Thanks, Google, for reminding me that this existed. I spotted it in the corner of my eye, and, as though it were an overlarge insect, I shrieked aloud, lifted my skirts up, and stomped the bastard into oblivion. I sit now, panting; eyes too wide, heartbeat racing with a sickened panic, riding the wave of post-traumatic nausea, head pitched forward and trying to slow my breathing down to a steadier pace.
I'm trapped between the vanity of wanting to hide my old writing here and not wanting to actually remove them entirely from existence. My hopes and dreams are there, but even then I mostly kept them at arms' length, mostly laughed them off, already compensating for the possibility of failure. Sometimes I'm more earnest, and those, of course, are the most embarrassing of all. I smile at the memories and cringe at the adolescence: I'm simultaneously far too self conscious and not nearly self aware enough. I knew I was more mature than I had been in years past, but I overestimated. I figured I would see a lot of embarrassing writing and ideas there, but I was still shocked. (Ohmygod I am so tired.)
I know it's all to be expected: every few years now, I find myself appalled by the naivete and lack of awareness of my younger, few-years-prior self. Some revelation or new perspective has found its way to me in the intervening years, and I'm either embarrassed or amused at the world I thought I was experiencing Back Then. It's fewer revelations each time now - at some point I recognized that it always would be. I remember some saying along the lines of "children don't know anything and don't know it; teenagers don't know anything, but think they know everything; college age kids think they know a lot, and but they recognize they don't know everything; and at some point you become an adult and you realize that you'll never know everything, and that knowing this is the most important thing to know." That's not quite it, but it's the impression I remember. The core of the realization was that everybody grows up, and there's more to it than just being older: it's being wiser. It's actually being mature.
What nobody told me, or maybe I was told and just forgot it, or misinterpreted it, is that maturity is actually pretty simple in principle - as far as I can understand it, maturity is learning to not take yourself so seriously. In practice, it's difficult to know if and when you're doing this. Irony isn't as huge as it was a few years ago, but the backwards nature of it kinda threw off my senses. But the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know, how small my perspective is. I take pride in the knowledge that my perspective is broader, fairer, and more inclusive than most (obviously this is an assumption, rather than actual knowledge, but really, but let's not totally kill this thing), but I still know I'm hopelessly limited.
The more I learn, the smaller and more insignificant I feel. Am I just a cog in a greater machine, or am I more than that? What is the nature of this machine - is it just there to self-perpetuate? Are there cogs that are naturally bigger and more important that other cogs, and if so, which one am I? Will this machine fail if enough cogs are unable to rise to their responsibility? Do I care if I'm not such an important cog after all? What is my cog's relative stature, and am I living up to it? Do I care, and should I care? Hopefully I'm being mature when I say that I should probably not care about this quite so much, because that's where I'm going. As part of a general personal goal to divest from my own weaknesses and less palatable parts of my nature, I am trying to take myself less seriously. I guess that's laughable, given my ponderous, bombastic, and overwrought style (and yet also somehow a lovable style, I hope). I stand by that statement nonetheless - I want to figure out what is and isn't worth worrying about, and then worry about those things as is their due, and no more.
Maybe this will dovetail with my goal to alleviate my anxiety and I will someday reach the nirvana of being both totally chilled out and not feeling totally smug about it. I think I have the first part down; I said I feel smaller and insignificant, but I'm also pretty much okay with that. I like to think I'm striving to follow the Dude's advice, which is to abide. I don't have to be Jeff Bridges to abide, and I don't even have to be the Dude - all I have to do is do my thing, whatever that is. Sidenote: Jeff Bridges is so cool, you guys. I love that he seems to actually be turning into the Dude as time goes by.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, my job is probably beneath my capabilities, my hobbies are enjoyable but not particularly productive, and I should probably make the most of my cog-strengths - in conclusion, and I'll be brief (chorus of "too late!"): I should probably be writing more. So here's a start. Sorry for the rambling, and sorry if any of that is as boring and tedious and opaque as I think it is. Fuck I'm tired.
I'm probably going to edit the fuck out of the meandering I think I did in the middle there. Or all of it? Enjoy the full extent of my sleepy ravings, for a limited time only! Hello Lindsay, if you're there, oh jeez I really hope this isn't sending off Google Plus alerts or some dumb shit that makes people look over at this pasty, mutated, shambling, hardly-conscious creature. Hold on a tic - joke's on YOU, Google, since nobody uses Google Plus! A ha! A ha ha! A ha ha ha ha ha h
