Fat and Happy

Yesterday, the question came from the girl behind the desk at my athletic club. "How are you today?" She was so bright and cheery and pretty and young and healthy and filled with hope and life. I don't think I was ever any two of those things at the same time, even thirty years ago, when I was approximately her age. (I'm quite sure I've *never* been pretty.)

My answer this time was "fat and happy," which usually produces a chuckle. I may be projecting my own self-negation, but I usually hear, included in that chuckle, the idea coming back at me, "That's for sure . . . although I'm not sure about the 'happy' part."

I forget why I started saying that - "fat and happy" - a long time ago. I'm almost never what you would really call "happy." I'm usually satisfied with "not pessimistic at the moment." But if I *was* feeling happy, as I said in an earlier entry to this blog, the question, "How are you today" would quickly wipe the smile off of my face, since I would immediately start analyzing my emotional condition and would no doubt find something wrong with it. Then I'd quickly get angry about shallow things that people say because they feel uncomfortable with a simple, "Hello."

Anyway, it's all called a "poor self-image" - which, at almost 50 years old, I definitely have to hide almost all the time because it is not acceptable.

Is a poor self-image really that bad a thing? Not at all, if the only alternative is to be deluded and arrogant and calling it self-confidence or "liking one's self." It never fails: whenever I hear someone say, "I like myself," it always seems like there's something uncomfortable that is being avoided.

Isn't it possible to like yourself and still be a dick?

Isn't it possible to have a poor self-image and yet be quite likeable?

The latter is certainly true. All of the people I have loved the most have been people that have had a habit of self-questioning, a habit that even got a bit morbid on occasion. And come to think of it, people who are always certain about their own rightness or value really do tend to create a lot of trouble for other people. Frustration if nothing else.

Here's a thought. Maybe we all, to some degree, have a poor self-image that we try, to some degree, to hide from by always being sure of ourself whenever we're in conflict with someone else? Sounds like a contradiction, but I think not.

I think I say "fat and happy" because, on some level, I'm trying to come to grips with the seeming contradiction - to be, as the psychologists say, "integrated." Maybe if you could hate yourself and love yourself at the same time, could sort of have a wedding and marry them and watch the couple live happily ever after, maybe that would be what Jesus meant by, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

Or what Horace meant when he said (Epistles, I.iv.13), "If you want a good laugh, you will come and find me fat and sleek, in excellent condition, one of Epicurus' herd of pigs."

Or maybe you had to be there.

If you are integrated, you are probably less likely to overeat.

"Fine, thanks, and how are you?"