Long way to go

Ten months. It’s that long since I posted to the mankind blog. Thought about it but did nothing. How’s that like my life lately? A ton of experiences, too many to survey, have swept under the bridge. As I look downstream at the recent past I see myself bumping along on the current of life. I’ve steered pretty harmlessly between the jagged rocks of fear, anger, joy, grief and shame.

I’ve smiled and congratulated myself on my sober, wise choices. “I’m getting the hang of this,” I’ve often told myself, just before I go plunging headfirst into a whirlpool of chaos and stupidity that brings me back to Earth.

Arrogance

Three wise men had the courage to tell me that saw me as arrogant. At first I was puzzled. Then shaken. Then angry. My defensive walls were sky high. “Bullshit,” I told myself. “If they can spot it, then they’ve got it, not me. I’m not the arrogant one: they are!”

I held it close. I nurtured the wound, like I do, for a month or so. Then I talked to a man about it. I talked about my puzzlement. My anger. My sadness. I talked to a few more men about it and got to a different place, thank God.

Which is? I own my arrogance. If I wasn’t, I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I wouldn’t have the self-belief to imagine and create what I do each day as a father, son, brother, husband, worker.

And something else. As a someone who scores high on introversion on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, I’m the guy who processes my experiences internally. I don’t do a lot of talking about what’s going on because I’m doing it in my head.

No wonder the extroverts see me as an arrogant sonofabitch! They think I think I’m better than them. Not so. So, my stretch these days is to reveal more of what’s going on for me. Maybe that way people will understand that I’m stumbling through trying to figure it out -- just like them.