"Sometimes the wish to become someone impressive is a way of not needing the people whose eyes you are secretly building it all for."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
Seeker
I’ve been going hard on this thing for two years. Building a company basically from nothing. And I want it to be big. Like undeniable. I don’t even fully know why I’m telling you that.
Guide
Undeniable to who?
Seeker
To me. To anyone. I don’t need a cheering section, if that’s what you’re getting at. I want to look at it and know I did it myself. That’s the whole point. Nobody handed me anything.
Guide
Okay. So the doing it yourself part is loud. What’s it drowning out?
Seeker
Nothing. It’s not drowning anything out. I just work better when it’s on me. I don’t like depending on people. This way it’s clean. It’s mine. I am independent.
Guide
I recognize that. I spent a long stretch making sure everything good in my life had my fingerprints only on it. Felt like strength. Felt clean, like you said.
Seeker
Right. So you get it.
Guide
I get that it felt like strength. Took me a while to notice it was also a wall. Can I ask, when you picture it being big, the moment you make it, who’s in the picture?
Seeker
Nobody’s in the picture. It’s the thing. The launch, the number, whatever.
Guide
Nobody at all.
Seeker
I mean. My dad, maybe. Not like, standing there. Just he’d see it. We all have these pulls from childhood, that’s fine.
Guide
He’d see it.
Seeker
Yeah he’d finally, whatever. He always had this thing where he’d nod at other people’s kids. Not mine. So. But that’s not why I’m doing it. That’s dumb, that’s not it.
Guide
You said it pretty fast for it to be nothing.
Seeker
Look, I’m not building a company for my father’s approval, I’m not that guy. That’s pathetic.
Guide
I didn’t say that’s all it is. I’m noticing the goal wants to be big enough that it doesn’t need anyone, and the person you’d want to see it is right there anyway.
Seeker
Both of those can’t be true.
Guide
Why not?
Seeker
Because if I want him to see it then I need him, and I don’t. I decided I don’t. That was the whole point of not needing anyone, you don’t get let down.
Guide
Yeah. That’s the part I know in my body. It’s not that you stopped wanting the eyes on you. It’s that wanting them felt too dangerous or painful maybe, so you built something so big you wouldn’t have to ask.
Seeker
…
Guide
Take your time.
Seeker
That’s.. I don’t. It’s not asking. It’s proving I don’t have to ask. Those feel like the same thing right now and I don’t like it.
Guide
I’m not going to tell you which one it is.
Seeker
Part of me just wants to say fine, I don’t need him, I don’t need any of it, I’ll go bigger. And part of me. God. Part of me still checks if he’s watching. Both at once. That’s exhausting and it doesn’t make sense.
Guide
It doesn’t have to make sense yet. Both are running.
Seeker
I don’t know what I want it to be anymore. Whether I’m building it to get free of them or to finally get them. Now I am confused, I am not sure what I am doing at the core of it.
If the thing you are building were finished tomorrow, whose face would you look for, and what would you be hoping it did?
If you read back the conversation: notice where the guide quietly became the one who knows — naming things, settling them. That feels normal because it happens so often. It's also where your own sense of direction can go quiet. SelfChatter adds a second voice that just makes those moments visible, so the direction stays yours.