Residual Self-Image

"Your appearance now is what we call residual self-image.
It is the mental projection of your digital self."
-Morpheus, from The Matrix

Up until recent video of myself, it's been hard for me to picture myself as having gained so much weight. Sure, my pants are a little more snug, but I haven't changed sizes. Same with shirts. In my head, I guess I had always pictured myself as being slightly leaner because I've never weighed this much, and the way that I like to remember myself is when I was a slimmer man.

That's just a mental projection, though. It's not real. The only reality that it had was the one that I gave it, when I was convincing myself that I was still 21.

Time to stop lying to myself.

It's there on tape, for everyone to see. That's me right now, with a good 40 pounds to lose before my Buddha belly returns to the plane of enlightenment and my scale acknowledges my own enlightenment. Perhaps it'll be even more before my belly doesn't register as part of my profile in the mirror.

I'm not saying this because I'm depressed about it. Well, a little, but I'm not going to dwell on it. It's helped me realize the necessity of what I'm doing for myself, and it's helped to contribute to the same sense of dissatisfaction that I had when I first began this blog.

It's time to hit the gym. Time to start eating right.

I can't delegate this task. This journey must be my own.