My favorite part of Glee is the liberal use of the word loser. (Okay, maybe my favorite part is really the way it evokes memories of Sing at my high school but go with it…)

It reminds me of the time when my daughter established the Loser Table at her middle school cafeteria.

(Last night, she reminded me just how damned hard it is to push back against crowd-I owe her that acknowledgement.)

Which then reminded me—in the way only my unique twisted tangle of synapses can leap—of Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety:

Our “ego” or self-conception could be pictured as a leaking bal­loon, forever requiring the helium of external love to remain inflated,

and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect. There is something at once sobering and absurd in the extent to which we are lifted

by the attentions of others and sunk by their dis­regard.

Absurd and sobering; leaky self-conception balloons. Yep.  And what’s the way out of that trap?

The Buddha taught that we should see the inherent self-lessness of all things; the inherent interdependence of all things, the inherent impermanence of all things; and let go of the those balloons.

I was assisting a coaching class last Sunday and Martha Lasley, one of the program’s master coach teachers, had the class draw an image of the mask we wore when we are home; the mask, the image, the collection of self-conceptions that we put on and, in an often silly and vain attempt NOT to be seen, project to the world.

I drew a wise owl.

Then she had us crumble the papers and toss them into the center of the room. Drop the mask of how you wish to be seen, be seen as you really are—leaky, messy, fearful, grasping, joyful—and disregard the disregard of others.

Easier said than done.

At J&J’s on Monday night, a lovely group sat (or, as in my case, sprawled) and talked about projections (I kid you not; our hero spends his free time doing things like talking about projections with dear friends. At least there was wine and cheese.). Tracey turned to the group and noted, with glee, “He’s a life coach and he’s a mess.”

Crumble the masks and blow them kisses. Put the L on your own forehead. Prick your own damn leaky balloon. Sit at the Loser Table. Embrace your messiness…

…actually I haven’t a clue what you should do. That’s just what I plan to do.