Unwieldy Consciousness

I'll attempt to temper the impending blow-hard-y-ness of this entry by starting this way: I suck at a great deal of life. I'm not athletic. I don't grasp mathematical concepts easily. I can't draw well. Tactile tasks are always a struggle and my fine motor skills are deeply lacking. I'm emotionally stunted and probably a little self-isolating. I have little self control unless I take extreme measures. On and on and on...

But I'm mentally very good with words and language. Remarkably so, I think. Without any extra effort or particular intention, I tend to fashion complex and eloquent thoughts and phrases. I don't notice it much, but occasionally people will look at me askew or accuse me of trying to show off. Or they'll just chuckle. A friend working on a system for analyzing personal writing asked for a sample of my journals or other informal writing. I sent him a sample. He said that maybe I misunderstood. He had wanted something informal and personal. Nothing so flowery and complex as what I'd sent him. I explained that was my personal journalling. He just labeled me as an outlier, I think.

It's been this way for a long time. In Jr. High, other kids teased me for my vocabular. No shit. They called me "Webster."

In fact, my intellectual capacity for language is so agile that it's almost a problem. It's undisciplined. It's a Bull-in-a-china-shop kind of thing. I can examine my own language (written or spoken) so quickly that I end up deconstructing my own language. Or crafting incredibly dense sentences. I feel the anxiety of the information left out as I'm writing, so I engage in linguistic gymnastics in order to cram in as much as possible. Instead of one idea per sentence, you'll get 3 or 4 out of me. I'm getting better at it, but I have to stop and refocus every paragraph so as not to get ahead of myself.

In a sea of my other short comings, it is this one thing I'm very, very good at. In a way, that is exciting. I've never felt very good at anything for most of my life. I've always been mediocre at best in most measurable areas. Now I've got a talent for something. On the other hand, it feels like a responsibility too. Like I'd be wasting something if I didn't work very hard to cultivate it. And I'm not (by inclination) a very hard worker. Remember that thing about self control from the first paragraph? Flavor that with some protestant guilt and WHAM-O! you're paralyzed by perfectionism.

It's easy to unmask ourselves. It's harder to ignore the mask and just walk around, getting things done.

I'm making BBQ Tofu sandwiches tonight. Well, technically they are seared tofu sandwiches, but they are marinated in bbq sauce, so...yeah, you get the idea. You should come over and have some.

Godspeed.