Perspective

Perspective's a peculiar beast.

Weighed at a stupid point in time today, and found myself to be vastly over what I felt I was. Thing is, on the way down, I still remember being thrilled when I reached...say...the 16 stone mark, or the 15 stone 6 mark - they were both important landmarks, and I found myself looking, vainly, in the mirror, thinking "you've not been this thin for almost two decades..."

Now, when I look, I find myself thinking "Eesh - fat and lumpy again..."

See? The shift in perspective given by the bounce. Having made progress, a once-positive result feels entirely negative.

Is there an up-side to that?
Possibly. Certainly then, there won't be any joyful backsliding all the way to 20 stone or more.

There may still be backsliding, but if there is, it'll be painful, bloody and many-clawed, and I'll bitch every step of the way.

Perspective's on my mind today - 4-dimensional perspective, mainly - perspective in time. This is probably because I re-made contact today with someone who's been out of my life for quite some time. We didn't part well, and part of that - not all, but part - was my fault. So I find myself looking back at the person I was then (who at the time was adamant he was right), with a faint bemusement and no real pleasure.

The thing is, I'm also seeing perspective shy away from me, forward into the future. And I don't think I'll like the person I am right now very much either. I've been told that at some point, we all acquire a desire to be taken seriously. I've never particularly had the desire to be taken seriously, except inasmuch as the talent I think I have is concerned. And seeing time march on, and others - some undoubtedly more talented than I will ever know how to be, and others...not - succeed simply by virtue of getting things done, while I think about them, essentially, has the potential to turn me sour and embittered and cankerous, which will hurt no-one, really, except me, and those around me. It's a kind of madness, probably, and I'm melodramatic enough, on some nights, to want to give in to it. It'll pass, of course - everything passes, even resolution - but tonight it feels like everything's on shifting sand, and I have lost the heels to dig in and stand upright against the tide.

Which is why I'm not sure that future-me - hopefully successful, Disappeared me - will like the maudlin, self-indulgent me of nights like this, of days like today.

Hehe...Douglas Adams was right about perspective. He said that given the infinite scale of the universe, and the infinite reaches of time, the one thing any being could really do without if it wanted to get on in life was a sense of perspective.

Perspective sucks, all in all.