Right, this post definitely deserves a Self-Indulgent sticker, or a parental advisory: introverted language may bore some readers.

Ok, so this humble blog received a nice comment from a good friend of mine, suggesting that the real reason these last few months have been so difficult for me is because I don't like myself very much. I must confess I half pooh-poohed it (it's really hard to use 'pooh-poohed' well, isn't it? No wonder we don't see it around as much). Dislike myself? Me? Most of this site is taken up by my ramblings about my psyche and little world - a dose of rampant egotism would seem to be more my problem. But I started thinking about it, really thinking about it, and, well, she's right. Thanks, Mel. So here's my take; me, by me, from a semi-detached perspective.

I appear to be nervous a lot of the time; I fidget a lot, scratch my head, gnaw on my nails. In effect, I'm consuming myself, and other people. I consume other people's vitality and life and always always I try to escape the shackles of self. These are a few of my favourite things: travel, sex, thinking, people, self-reinvention/new activities. These things lift me out of my little socket, give me a glimpse of other ways of being. My dad's like this as well; he needs newness, he absorbs it.

I'm fleeing from living intensely, I think, running from the possiblity of exuding life, taking chances, being confident. Not confidence in the social sense - I can navigate most social situations reasonably easily - but confidence in terms of satisfaction with self. And yet the people I loathe are the people who ooze out of themselves, who talk of themselves incessantly, anoint themselves with praise, these people who are the suns in this world, the centres of gravity and light. But, strangely, I'm often atracted by these people, swung like a new moon into their orbit, to reflect back their radiance and steal a little of it myself; reflected glow. I do this less than I used to, now that I am more clearly defined, but I can still feel the pull.

Sometimes I can be a sun, manipulate social situations, exert charm on others , effervesce, bubble over, and I love these times. But when it's done, when it's over, I become littler than ever. It feels odd, the comedown; a realisation of who I am (or who I think I am; small, meek, embarassing). It's a concertina of buzz and recoil, reminding me of true bipolar people.

For three years, Farrago was my dream. It was an escape. My ex was a dream; she was an escape, too - I thrilled to immerse myself in her, sought out those moments of selflessness (in the sense of a void, the immense relief of a vacuum). But now I am stuck looking drearily in the mirror, no dreams with their promises, nothing bubbling up; perhaps my idea of starting up a street press might turn into a dream, but for some reason it doesn't offer the same promise of an 'else' as the other two dreams did. Other than that, the promise of escape at the end of the year, either into a possible traineeship with a newspaper when I graduate (and then into career, using the skills and the confidence and the money and the absorption of my time to batter my self-image into a workable self, a clearly articulated self with corners and soft spots and mazes) or immersing myself elsewhere, teaching English in Indonesia and China, dreams of transforming myself, renewing, making new connections; friends, lovers, me.

At the same time, I'm the happiest with myself I've ever been, and the most bored with thinking about myself. And after all, who am I to complain? Some people have too clear a sense of self, too high a priority on their needs and wants and the power to satisfy their whims. Others have nothing at all. I did a listen-in at the counselling service, listening to another counsellor tackle the lives of those who ring in, listening to the sounds of hollowness and emptiness, listening to a man whose last important human contact was maybe three years ago, who was watching the tv while the tv stared back at him, who had shopped and washed clothes and finished the tasks of his day by 11am and was staring down the barrel of the void. My god.

So I suppose we all need dreams. But I want to live intensely, now, to be content with the present and not with the future. To be content with me, now, and not in a year.