How to love oneself?

    I had a series of epiphanies that made me realize that I have to love myself. I figured out that no baby is born liking itself and it's up to the people who raise it to prop it up with encouragement and good vibes until it likes itself so much that it loves itself. That love carries with it an arsenal of things that assist the baby well into adulthood; helping it dodge the words that usually capture others. 

    Part of that is love is confidence. Where do you expect to get confidence in yourself when your parents have never really given you any real encouragement? Is a girlfriend who loves you and cares for you enough? Is the lull of daily-life stimulating enough these days? It's very hard to not live in numbing amusement, finding pockets of joy in a funny meme or watching a movie that lets you escape for a while. That type of comfort requires a lot of something special to keep that soft existence growing.

     So much so that the act of relinquishing the comfort has a such a steep requirement that maybe the confidence equipped within me is not sufficient.

    Then the answer to my question, the one that's slowly killing me is that I'm not good enough to pull myself out -- this quicksand of comfort. At least not yet.

    Love oneself, something I have to figure out how to do. Similar as to how someone who acts virtuously is not genuinely virtuous, I must find a way to love myself without acting to love myself.

   

    We study a famous composer by the notes he creates and the techniques he uses but that's only the symptoms of his genius. Kids are sent to learn the techniques he uses and the notes he creates, but that in no way guarantees that the children will become famous composers.

    The technique of music, as well as the technique of love, as well as the techniques of speech -- language -- is very valuable because it gives us the ability to express something only IF you have something to express.

    But if you have nothing to express, not even someone whos mastered the language of English will hold your acclaim unless they manage to fool their listeners by talking beautiful non-sense and making it sound profound.

 

    How do you love oneself? I can't love myself because somewhere along the line I wasn't properly loved. Ask me, my 28 year old self, to learn the most important language, the one of inner emotion, to become emotionally mature and to automagically respond to any inner doubt and worries with positive reinforcement and encouragement from my inner self.

You should've asked me to learn when I was 5, vulnerable and ready to be loved. You should've asked me when I was a year old. It might be too much to ask of now.