cogito ergo doleo

I am a(n) (ego-)driven guy.

Sounds familiar. Most males are, well males from western cultures are anyway. I personally think thats it’s a combination of nature and nurture. And the fact that testosterone does odd things to us. Of course so does the individualistic society into which we are indoctrinated, so sorry: enculturated.

My personal experience with nurture being that of a community of special forces alpha-dogs probably didn’t help: they tend to believe that spec-ops guys are the supreme creation of the universe and each one of them thinks he’s better than all the rest.

Growing up within such a tight knit, if slightly insane, group at a series of Fort Wherever’s brought a whole new meaning to the ‘my dad can beat up your dad’ spiel, it did however encourage the growth of my vocabulary and it definitely built a lot of self-confidence, I’ll give it that.

All argument aside: I know that I can be arrogant, I know that I have a healthy ego, albeit one that can get away from me; especially when we’re talking about one of the ten or twelve things that I do best. Its never really about the idea that I’m better than the person I happen to be speaking to; I get genuinely excited about things I’m good at and I tend not to realize when I’m being arrogant about something that comes very easily to me and that others have to work at. Which, unfortunately means I come off rather badly at times.

There are remedies, or so I’ve been led to believe. You may remember that there was a fairy tale princess that needed some rescuing; as it turns out, she does a bit of rescuing herself, ya know-on the side. The moral of that fable being this: I’ve been courting this theory of modesty lately and I’ve got to say it’s a been (and will continue to be) a difficult transition: I feel incredibly self-conscious when I try to be modest, like I’ve got this really expensive new jacket on and it looks really great but everyone knows that the coat just isn’t mine.

For the first time in my life I am actually much more concerned with how someone else feels about me, than I am about how I feel about me.

I’m sure I’ll get used to it. It is, of course (what isn’t?), a process. At any rate I’m sure that my new humble sport jacket is just the right thing to wear to all this summer’s ritzy events.

I enjoy metaphor. Clearly.

Speaking of, chapter eighteen is coming along well/well it’s coming along*.

*Glorious.

This is one of those awesome posts that I’ve cut into pieces over the course of a couple of days. I find that my favorite thing about my wordpress app is *save draft. It assuredly gives me the freedom to gain some perspective without losing the moment. I appreciate that greatly.

Normally I’d say keep it real here, but I think that its time to retire that particular valediction. And while normally I’d express utter disbelief if someone were unaware that the polite bits that bookend a letter are a salutation and valediction, today in honor of my attempt at leaf-turning I’ll merely allude to the fact that I could have.

Today I believe that I’ll simply say:
❤ ry

(Someone help me figure out something fun/cool/super-arrogant-sounding-but-not-belittling to say after my posts, merci.)