How are you?
I like to ask that at the start of every conversation, partly due to etiquette, partly because my brain is scrambling to remember what I need to remember when it comes to that particular person, and partly because well, I'm hoping that the person will be so preoccupied on telling me how they are doing that they forget to ask me about....me.
That's me all over. Thinking way too many things at the same time, wanting to push forward, yet shrinking within myself, seeking to be more even as I wish to be satisfied with less.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here.
I dont know how much you have gleaned from the stuff that I write here on the blog, how much insight or what kind of impression you have formed of me, and it may be extremely wrong, or it could be uncannily spot on - but the one thing I'd like to dispute is the impression that I am a person who is very sure of herself. Confident. Reassured. A mini James Dean strolling around in my pants.
In the very essence of the word, I suppose you could say that I am a person who is certain about what kind of person she really is, but that in no way means that I am a confident person....or that I know what I am doing when I give advice or make the decisions that I make. There is a difference, you know, between knowing yourself, and being confident of yourself. I think knowing yourself just means that you've dug behind the bookshelves of your character and have come face to face with the dirt that is hidden there....and you accept its presence. Being confident enough to try and clean out the dirt, or even to hold it up in the air and reveal it to the world to see - is something else entirely.
I'm talking about this rather muddling topic because every now and then I bump into a youngling, and then for some reason they look at me with envy and tell me that they wish they could be as "sure of myself as how you are of yourself". I sometimes dont know if they mean what they are saying or they dont know what they are saying has nothing to do with what they really mean. And then they look at me with admiration (eurgh) or envy (ewww) or worser still, adulation. Excuse me while I visit the insides of my toilet bowl. Ah, so thats what I had for breakfast.
I know what they are looking for, a mentor, and I hear the many voices in my head burst out into cackles of laughter inbetween their puffs of smoke, at the thought of me being some kind of spiritual lighthouse to a lost little tugboat.
I am no mentor. I cannot guide you towards what is Right and steer you away from all that is Wrong. The best I can do is to advise you on how to Think. And as for that, the older I get, the more I think that its not something that can be taught. Either you have it, or you don't. Its not so much the 'higher stream of mental ability' but more the state of self-awareness. Hmm, might be the same thing. Have to think about it.
I am a great many things. Arrogant, self-centered, selfish, whiny, long-winded (bet it must have crossed your mind at least twice in this entry)....but please, dont ever say that I am a confident person. Like everyone else, I am still squatting in the dark, trying to blindly feel my way towards a stage of enlightenment. The only difference is that I've stopped freaking out about being in the dark, and I am in no hurry. That's all there is to it.
I'm just as screwed up (mayhap even more so, who knows?) as the next person, I'm just not as worried about being screwed up. The screwed up thing is that it amuses me to be a Mess, and while that might make others think I have stumbled through the door of maturity or some other baloney like that, what they dont see is that I am the last person they should huddle closer to. I am comfortable hanging out with the creepies in the dark. Its simply Like recognizing Like.
Still think that I am a better person than I make myself out to be?
Sigh.
You're entitled to your choice, of course, but dont be surprised when you find yourself being led down that winding, thorny passageway. I promise, at the very least, I will refrain from saying,
"I told you so."
Best regards,
-L.
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