Mental Health Break

For all the benefits that the internet provides, I am finding it more and more jeopardizing to my state of mental health. People are just mean on the internet. I know that's not a revelation, but webshits provide enough anonyminity that allows a level of bile to pour forth that can't be good for anyone to read day after day. No matter what your cause, there is someone standing by to rip you apart in order to rid themselves of their own feelings of self-loathing.

And I do really believe that.

The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference.

When people are so wrapped up in tearing someone else apart - you really have to wonder what their stake in doing so is. What you hate tends to say more about you than what is hated.

Where the problem comes in is deciding whether to distance yourself from any and all detractors into the fuzzy-warm world of narcissism (which I fully admit to at times) or to be open to criticism and risk becoming paralyzed by it. This is the path that I walk daily. As more opportunities come my way, so comes the daily obstacles of dealing with your detractors. And I know it is not cool to admit that you even think about your detractors, but who could not without being totally self-obsessed?

Here's the thing that brought all this up: I am going to Lollapalooza this weekend to blog it for Project DU. I should be excited about this - and I am. Sure, after Lolla let Metallica headline in 1996 the festival lost major cool points, but before that it was the holy grail of music festivals for my generation. And after attending every festival up until that famously poor booking decision, the festival still holds a very dear place in my heart. Road trips, rock music, hotel rooms, the core of my early twenties - and I get to be nostalgic cuase that's what age earns you.

But I found myself not able to post about any of my upcoming plans for fear that my enthusiasm would be considered lame, for fear that I would be chastised for my involvement with the corporate element, made fun of because of the bands I'm excited to see (Wilco, Ryan Adams, DCFC, The Raconteurs, The Flaming Lips, Iron & Wine), and beleaguered in general. But then I realized something, that I've kind of known all along, but have never openly spoke about, and I figured that it might help others in similar predicaments, and so I decided to share:

People who tear other people down have in general never known their own success. Success does something incredible to you. It makes you root for others. "Misery loves company" is no joke, but the opposite is also true. Because I have generated a certain level of success in my life, I want others to succeed also. You feel no qualms about sharing you triumphs with others who have also been successful. I'm sure many of you can commiserate with the experience of sharing your acheivements with someone who has very few of their own - you feel guilty. You feel like you are being full of yourself or rubbing it in their face - when that's not your intent at all...but when you are sharing your accomplishments with others that have equal successes in their own right, then you feel empowered.

The point is - I often have to recommit myself to allowing myself to be excited about my accomlishments, to allow myself to feel that they are deserved and worthy of being excited about. You should commit yourself to these things too. I am not for the whole idea of beleiving in yourself no matter what - (See America Idol auditions for the reasons why sometimes we really should listen to other people's opinions) - but I don't think that we should be embaressed to be excited about things that we are passionate about. And I need to work on believing that more myself.