Break the Matrix

I've had similar thoughts as PaperBag, especially since my spiritual endeavors lasted around 5 grueling years of looking for answers day in and day out and coming out with nothing. The reason why myself or anybody goes into spirituality or any other form of self improvement is out of a feeling of not being good enough. The same thing of course applies to trying to improve your looks, which is fine, because I am not satisfied with how I look either; I have cranial dystrophy as well and the past year or so of gorging on articles and videos about it have made me hyper aware of it. However, at the same time, I know that what I am chasing is an imaginary benchmark of being "good enough" (whatever that means). I know that even if I got the perfect face, that that wouldn't really solve the problem. I don't even know why I don't feel good enough; I guess the large majority of people who feel this way don't know either, but everyone goes on trying to fill the hole or prove the idea wrong.

Maybe there are some people out there who have gotten somewhere by wrestling with the problem, but I personally have never seen any; I've seen people who act like they're getting better due to getting really good at ignoring their thoughts/problems or whether or not some new method seems to be going well for them, but they eventually revert back to feeling like they did before - the same has been true for me. Personally, I don't see any point in trying to prove anything wrong or try and fix anything, because it's been proven repeatedly that there's no winning. When you look at the rare person who genuinely feels good about themselves, you'll see that it's effortless and they're not fighting with their ideas in order to feel a certain way. If you really loved yourself, you wouldn't need to convince yourself of it; in fact, the opposite of loving yourself wouldn't mean anything to you. In quite a few celebrities with a troubled past, you can see them post on Twitter/Instagram, etc. empty quotes on how they're getting better or how much they like themselves, etc. but you can tell it's incredibly hollow.

I often think that getting more external attention about looking good would make me feel better, even though it wouldn't; I've been told I look good quite a few times, but I still think I'm hideous. I find it odd how there are a fair amount of people who are unattractive and don't seem to care about it, it's just like "Yeah, I'm ugly as hell!" - even though I don't understand the people who don't want to improve their sub-par looks, I think it serves as a good example on how they are not fighting a battle about it and so they are at peace. To me, trying to change how you feel about anything is just reinforcing the idea of "I am someone who needs fixing" and so you'll never arrive.

Even if my face changes, I have no hope that I will feel attractive or stop feeling depressed, etc. because the idea that I can feel something I am not feeling right now/naturally is just fantasizing. Since I feel all these negative things naturally, these things are true to me and trying to get rid of them is kind of silly, because trying to feel "different" is just covering up the negativity that's already there. I don't even mean to say all this as another game of "If I pretend to not change, then I will be given what these teachers have promised", it's just more so a matter of seeing the way things are.

By the way, this has nothing to do with discouraging trying to fix your appearance, since I will be continuing to do all that I can, it's just stopping trying to change how you feel about yourself, because unless it's a natural feeling, it's just you at war with yourself.