I Can Expect or Demand, but that is only my right

So, I should be more, do more, and generally be better than I am.  I have the right to that sort of self-assessment.  I would not think I had the right, or at least not if I wanted to maintain good form, to tell you that I am disappointed because you are not living up to your potential, and that you are just blowing it all around.

You may already feel that way. You may be battling some unknown inner thing that makes you wary of ever holding a pistol in your hand, for fear of your impulses and sadness.  Who knows.  Ain't my business. People have, and need, boundaries.  That is within that personal realm.  An individual's most vulnerable psychological triggers are not the play things of others, in polite society.

I guess you'd never know it, considering how the culture is evolving, or devolving.  Or both; which is what I think.

But through it all, there is a gem which may be of great value.  Maybe the mantra needed right now is, "Demand, and expect, more of yourself".   I will know when I actually have no more, and I've done the very best I can.  It has been so rare that I ever did that, I remember the very brief spans of time when I looked back on the day saying, "I did my best.  Even when I felt like stopping for a break, or doing the wrong thing out of habit.  I did not give in."

So few times I have allowed that.  And I loved those days.  Absolutely loved it.  But things tended to go so fast, and it was almost like magic.  Things advanced so well in those brief periods that it scared me.  And I settled back into being the misfit, letting the cruelty of the world and the stupidity and shallowness of others be my excuses for being invisible.  For basically being on strike most of my life.

Wow.  Is that dumb or what?  So, would it be dumb now to think I can change and maybe revive those rare occasions when I tried, and did my best?  The bar is set low enough, I need no big miracles.  Plus, during those few times, it was a love of life that made it work, not guilt or anger, or resentment, or any of that kind of thing.

Maybe I can demand more from myself.  But certainly no one else has the right, by my code, to slam me for my ridiculous battles with my own demons, and to point out how big a loser I am in that way.
But they have.  And, much as I hate it, they are right.  I do need to demand more of myself and be as resourceful in figuring out what I can do constructively, as I am at figuring out what ails me.

Life should not be so hard.  It makes sense that in developing civilization and cultures, people would have a lot of mental wildness go on.  Our brains and minds have to evolve, too.  So, we are at the phase in evolution where our minds are still confused between the new civility and fight or flight.  It is hard to get it right.  Our consciences work over time or under time, depending.   And it makes people turn on themselves--depression.

Smart people, like my brother, figured this stuff out at a young age.  A heightened sense of reality, and maybe decency as well.  He learned not to destroy himself in protest of that which he despised or did not understand.  Many of us go the self-defeating route.  Oh well.  Let's just ask a little more of my own self.  I have made minuscule progress since adopting this idea, but progress, nonetheless. and I feel less awful and riddled with free floating, macabre dread.
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Played the Tin Roof, downtown last night with Enter the Blue Sky.  Sound guy remembered me from playing with Valor a Lace there a few weeks ago.  That was cool.  The Tin Roof gets 4 stars--all I give at this time.   Good stage.  Good sound, even if sometimes hard to hear one's self--name of the game--great treatment from staff, good sound tech.