I’m Too Old For This Shit

Nietzsche once said, “There is no doer behind the deed. The deed is everything.” A savage sentiment aimed at removing the halo of selfhood from our actions. There’s no saint in the scumbag. If the actions are scummy, the man is. End of essay. And for the most part, I agree. The shoe fits. 

I disappoint myself. And it’s a real bummer. My father disappointed himself. And that was a real bummer. Nietzsche’s sentiment haunts me. It’s a specter of the matters of fact. The invoice for crimes committed. But, what compels one deed over another? 

I’m fascinated by the idea of second order desires. For those who didn’t go into crippling student debt for a Masters Degree in philosophy, it breaks down like this. My actions are X. And let’s agree they are detrimental to both myself and others. On Nietzsche’s showing, I want X, as evidenced by my actions. A second order desire suggests I want to desire something other than X. Something more laudable and respectable. We exist at a distance from ourselves. But what does this even look like? Is it a shroud we put over our actions to pad the rough landing of consequences? I’m not that pessimistic. Rather, our ability to be disappoint ourselves is the muffled call of conscience. 

What a gift it is to be grateful for my disappointment. It nudges, prods, and shoves me to a better place. Bullies me into being different. There’s a version of myself I’ve never met who achieves effortlessly. Despite all evidence to the contrary, you believe in you to be more than you are. Play better. Be better. Love better. My completely unearned aspirational sense of self might just be the key to making it a reality. A future projection I might just be able to will into existence. Disappointment is the precursor of improvement, projecting a dream of what can be over the landscape of what is. The call is coming from inside the house.    

The actions are who I am: a doer of disappointing deeds. The well-worn leather shoe fits like a glove. It’s perfectly contoured to my feet after four decades of molding. 

For now.