Well, no self is something I've been fighting with anyways. I think you're on the right track with part with just being a pile of habits and mannerisms, but I think you're a bit off base on the no impact statement. You've been a friend of mine for many years Sam, and I think I would be poorer for not having known you. The loathing is something self-inflicted (even as we're talking about no self. Yay 'go beyond words' Buddhism) but that is something you choose. I've been like a dog with a bone over my own loathing for a long time. It's something hard to let go of.

...I tend to think so little of myself. That I'm so small and insignificant to so many because they have other, more amazing people in their lives that could support them so much better than I ever could. That 'i don't matter'. That I never could. There's an ache, a pain that comes with the sadness of your own self-denial, a hunger that is never sated because I fall into a cycle of feeding myself my own hatred and disdain for myself.

I can't imagine how me not knowing you would affect anything, but I am thankful that I know you. Honestly. You've always been one of my staunchest friends for a damn long time, and you've always been an amazing person for letting me get to know you. I'm grateful for that. Truly.

The first paragraph is something I could write about how I treat myself too. I can't get out of that either, and have memories (and memory gaps) of some rather dark places that I went because of it.

As for how you not knowing how you could affect me, you have been one of the longest and dearest friends I have, RL inclusive. You are brazenly honest, realistic to a fault without drowning in pessimism so long as the topic doesn't pertain to yourself, as well as genuinely funny when the mood strikes you and someone who I earnestly want to make smile every time I see you because it's worth it to see you light up for even the few minutes I can spend with you. You are a precious friend Sam, despite everything you think about yourself. And when you talk about being insignificant, and 'other amazing people', you always forget that when you sit down to write, you always write things that are "okay, put everything else aside and read this in one sitting" worthy. You are so GOOD with words, and I wish that you could find it in you to let that out more often.

Just remember that you've got at least one person who thinks the world of you, okay?