Glimpses of the Past

Last week was finals week. Like everyone else around here, I had two goals. One: convince everybody I was studying really hard. Two: not study. I emailed a bunch of people I hadn't talked to in a while. I went downtown a couple of times to "clear my mind". I revised an already-submitted paper "just in case". Then, lacking anything else to do, I started Googling random things. Eventually I searched an old username of mine and, unsurprisingly, I got a hit.

Finding the old post wasn't unusual. I mean, I've been posting on forums since I was ten. I've left a data trail a mile wide. Bit what struck me was the content. 16 year-old me wrote a long self description. He detailed his incredible abilities, his intense antisocialness, and his cold logical thinking. "It is always better," he proudly wrote, "to kill one person than let ten die."

Oy.

I want to go back in time so I can meet him, and then punch him in the face. For all his bragging about his pragmatic ruthlessness, he was a pretty terrible fighter. I mean, he couldn't even do a pushup. And I'm pretty sure that his ego was even more fragile than 19 year-old me. And that guy went on a two day depression bender because nobody laughed at one of his skits.

Still, I'm incredibly glad I found that sample. I had no idea I changed that much in four years. It's one thing to constantly wax poetic about self-improvement, quite another to see it happen. Since then I've been obsessively tracking down everything else I can find. I'm constructing a timeline from old chat logs, pictures, and posts. Slowly, agonizingly, the picture emerges. My prior stupidity left gaping holes. I remember being proud of how good I was at avoiding pictures. I remember gleefully picking usernames that would be impossible to search. I remember wiping my hard disks "so nobody could learn more about my past." I was wanted to look mysterious. I was an idiot.

Even so, it's possible to see some patterns. The growth is subtle and continuous, a long chain of imperceptible changes that add up over time. Age 14 me is the same as age 15 me is the same as age 16, but the two ends are slightly different. On the other hand, upheavals can cause incredibly rapid change. Between 12 and 13 I moved to another state. The growth quickly follows. But really, did we expect anything else?

A lot of my dialogues on self-improvement are entirely philosophical. Now I have real world data. It's not much, but at least it's something. Looking at it, it seems improvement happens in one of two ways. One, it's gradual and imperceptible, something you only realized happened when you look back on your past self. Alternatively, it can be sudden, rapid, and extremely painful. It's either long and boring or agonizing. Often it's both. Not that appealing, is it?

Nobody ever said it was easy. Trying to consciously improve as a person is the most difficult thing I've ever done. I have to stare hard at my failings, dig out the ingrained bad habits, and push the limits of my comfort zones. I have to constantly question myself and never, ever, ever be satisfied with my successes. It's hard and slow and it hurts all the time. I know people who refuse to consider it, and while I find this completely incomprehensible the idea is sometimes very, very tempting. But now I can see how far I've come. I know for sure there's a light at the end of the tunnel, because I've been in tunnels before and found that light. And if it hurts, well, it hurt before. I got over it.

I wonder how much these patterns I see are influenced by my own biases. I've talked about external events breaking stagnation. Did this make me want to see the upheavals as causing growth? Or did I already know about the upheavals and unconsciously worked that into the externals? They could be the same, all externals upheavals. In that case, we are one step closer to consciously triggering periods of growth. At the same time, we have to accept that such periods will be quite an ordeal.

I head back to Michigan on the 20th. Once in my parents' home I can kick this project into high gear, scouring old photobooks and reading stories and search for diaries. If I'm really lucky I'll be able to contact people from my New Jersey days. I'm seriously regretting leaving so little behind. But I'll do my best to get it all, and I won't be making the same mistake again.