Rant - On Life and Love

I'm a great starter of projects. I'm a powerhouse of energy and ideas at the beginning of a project because I can fill in all the fun pieces. As soon as the project gets moving and we start hitting problems, I'm useless. I lose all hope. I have no will power. I have no desire. I just want to waste time watching movies, reading geek news, playing video games or avoiding anything that would give me any real sense of accomplishment. I'm weak. I hate it.

I complain a lot, and sometimes with a level of abrasion that is difficult to counter. I find it grounds me, keeps me striving, and in a very real way I believe it helps people gauge how they act around me. To some degree it keeps people in tune, and I believe forces many to over-evaluate my opinion before presenting their disagreement of it. This is due in great part to my opinion having more respect than it deserves (I say more than it deserves because I am quite often embarrassingly wrong) and people generally not wanting to confront me. Naturally, my attitude has a noticeable share of arrogance coupled with it. I attribute much of that to fearfully accepting a position to manage 13 developers when I was 26 and having a lot of trouble maintaining order. It is how I adapted, and now a part of who I am. But that’s just an excuse. In short, I’m arrogant. I hate that too.

Here's one: I'm also overly affected by how people see me. Odd for an arrogant type eh? Not really. Most of us arrogant types are hiding our insecurities. I try to make myself immune to opinion, but that can, for example, lead to me laboring to build and maintain my indifference while anguish tears my heart out. I can't stop mulling over opinions, let alone ignore them. And try as I might to form my own opinion, I'm horribly quick to adopt the view of someone else. I've listened to two intelligent people debating with remarkable effectiveness and shifted my opinion at the end of each rebuke, looking forward to the end of the discussion when I could squeeze and love my shiny new opinion.

So I'm a weak, arrogant, conformist. And I know it. I aim for otherwise, but I can't ever find it in myself often enough to make it real, to make it a part of me. Who do I want to be? Someone truly strong on the inside, humble, and a free thinker. Meet my girl friend, Nicole.

I called her last night and she was crying. Life is kicking her in the shins. Her employer just her changed her sales quota to make it near impossible for her to make the kind of money she has depended on the last 5 years (reduced by about 20k a year, no joke). She is having problems with her roommate and her roommate’s dog (or yap engine, whichever you prefer) but can't afford to move right now and in a town with a population of 6000, money isn't the only problem. I sooooo want to deal with the roommate situation, but Nicole doesn't want that. She's right in what she says: that she has to live with her. I can't get involved; I'll just make matters worse. Virtually all of her friends have moved away, and lately she has been trying to build new friendships. Again, in a town this size that's difficult. That works out to her spending a lot of time with her family and with me, or locked in her downstairs apt bedroom to avoid the roommate and the yapper. I went over and spent the night with her, and tried to cheer her up. I don't think I did a good job. :(

But today she comes to work all smiles (I'm fortunate enough to work in the same room as her … small town). She's all about a new business idea she has, business plan already underway. Her strength humiliates me.

I can't imagine not loving her. I roll my usual opinionated arrogance and she crumbles and submits. Then I realize I’m an asshole and try to retract. Then she’ll either carefully tell me I’m wrong, or agree that I’m right. She doesn’t have my arrogance. There is a guy who works at a low paying job next door. He's a very large guy, balding at a very young age. He is made fun of a lot. She makes every effort to talk to him. She mentions what a great guy he is and wishes people didn't make fun of him so much. She can think for herself. Yet, she doesn't think anything of herself, she asks why I like her. She has humility. That melts me. I see her as a better person than I am.

She has every strength I admire. I love her completely. She is everything I want to be.









TPC