Vois Sur Ton Chemin

se féliciter

In the course of my morning, and my attempt to decipher the first Harry Potter in French as a means of avoiding the disturbing imagery of Elfriede Jelinek, I came across the word 'se féliciter' which is a verb, reflexive, of course, meaning 'to congratulate oneself'. It got me to thinking, though, about self-congratulation. This could be a positive thing: a means of self-affirmation, of recognition of one's accomplishments. A negative side exists as well: pandering to one's ego, unduly lauding success often at the exclusion of failures, egoism. I suppose the distinction lies in the degree to which one congratulates oneself and the purpose in so doing.

For instance, I may recognize the accomplishment of having gone running this morning prior to coming to work. I am proud of this because it means I am taking care of my health and exhibiting some form of discipline. Anyways, I view it as a good thing that I went running. I am not too concerned with whether or not people know about it, so my celebration of this fact is a personal thing. If I view this as a 'well done, mate, keep it up,' this self-congratulation is a way to reaffirm a positive behavior and inspire myself towards continuing said behavior and, thus, positive and useful (always a plus and often, perhaps erroneously, used interchangeably). If, however, I use this as a reason to feel superior, that my existence is worth more than that of the average mortal because I Go Running Every Morning, this is bad. It is bad because my self-congratulation has changed from an internal practice to an external practice; it is a determinant in my behavior towards others. By harping on about running, I can also ignore (either publicly or privatly) the fact that I drink too much coffee and that I am somewhat excluded--by virtue of schedule, personal choice, and commitment to Living Responsibly--from activities I may or may not enjoy but nonetheless would prevent me from spending evenings watching movies by myself.

Which isn't bad, really. Either Bad in a platonic, essentialist sense, or bad in a socially-determined judgment of preference. Throughout my life I have had to learn how to deal with other people in various situations, in school (and what an array of Other People!), living with my family (being normal is overrated), at work (many of these Other People are ones whose proximity I would rather measure in light years than meters), with my other family (now I realize normal never existed). Last year, living in the middle of nowhere, I had the opportunity to entertain myself and did. And enjoyed it. And forced myself to go make friends because I sat around the house too much. Somehow, though, since going to college, I have discovered the entertainment and enjoyment to be had in spending time with other people, and I have somehow acquired the opinion that being with other people, whatever the situation and activity, is inherently preferable to being by oneself. Thus: I have forgotten how to be alone.

Much of this is, I think, due to the fact that I am soon leaving and have started Leave Taking Behavior. I am, at least in some cobweb-filled, underwatered corner of my soul, saying goodbye already to the people, places, and things I love in this town. I am realizing that the first several months in Germany will be lonely; I will be transient, spending five weeks travelling, more or less alone, six weeks in one town, then the eventual move to my 'permanent' residence. Where I will know no one and have to make ('find' in German) new friends. This is not a huge problem for me, and will be perhaps the fourth time I have had to start from scratch, as the saying goes. But the beginning is never fun. Hopefully, I won't sabotage my remaining time (now that I have a life I love) by presupposing the future. Congratualtions, self. You've done it again.

posted by Vivyenne @ 9:35 AM