Cocky Critic
The Critic decided to lease living quarters in my head a long time ago. He’s been there for what seems like forever. He doesn’t beat around the bushes, he flings his opinion on you like an unwelcome snot. As you can tell he is a bit of a dick. It seems he is constantly vigilant because he always has something to say, something to edit in the narration of my life. He’s become somewhat of a nuisance, but every time you tell him to fuck off, he laughs and rejoices from the fact that you blew up yet again. Fighting with him seems useless. He also happens to be very intelligent and I can’t help respecting him for that. You see unlike him I can see the good even in such an asshole.
He has gotten a little old over the years, his force has gotten weaker, but that never stops him from trying to butt in. I’ll be sitting there and writing something about how I perform and sometimes write standup bits, and his slimy little voice will whisper condescendingly into my ear: “But can you really call that standup?!”
And it’s not just about the work I try to create, it’s also about how I try to look. There are days when I want to look pretty and wear a dress. I will put on a lovely dress, one that makes me feel really good and pretty and he’ll say:
“You know you’ll have to wear heels with that dress if you want it to look good?”
“I will” I say in response.
“But you’re gonna be out at work all day. Do you really think you can manage all day on heels?”
This is where I think he might be right and maybe he is just looking out for me. So I put on jeans and a t-shirt, get my sneakers and leave for work. As soon as I’m out of the house he’ll come back and say: “Ha, fugly. Why don’t you ever wear dresses?” And so here I am off to work feeling absolutely comfortable and unattractive.
He is clever and cunning. One day he’ll tell me that I should be reading more and then the next day he’ll tell me I’m adhering to consumerism because I am consuming the products of other people’s minds instead of creating my own.
Then once in a blue moon I will sit down and finally write something and my Critic says: “Of course you’d call that just “something”, because you don’t even believe you can write a worthwhile piece of literature.” Then he cajoles me into fixating on a specific word that is just out of my reach but would be perfect for my opening line. I spend the rest of the day looking for it, then getting distracted by another book or movie or god forbid even a meme. That’s when he is at his worst. “You’ve never even created a meme before. All you can do is eat them up you intellectual fatso.”
And I feel bad if I ever want to read chick lit or watch a romcom. “You can’t be a feminist, you are literally nourishing the stereotypical image of an ignorant woman who has no truly intellectual interests.” Then I’ll sit down to read a book about Astrophysics or Neuroendocrinology and he’ll be there laughing: “Why bother? It’s not like you can understand even half of what is being said.”
And when I think I want a relationship he will finally agree: Yes, you like those Disney movies and obviously you need to be rescued by a Prince Charming. Good luck bagging one though. The princesses had their looks. All you have is a nice personality. And we all know what that’s code for: boring.”
Sometimes I rebuke: “What if I’m happy with being boring.”
“Oh really? Well in that case, Bob, bring in the cats, she’s decided to move to Spinsterville.”
“Just because I am not trying to impress anyone, doesn’t mean I’m going to end up alone.”
“Oh dear, but you are trying to impress someone. In fact, you are trying to impress everyone and doing a preposterous job at it.”
Then I started seeing a psychoanalytic and the harassment became relentless. “So are you a psycho now? Do you need a shrink to help you with your white people problems? You know there are people dying out there from lack of clean water? And you think that your problems are so important that you need a psychoanalytic to get through life? Just admit it, you are who you are. You strive to be something more but the truth is you don’t have it in you. You have no reason not to succeed and yet you’ve been failing all your life. You have a great family, privileges that others can only dream of, you have a safety net and yet every time you choose to shrivel up from fear and do nothing. Your codependent character is just not strong enough to be who you want to be for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. You think your shrink will help you? No, those compliments she gives you just enable your worthlessness. You know that everything great that was created in this world was created through suffering and you can’t even do that properly.”
It was an unusually energetic speech that really hurt, but then I remembered that hurt people hurt people. And so I thought: Boy, my work with the psychoanalytic must be working, if he’s getting so riled up. Seems he too has a self preservation instinct and apparently he finally feels threatened.
I sat down to write today and didn’t hear a word from him. I don’t know if he’s flattered to be getting so much attention or if he just happens to feel unwell today. Personally, I hope it’s the latter. I am enjoying the peace and quiet.
