[main menu] [thoughthistory menu]

the road to greatness

I could have been great, had I not been so timid. Greatness requires a lack of fear (anxiety), or at least a determined ability to overlook it; and it requires action. I've always preferred fantasy to action, in every case where action is unnecessary for survival and/or the most basic needs satisfaction. Active, fearless people have always scared me. Where it need not be, they stir up trouble; and far less for themselves than for others.

Oh, I used to be active, back when I could more easily repress consequences and self-consciousness, when others' opinions of me didn't get through so easily (there were times), when I could block it all out and do whatever I wanted to. This is how, I imagine (a la fantasy), great people become great, by blocking out excessive (and sometimes even the smallest bit is excessive) feedback that can cripple a willingness to act.

I was, at one time, on the road to greatness, until, via my desire to know as much as possible about myself (and even, occasionally, others), I became too aware of what was going on, inside and outside of my mind; too much self-consciousness overtook me as I insisted, on a more or less continual basis, in a more or less dedicated way, on learning what I, and coincidentally, everyone in general, was all about.

You can't be great and care too much about what people think of you. It holds you back, to be too sensitive. On the other hand, even as I've been trying so hard, through my concern for sanity, to avoid the kind of greatness that the world bestows on people who will engage it, perhaps I have been creating my own kind of greatness. We shall see. [I'm the aging hippie biker guru dude. I'm a shaman. Look out, people. Don't tread too near.

My power can be(come) overwhelming. Don't look too closely into my eyes. You may see something there you don't want to see. Me.] It seems to me that, growing up, I was innately smarter than the people who secretly berated me; I knew without knowing that, though they thought this was not the case, "sociable" people are as flawed as the rest of "us" and have no higher claim to society than we supposed lower level beings.

A few others saw through the subterfuge of social expectation to the reality beneath, through the dual aperture that can subvert the superficiality that society maintains so that consensuality may be encoded via the least common denominator. These few knew I was on my way to greatness. Unfortunately, they never knew enough to inform me, if they even knew, how I might head off the forces of self that would derail me on my journey.

[top] [menu] [e-mail]