Following my struggle to find anything of interest to write about in recent times, friends and acquaintances have provided a gentle nudge in the ribs, and the advice that they really want to hear about me - not the books, the games, the movies, and the other incidental trappings of living my life.
Well you asked for it.
It’s 7:17am, I am tired, and I feel like a victim. A victim of myself.
It is in my nature to be optimistic - but I have realised this blind optimism is on behalf of others - not myself. I tell others that things will be okay, that things can be done, that I can get things done - and then face an internal meltdown as I struggle to meet the expectations I have given others. I know why it happens too.
I appear simple. To anybody who knows me - either as a close friend, a colleague, or even family - I am easy to work out. Logical. Dependable. My emotions are easy to read. This is all an act though.
An Aunt (who could obviously see straight through me) commented many years ago that nobody in the family really knew me - and a particularly close cousin once remarked that “my walls were made of mud, and she was the rain”.
The reason for the act? Laziness.
By appearing to be outwardly simple, I don’t have to deal with questions such as “how are you”. When people ask each other “how they are”, they don’t really want to know - it’s just a phrase they throw out there.
Most people don’t really want to know about each other’s troubles. They have their own. Imagine if you really told somebody what was on your mind - if you really told them that you are sometimes lonely, sometimes annoyed with them, sometimes annoyed with everybody, that you sometimes feel that you don’t fit in - that you don’t belong. You can imagine their response “oh.” - followed by an uncomfortable silence.
People really want to tell you how they are when they ask how you are.
Those who know - or at least have an idea how you are, don’t ask. They are just there. They know that “being there” is enough. When they ask how you are, you both know that you’re not going to tell them - they are just filling dead air. They are however watching your body language… those who know you read far more from the tilt of your head, the path of your eyes, and the corner of your mouth than anything that comes out of it.
The laziness behind all this leads others to expect a great deal from you. Others are so often wrapped up in their own pressures that it is of advantage to them that you do not require thought. By being simple you become a resource. This would be great if resources were infinite, but they are not.
Yes is easier than no. Yes satisfies other people. Yes makes others go away. Yes makes people leave you alone.
The remarkable and unfathomable end result is that I have so many friends, given this self destructive nature. A nature that perhaps makes me “of value” to others, and yet in the long term of less value than first imagined.
Perhaps in terms of the amount of me that people get, “enough” is “good enough” for most - and maybe more than they are accustomed to from others.
Who knows.