About Who You Are
Post 143:
I played a little poker last night with some good people. Nothing crazy or high stakes, just a friendly game.
I got trounced. As a self-proclaimed eminent observer of human nature, it’s probably not a good sign that I was the first one busted out of the game. That’s the problem with self-proclamations. We’re usually the last to know.
All these notions of self that are carried around in the brain are just that—notions. There’s a gulf between the real deal and the imagined deal and finding reality in all the confusion is one of the hardest philosophical endeavors that we face. Know thyself and all that.
I may not know myself the way I think I do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a rough outline. Maybe that’s the best to hope for. A rough outline.
Take your typical first date scenario. A lot of people say that the whole thing is a put-up job, a sort of smoke screen so the other person doesn’t get a fix on the coordinates of your real thoughts.
Not so sure. Maybe it’s just people trying to figure out who they are for the ten-millionth time in their life. This time is only different because it’s vocalized over dinner and drinks. Not sure.
People put up profiles for the world to examine, explaining who they are in a nutshell. I don’t know how this is possible. I would need volumes to start explaining what I’m about—not because I’m deep or complex. On the contrary, most of the pages would be filled with big x’s and retractions, rewrites and more rewrites. Knowing thyself is hard. And I get it. Going on a first date with a rough outline of who you might be doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence.
On the other hand, every time I meet someone and they list exactly what they believe and what’s important and how the world works and what they want, I get a little freaked out. I mean, who are they kidding? There’s a stain on their shirt and a little bit of food on their face.
Could be I’m just one of those folks that overthinks small things and overlooks big ones. Not sure. All I know is that I’m not as good at poker as I thought I was. I’ve got empirical data for that one.
See you after.
