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[ 3 minute read ]
I love learning
I hate controlled spewing
I fear becoming someone who resembles people I am jealous of. Don't get me wrong; I want people to take me seriously. Personally, I take people who do not ramble and who speak in measured tones seriously. On the other hand, I love being me and not at all like those organised-thinking persons.
I have to organise my thoughts to write essays. I hate doing that. I ride in a small boat tossed on a raging sea of mystery, discovery and excitement. An essay to me is mooring up and explaining to the harbour-master the shape of a single wave from many in a storm and explaining how it affected another wave. Worse still; why one wave affecting another wave is important.
I feel like I have to take a notebook onto a roller-coaster and while everyone else is screaming and raising their hands; vomiting and passing out; I am recording the sound of the cars and the vibration through the trucks and how it all affects the experience, even the puking. I sometimes just want to get off the ride having had fun.
Learning is fun; telling someone what you have learnt is dull. 'That was then, this is now.' I hated that throwaway comment until I finally understood it to be indicative of someone experiencing an attenuation or 'braking' of an experience. 'You are killing my buzz, man!' works for me.
Yet, I have to accept that it is in the telling that I learn the most; it is the consolidation and shaping that counts. Though we are some weeks past Christmas, I have an image of Christmas tree baubles laid in a box and reverently taken out and one by one examined by the excited person about to dress the tree. It is great fun to look at the baubles but the experience is enhanced by their relevance as decoration for only a short Winter period. What use is it to look at them and then just rebox them? As a child, my family had German painted-glass baubles that became scarcer and scarcer as over the years they broke; so sad every time it happened.
I look at men and women who seem to stand more upright when I hear the way they speak. Perhaps they have had practice at being relevant or are even successful through no effort of their own. It is a bit like noticing a physically fit person walking; you cannot emulate their walk; you have to be fit. I wonder if the practiced ladies and gents had their spoken delivery tempered by needing to organise their thoughts in order to write essays. Certainly, contrary to these fine people, I can recognise any attitude of 'entitlement' because I invariably experience contempt and disdain, and it tends to be directed towards similar people. This, however, is probably due to sibling rivalry and me being the youngest recognise unfounded seniority.
I don't want to change, but I already am, even as I mature still further. There is a force in me that tries to shunt the change off to a closed part of my mind; to lock it away and deny having it.
'That isn't me! It is just a temporary being that is a vehicle to moving onto the next learning stage. I am going to cherry-pick from it. Honest!'