I Have Betrayed Thee, Sir Blogginton.

I love my blog.

I love blogging.

...

Maybe love is too strong a word.  Need is probably better.

Without somewhere to mentally vent to, I find myself slowly circling the drainpipe of sanity.

***
It's not that I don't trust those around me to carefully tend to the mental anguish that I would surely dump upon them, it's just that I don't want to burden them with that.

It takes a special/strange kind of person to genuinely WANT to listen to others' problems and simultaneously help them with them.  I just don't think I know any of those people.

Because I am one of those people, and I certainly don't know another me.

And so I return to thee, my little blog.  A place where I can vent to myself, really, and then help myself...somewhat.

You see, often the best medicine for me is to just talk it out.  Or I guess in this case to type it out.

Anyway, let my delve in to the heart of the matter, ya?
***

After a long hiatus I again find myself needing to talk with someone.

You.

The reader.
Me.

The internet.

A couple matters have been gnawing at my mind for a while and I try to stay away from mentioning anything that others would find offensive on Facebook because that's not how I like others to perceive me.  I know when I see others posting heavily slanted things there I am overcome by a strong desire to de-friend them or avoid them or I don't even know what.  Just leave them alone.  I don't know.

What lies at the forefront of my mind is the desire to be perceived in a certain light.  This is something I think about regularly and others do, too.

Even if you are one of the strong, independent, take-nothing, give-less people out there who believes every man is an island and cares not for how others perceive them, you DO care that people know you don't care.  Otherwise you wouldn't make such a big deal about it.  The only true people who don't care what people think of them are those who have absolutely no connection to any other humans.  The instant you meet another human being it becomes your role to establish who you are.  Even if that is establishing that you don't care whether they believe you are establishing yourself.

I feel I have found myself in a position that I never intended to put myself in, but after searching my actions twice and thrice over, however, I can see that where I am, I put myself.

Others believe that I am above it all.  I've been told this by a small number of individuals who I've come to know enough to trust me with their opinions of me.

I seem to put off an air of being better than others.  Snooty.  Uncaring.  Unflinching.

In the battlegrounds of social interaction I seem to stand in the middle of it all watching arrows and flames whiz past and deflect off of armor that I have.

While this would initially sound like a wonderful trait to have (that of impenetrability) ESPECIALLY in the realm of social actions where men and women are cut down every day due to no weakness of their own but only the malice of others.

***

Side note: I really want to play Kingdom Hearts right now.  There is nothing I want more.
***

However, this same gift can be a curse.  What cannot be penetrated by the sword can also not be penetrated by the heart when dealing in metaphors.

Certainly on a real battlefield things are different.

I do not want to give off this impression!  I want others to know they can feel comfortable around me.  I want others to know that I am not off in some castle in my mind, without feeling for their words, struggles and passions.  I care about others and wish to be cared about in return.

I often find myself feeling as my friend Cobian sometimes expressed in High School that ALL are deserving of my love, and so how could I ever love one more than another?  How could I single out an individual to be especially close to when I feel such a strong desire to be close to all?  I have certainly found those in my life that I would care to be close to, perhaps even romantically, but it is this cursed armor that I have supposedly erected that doesn't allow me to embrace them fully as I would wish to.

And so I ask you, what is one to do?  How does one change them self?  I know I have often heard others say and even heard myself council to others that every day is a new day and you can be whoever you want to be.  The past is dead and the future has not yet happened.  Do not worry about them.  Only think of now and of who you want to be and then act as is appropriate!

But words are cheap.

It is certainly easier to say that I will change and be exactly who I want to be today rather than the slightly different me that I was yesterday than it is to actually do so.

Even if I WERE to change and be exactly who I wanted to be, would that be best?  What I want and what is best are not always in line with one another.

That I can recognize.

So, I guess in the end, the main struggle that I have is whether my true lot is to be who I want to be, or whether I am intended to always be different from that man I so idolize simply because it is better for the whole if I do NOT become him and instead become comfortable with the man I am and perfect this role before trying to switch to another.

You see, if life was a play, I would be trying to play the lead role as well as multiple supporting roles.  And you cannot very well perform a play with all the complexities of a life with only a handful of actors, or even just one.

I have expressed before the concern that I am not the lead actor in my own performance of life.  That I am somehow letting others upstage me, despite the fact that we are all meant to be the lead role in our own play.

***

I know that I'm just not asking the right questions.  My mother can usually help me sort out things the best.

She is like me.

Polar opposite from me.

But, still, very much like me.

She always asks brilliant questions that lead me to find the solution to my problems, as if she had already arrived there days before and was simply pointing out the bread crumbs on the trail that I am supposed to follow.

I aspire to lead in this same way.  Not by iron fist, but by bread crumbs of knowledge and light.

I know I am supposed to lead.  It's a daunting task, and I interpreted it differently at first, but I know what I am supposed to do.  I still do not fully understand HOW or WHERE, but I have at least come to terms that I must.

It's a strange feeling.  Of that you can be sure.

***

And so I return to my first point:
We are treated how we act.

Others perceive us how we act.  We act how we want to be perceived.  Others again, act on their perceptions.  It couldn't be any more simple of a design.  But it has far too many far-reaching implications to be taken lightly.

Leaving me with three golden questions:
1.) How do I want to be perceived?
2.) Is that best for others, for myself, for both, or for none?
3.)Am I approaching this all wrong?

I am prone to answer yes to the last question, but then again I am one who thinks very low of himself when it comes to perceptions, but that's only because I know all of my faults much better than I know my strengths.

~Boy