Greetings ISA Council!

As I was saying before my battery died last transmission, interacting with humans is not as easy as one might think.

Council Members, let us pretend for the moment that you are humans. You would probably find that you and your fellow humans are often very busy trying to figure out what is going on inside the heads of other humans instead of focusing on more important things, like collectively stopping all your icebergs from melting.

As a young human, this imagining yourself in someone else’s feetshoes is a good thing, because it helps you develop the Empathy Feeling. But it is also a bad thing, because it’s easy to get distracted by trying to guess what other people think about the most important thing in all of space-time: you. This is because as a human you believe you’re the center of everything, and that everybody else cares a lot about all the words you say and things you do.

Let’s assume you think this because in fact you are the one analyzing the things other humans say and do, because you are trying to gain clear insight into their brainparts so you can always stay one step ahead of them, i.e. get them to give you something you want, like validation, or candy. People need to think you are smart, responsible, and fashionable, and it is most important that they all like you very much. As a young human you are very focused on this, because

1) you don’t yet realize that just being yourself is usually enough to get other people to like you,
2) it isn’t super important that other people like you as long as you like yourself, and
3) the more things you can find to like about yourself, the more comfortable you’ll feel being yourself in front of other people, hence probably getting them to like you, but by this point you’re so cool you don’t even care.

If, as a human, you find that liking yourself is difficult, you might want to start by focusing on small things you like —or don’t outright hate— about yourself, like your caring nature, pristine pog collection, or remembering to unplug the flat iron. You should give yourself major credit for being a decent person who tries hard, and then you should keep on finding more things to give yourself credit for. It might feel weird at first, especially if you are used to beating yourself up a lot, but all things feel weird when you’ve never done them before, and the more you do it the less weird it will feel. In correlation, the more time spent focusing on what you like about yourself, literally the less time exists that you can spend focused on what you don’t like, so that liking yourself becomes exponentially easier, until one day you don’t even have to think about it anymore. Math!

Congratulations, “humans,” because at this point you’ve taken a big step forward. Now you will find more and more that you don’t really care about stuff that doesn’t matter (like weird forearm-hair texture), stuff that holds you back (who cares if you sucked in high school?), and stuff other humans may or may not be thinking about you (let the haters hate, but don’t always assume they hatin, because probably they have other things to worry about). With all this free time you now have, you can start putting your energy and heartparts into the stuff that makes you happy.

Once you understand that only you can fill the person-sized hole in the universe belonging to you, everything changes. Nobody else, anywhere, is exactly the same as you, so trying to be “unique” or “special” by becoming someone you’re not is actually totally unnecessary. Mission already accomplished by default. You’re already special, guys, and you get to decide what your person-sized hole actually amounts to by doing what you want with your life.

If you were one of these sensitive types of humans, Council Members, I would recommend being super-nice to yourself by relaxing your expectations and embracing who you are. You will see that there is more good in you than you ever thought possible. And the other humans will see that you are just going about your everyday human business, and that you are normal and approachable, and that you are not sulking around the planet miserably because you are afraid you have nothing to offer society or that everybody senses you’re a loser and automatically hates you. It just isn’t so!

But Council Members, becoming cool with yourself doesn’t happen instantly. To be honest it’s kind of a slow crawl at first. It takes practice and persistence. But you “humans” are tenacious. Once you start to see that you’re capable of liking small things about yourselves, it gets easier and easier to love who you are and to accept your flaws. Ummm… have you guys seen Frozen? Recent blockbuster of the entire Universe? Because let it go, y’all, let. It. Go. Cast off your chains, people of Earth! Be who you are, say what you feel, find what makes you happy, and don’t look back!

Adios until next time, Council Members! PEACE AND PROSPERITY UNTO YOU! IN THE NAME OF RESEARCH I SALUTE YOU!