#or being ridiculously uptight/conventional/etc

[flameswallower]

a recurring problem in my life is that i would like to be (and, more important to me than i wish it was, be seen as) a moral or virtuous person, but i absolutely do not have the skillset or amount of selflessness it would take to pull this off.

to be honest, the most success i've had with this dilemma is in convincing myself to let go of the idea that "a particularly moral person" is something it's important for me to be. however, it's difficult-- both the part of myself that has a well-developed (or over-developed) conscience and the part of myself that doesn't & that is driven overwhelmingly by whim, appetite, boredom, and joie de vivre are prominent, and they often struggle for control over what i do. the former also isn't very good at understanding the difference between something that's (say) harmful to others if you do it, and something that people will get upset at you for doing but that is actually benign and they just need to remove the stick from their ass, mind their own business, and get over themselves. i don't want to be hurting people, but i also don't want to be letting stuff like "my neighbor jumped to the conclusion that i was a burglar because she didn't recognize me and i was climbing up the interior wall of our apartment complex's garden space to get a better look at a bird" guide my behavior. (i also don't want my sometimes delusionally outsize sense of being personally responsible for and able to influence or prevent things ranging from other people's health problems to natural disasters to be guiding my behavior.)

connected: i find politics astoundingly boring, and in a better world i wouldn't really have political positions or be engaged in life in that way at all. i'd just make stuff and explore.