I do, and it'a a good thing--because I'm a bit like a cave of stygian gloom myself. Imagine taking the soul of the darkest person you know, and then shining a skyful of yellow light into the centre of the blackness, the very depths of this artificial night; and then, when the light bounces into the back wall, lovely lucid lingering light, it hits the thousands of tiny mineral deposits nestling in the smooth bright limestone, and the entire cave is filled with a twinkling, shimmering, silver-and-gold glisten.
I have always tried to surround myself with happy people, in an effort to achieve precisely that effect. I am beautiful; but only when lit by another's goodwill and joy and enthusiasm. I have tried, at times, to be the sun in someone else's sky, but as it happens, I make a much better moon. Or cave, as my earlier analogy stated. The point is, I'm more of a reflective surface, than a source of illumination (to continue the list of analogical synonyms, I believe in one of my earliest blog entries, I refer to myself as a mirror).
Any way you describe me, if honesty prevails, you have to admit, I'm a bit dark, left to my own devices. I don't mean to be. As the playwright said, I'll look to like, if looking liking move.
It just so rarely does.
And, that's not fair on myself, either. I can be incredibly easy to get along with, and I am one of the sincerest and most prolific complimenters in the world. I can find something to like about anyone and everyone, and I go out of my way to do just that.
But, oh. Sometimes, when I look inward, I somehow miss the nicer aspects of myself. A shame, since I A) believe that everyone is beautiful, not equally so, but in some way or other, and B) I think I'm actually not too bad, on the beauty scale (this is inner beauty, please understand). It speaks of some sort of lack of... self-confidence? self-belief? self-esteem? that I have so many issues seeing myself as being as worthwhile an individual as everyone else.
Mind you. That's probably because I *do* surround myself with awesome people. If I didn't go out of my way to hang out with generally superior folks, I probably wouldn't feel so inferior so much of the time. But. What can I do? You should hang out with 'superior' people, if you can. Better to aspire to the lofty heights they occupy, than to scrabble around in the dirt, content with your own failings and flaws. Cliche time:
Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
*grin* Cliches are my friends, I love them. Sayings, adages, axioms, they all have a special place in my heart, because they are, almost without exception, truer than one person's original thoughts are likely to be, these days. I'm sure we used to be able to think for ourselves, but now... There's too much information and idea-sharing all over the place. Aside from genuine recluses and religious accolytes, I reckon most of us all feel/think/act more or less the same, the way the tv/radio/internet/YouTube tells us to. That's not an entirely bad thing--there's a certain community spirit that encompasses the entire world, now, a sort of global neighbourhood, and that's probably a good thing, in many ways--but I think original thought must suffer for it. It's just a question of proximity. Everyone's so close to everyone else's words, we all quote each other without even realising. Again, not the worst situation ever. Some of the best things ever created were collaborative efforts (Shakespeare's plays, the Bible, Whose Line is it Anyway?, the song Amish Paradise, need I go on).
Collaboration > solo effort, in something like 99.6% of cases. That's my final verdict. So.
The best thing to do, is to find someone you can collaborate with for, say, the rest of your life. Or, in the cases of family and close friends, several someones you can collaborate with, for the rest of your life. I've got one or two friends I'd like to hang out with forever :)
One in particular, I think...
Bring on the sunshine.
1 comment:
I know two... their names are Naomi and Gabriel
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