Capacity

I live, for the most part, in strange worlds. These worlds are populated by beings that are, either by their opprobrious or compliant natures, subject to my will, having been placed in proprietary situations in the landscape created for them to act in an appropriation of their nature for the purpose of creating resistance to the entities of my identity.

It sounds really crazy when it’s all spelled out like that, but I think it’s the truth.

Obvious presumptions aside, I believe that I have a fairly good ability to read people and predict their responses. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, which is also as long as I have been listening to audiobooks, which is from the age I was when my fingers were dexterous and strong enough to load a cassette into the deck and press the button. I’m fairly sure that’s not a coincidence.

I don’t rest well. I don’t experience peace except when I’m…..well, that’s another topic for another page. I can’t say with certainty whether my extreme difficulty with going to sleep without audio input is a result of what amounts to an addiction, or if it is simply sustenance required by an insatiable mind. In my constant back burner inquiry, I have come to accept the latter. I need to go places; I need to solve problems. These compulsions have led me almost to follow yet another path in this missive…..but, returning, let’s say that, in the absence of external input, soliloquy is my refugium, and it’s not always a good thing, but it’s never bad.

It's ever a rude awakening when, contrary to the scenario, someone acts of their own free will, or isn’t struck by revelation in response to my finely crafted and practiced phrasing. did I practice that? There were so many…

Most often though, I fumble the pass, or the catch, or am struck by emotion and tongue tied, I tear up, I tear apart my values because I can see that I didn’t really think this through, I react to disrespect, I react to love in the eyes, I react to shame, I react to reaction, I react.

Sadly, I’m human. I’m a walking wad of biology and electricity that imperfectly and incredibly reacts to its environment in a wide variety of predictable and baffling ways. This is character creation and development. When you’re doing it alone, you’re just a ‘me’. When you’re doing it in bulk, you’re either a sociopath, an author, or some other cruel god. Maybe all three.

Maybe.

 2022