Suck My Smug
If you think of
me at all (a
loaded question,
a perhaps concerning
if not entirely to telling
a question, especially
given the subject at
hand; as if), do you
think me cocky?
Do you assume
or believe or
think that it
is quite
probable that
I am generally
smug individual?
Even though I’ve had
a solid set of recent
years that have
humbled me like
no other, this is
something I am
worried about
this cool and
early morning
before going to
work at the first
job I’ve had in
over fourteen
months, fourteen
months in which I
have had more job
interviews (times
three? times four
or more?) than I
have had during
any fourteen
month period
of my life. It
has also been
the period in
my life that I
have faced the
most significant
health struggle,
a surgery to
remove cancer
that essentially
kept me down
for no less than
three of those
months, and
out for the
job hunt count
during that time,
so to speak. And
this lovely little
parcel of employ
ment will have
lasted, by the
time I finish
my contract
a week from
today, a total
of seven full
days of work.
But this question
of smugness keeps
creeping up on me,
has me worried. It
keeps drifting into
my consciousness.
And I’m not sure
exactly how this notion
relates to the thoughts
that then keep seeping
into the mire, like the
worrisome threats
of living under the
never-very-subtle-
anymore movement
toward being the
shroud of auto
cracy (which feels
more like being
shoved in that dire
ction). Or the fact that
it has also come to my
attention only in the
past few years that my
driven attempts at being
real, being honest, and
being transparent (while
also utilizing toying with
that drive as a sort of
see-what-I-mean
game, which, of
course, never
helps the cause,
is more likely to
deter it, and this
information I have
also gleaned, but am
never quite certain what
to do with – is it because I
chose comedy over didacticism
or is just a symptom of the general
un-reality of reality, of living in a world
where truth and untruth co-exist more or
less as equals, and this in a world where
equality always seems feasible but yet
remains wholly out of reach?), that
my earnest and primal goal is to
be seen and known somehow
as me, but yet I am shown
over time in aggregate and
overwhelmingly to be
vastly misunderstood.
Or am I misunderstood.
Am I, in general, a
cocky, condescending
human being? What
others can know about
you and about me can
often differ wildly with
what we think of our
selves, correct? So.
Just the notion that
I might give the
impression that
I believe myself
to be better, at
some higher level,
than you, or than
anyone else, given
what have seemed
honest reactions to
my approach, over
the years, by people
with whom I’ve spent
enough time that I think
I might know just a little
bit, and would certainly
know at least a little bit
about me, gives me
pause, and has for
a while, as I climb
myself out of the
difficult times
that, for
reasons
both (at least
imaginatively?
logically?) known
and unknown to me,
I have been through
this past significant
stretch of time,
of which I’m
always seemingly
(worried about,
acting upon,
fighting the
power that
seems intent
to counteract
my) trying to
claw my way out
of these days, well,
these people, those
individuals who at one
point I might have thought,
given all the effort to reveal,
knew a significant bit about
who I was, about who I am
(only, how different are those
two? again, I don’t think I can
begin to know.) would so con
sistently have such glaringly
farfetched, from these eyes,
notions of who I was. I
continue to work to re
concile that, and to
understand not-so-
much who I was,
but who I am,
existing always
intentionally,
or wanting and
trying to be,
at any rate, so
very much in the
present. So these
thoughts, these
meanderings, to
me, seem of some
relevance, and there
seems good reason for
me to be here mulling over
such seemingly disparate and
potentially irreconcilable things
this morning, this cool morning,
a couple of hours before I will
(hopefully?) head on over to
another fine day of actual
(as in paid, as if that is
the only real) work.
If you think of
me at all (a
loaded question,
a perhaps concerning
if not entirely to telling
a question, especially
given the subject at
hand; as if), do you
think me cocky?
Do you assume
or believe or
think that it
is quite
probable that
I am generally
smug individual?
Even though I’ve had
a solid set of recent
years that have
humbled me like
no other, this is
something I am
worried about
this cool and
early morning
before going to
work at the first
job I’ve had in
over fourteen
months, fourteen
months in which I
have had more job
interviews (times
three? times four
or more?) than I
have had during
any fourteen
month period
of my life. It
has also been
the period in
my life that I
have faced the
most significant
health struggle,
a surgery to
remove cancer
that essentially
kept me down
for no less than
three of those
months, and
out for the
job hunt count
during that time,
so to speak. And
this lovely little
parcel of employ
ment will have
lasted, by the
time I finish
my contract
a week from
today, a total
of seven full
days of work.
But this question
of smugness keeps
creeping up on me,
has me worried. It
keeps drifting into
my consciousness.
And I’m not sure
exactly how this notion
relates to the thoughts
that then keep seeping
into the mire, like the
worrisome threats
of living under the
never-very-subtle-
anymore movement
toward being the
shroud of auto
cracy (which feels
more like being
shoved in that dire
ction). Or the fact that
it has also come to my
attention only in the
past few years that my
driven attempts at being
real, being honest, and
being transparent (while
also utilizing toying with
that drive as a sort of
see-what-I-mean
game, which, of
course, never
helps the cause,
is more likely to
deter it, and this
information I have
also gleaned, but am
never quite certain what
to do with – is it because I
chose comedy over didacticism
or is just a symptom of the general
un-reality of reality, of living in a world
where truth and untruth co-exist more or
less as equals, and this in a world where
equality always seems feasible but yet
remains wholly out of reach?), that
my earnest and primal goal is to
be seen and known somehow
as me, but yet I am shown
over time in aggregate and
overwhelmingly to be
vastly misunderstood.
Or am I misunderstood.
Am I, in general, a
cocky, condescending
human being? What
others can know about
you and about me can
often differ wildly with
what we think of our
selves, correct? So.
Just the notion that
I might give the
impression that
I believe myself
to be better, at
some higher level,
than you, or than
anyone else, given
what have seemed
honest reactions to
my approach, over
the years, by people
with whom I’ve spent
enough time that I think
I might know just a little
bit, and would certainly
know at least a little bit
about me, gives me
pause, and has for
a while, as I climb
myself out of the
difficult times
that, for
reasons
both (at least
imaginatively?
logically?) known
and unknown to me,
I have been through
this past significant
stretch of time,
of which I’m
always seemingly
(worried about,
acting upon,
fighting the
power that
seems intent
to counteract
my) trying to
claw my way out
of these days, well,
these people, those
individuals who at one
point I might have thought,
given all the effort to reveal,
knew a significant bit about
who I was, about who I am
(only, how different are those
two? again, I don’t think I can
begin to know.) would so con
sistently have such glaringly
farfetched, from these eyes,
notions of who I was. I
continue to work to re
concile that, and to
understand not-so-
much who I was,
but who I am,
existing always
intentionally,
or wanting and
trying to be,
at any rate, so
very much in the
present. So these
thoughts, these
meanderings, to
me, seem of some
relevance, and there
seems good reason for
me to be here mulling over
such seemingly disparate and
potentially irreconcilable things
this morning, this cool morning,
a couple of hours before I will
(hopefully?) head on over to
another fine day of actual
(as in paid, as if that is
the only real) work.
