cannot but hold myself rigid and unmoving within myself, and reconstruct the exact same idea once more, for it is the only mould I dare to conceive of. It is unthinkable to recreate myself completely. Perhaps this is because of my own ego. I believe in my own worth, and if I really do believe in my value as a person, then I cannot possibly change it, or I will be admitting to myself that I am not worth all that much after all, if I can be discarded so easily.

Hmmm, depressing. Enough then.