I got out of the shower and looked in the mirror and thought to myself, "damn, I'm actually hot."

I haven't had that thought in quite some time, and it came as a slow, rolling surprise. I have just a few less angles and edges than I used to have; I was almost always painfully thin, and now I have just a little more (winter?) padding, at least around the center. But I'm also happier with myself in terms of my personality, which I don't look at.

I also have fewer angles in my face, probably because I'm smiling more. Eowyn is currently comparing me to various pictures of Michaelangelo's David.

The LiveJournal generation has, whether by grand conspiracy or grand accident, a certain ... malaise to it which infects many of my long-distance friend base at seemingly random and reoccurring intervals. Emotions tend to run in many different directions and people tend to fall into patterns not necessarily constructive or destructive — simply repetitive. If I see one more entry that is exactly what I would expect it to be from its writer, I swear I wish I could feel good about just dropping them entirely, but I would very quickly run out of things to read.

Who is at fault is irrelevant. It's more likely a matter of "empowerment" — the seemingly antiquated idea that we are flesh-and-blood human beings who are very much alive, and living in a world that is also very much alive and receptive to our pushing, shoving and screaming, just as receptive as it is to our dancing, smiling and laughing.

I occasionally have to remind myself that I am in love, not because I don't feel like I am, but because I occasionally forget that I am allowed to have so much freaking joy in my life. Actual joy. Do you claim to know what that is? Any of you? Because you're allowed it. Go fucking find it. I dare you. I double-dog-dare you. Find the things that make you happy, joyously happy, and sink your teeth into them if you have the teensiest inkling of a clue of what is actually good for you. It is more important to you than anything on this earth; more than your job or lack of job, more than your behavioral patterns, more than your feelings of self-worth or lack of self-worth, more than anything you will ever, ever write.

I highly recommend the breaking of behavioral patterns for anyone who wishes to think more of themselves than they currently do. You are not, after all, fucking robots.