Purge
Just so you're warned, this is going to be a battering out of personal issues and hence may be very boring / confusing / ill-thought-out / self-indulgent. Most definitely the last one. :-)Right, so... How? How can people do that much twisting of your inner spirit just by looking at you, or not looking at you; by laughing or taking a deep breath, frowning, saying something obviously stupid or obviously elitist (his word), all the while knowing that you'll (I'll) read into it way more than he could ever have meant? It's as Sayuri explains, in Memoirs of a Geisha: she pulls out her practised smile, spreads it upon her face and leaves anyone who's looking to decide their own interpretation. (I'm tempted to use another literary reference, but that might just mean that I'm feeling threatened (which I am) and feel the need to make myself feel smart (which I do) - and those feelings have just created the last sentence. This is a very confusing topic.)
So this frighteningly observant, clever, opinionated and flawed human being has just managed to set off a cascade of self-doubting thoughts within my brain, which as usual are answered by those of justification: nobody's-perfect, pull-yourself-together, think-about-something-else, stop-being-selfish, prove-your-worth. You know the ones. Only this time the justifying arguments are leaving behind (being allowed to leave) a tiny dark smear, precisely because I know they're justification. The idea of convincing yourself to do something, of overcoming instinctive reluctance, seems unnatural to me - and no matter how illogical that view, it's still there.
"She knows who she is." The words make me laugh now, after this half-effective unleashing. The ideas they set in motion are too many, too complicated and too contradictory to ever be truly understood; and so, they're amusing. Humans in general, me in particular - we're just so amusing. And that's not in a bad way, far from it. We're magical. Colour, music, magic, light: that is humanity. Every little turn of our minds, the sheer oddity of conscious thought... it's a miracle.
(Note the withdrawal from analysis to a more comforting appreciation. *snuggles deeper into pillowy softness*) Ah, that boy. Or is he a man? Can he be counted as a man if his impact on others is so vast? No, I don't think that makes a difference. Dad, you could flesh out this argument. *pokes*
There's a distinct element of competition in the way I relate to him. When I've been truthful, I've said it: I've said out loud, to others, that there was no way he was getting my Excellence in English. It was mine. He could have History (and deservedly), but English is... something special to me. It's taught by one of the finest teachers I've known, someone I can admire for both his heart and his mind. He's human in all the best ways. They feel this, my teacher and that nameless, indescribable ripple in the world; they know the fact just as well as I do. I can do it.
Somehow, this is helping. Mixed in with all the uncertainty is a shy fragment of hope. Cartharsis?
He always asked the questions. Damn that boy and his common sense.
posted by Anonymous @ 9:43 PM
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