I told my therapist about the day I was that guy in the gym. You know the one who lifts some really heavy iron and screams.
It caught me by surprise, this combination of a barbaric yawp and primal scream. It came from somewhere deep inside because I tapped into some stuff that was really painful and yet filled with hope.
That’s what happens when you make big changes in life and find a way to throw up iron like the man you once were.
Some of you misunderstand me or at least act in ways that make me believe it to be true. You make me wonder if you have any sense of who I am and what really drives me.
Maybe you remember parts and pieces of who I was. Maybe you remember the man you think I was. Maybe be we’re just strangers again with memories.
I don’t know because we haven’t had the conversation and with some of you we probably never will because I can’t wait any longer.
But others, well it will absolutely happen because there is no way to step into the future without doing so.
When you do the work you and really dig in you poke and prod at the painful things because you have to explore them and figure out how heal or there is no progress.
It is why I have written some things down without any regard for whether they will be read or not. It is accountability and one faces their fear or lets it rule them.
“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”―
There Is A Difference Between Best & Most Popular
I never suffer from writer’s block but I sometimes struggle with finding the appropriate words to use in the posts you read here.
That is because this joint has acted as a cross between a personal and business blog so the readership wasn’t always prepared to find some of my more colorful language on display.
During the Jurassic period of my blogging adventure I never worried one whit about what expressions I used because I was writing solely for me, but things have changed a bit and so has my approach.
So when I say some of you need to invest in remedial reading courses to work on your comprehension it is my attempt to be more polite because in the old days I would have quoted Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam and said “You are in more dire need of a blowjob than any white man in history.”
My good friend Inigo Montoya does an excellent job in The Princess Bride of expressing some of the consternation and disdain I feel for some of you, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Words Have Power and Significance
This really isn’t supposed to be a rant so we’ll stop talking about people who will read those words and smirk because they aren’t smart enough to realize who they are really directed at and will move on to the power of words.
This post is an adaptation of something I wrote more than a decade ago about the prevalence of top ten lists in the blogosphere.
Around this time wasn’t unusual to see many bloggers adopt a more reflective stance in which they talked about what they wish they had accomplished during the year or what they hoped to achieve in the coming one.
I often saw them review what they called their ‘Top Ten Posts” of the year. and it made me think about the difference between Best and Most Popular.
What Is The Difference?
The method that many used for determining what their top ten posts was usually predicated upon which posts received the most traffic and or comments. That doesn’t always translate as to “best” because in many ways it is most similar to “popular.”
I don’t know that there is any real significance or substance to the distinction other than sometimes I look at my “top ten” and see posts that I don’t think were my best. Sometimes they are very good posts but they aren’t always what I consider to be my best.
I wrestle with this sometimes because I am not always certain what I consider to be my best. In some ways it is a bit like being asked to choose favorite child.
There was a lack of what I saw as statistical significance alongside an overuse of words like Amazing or Incredible.
I think about it now in regards to much of the political rhetoric in which people mistake opinion for fact and lack the ability or willingness to engage in critical thought.
There is a similar lack of willingness to step outside of echo chambers and engage with thought that challenges our political narrative and or political tribe.
I make an effort to engage in true introspection and determine if I am guilty of this because I don’t want to be.
When people accuse me of having developed a harder edge and more blunt approach I nod because I see it. I am impatient and exhausted by stupidity and bullshit but also recognize others may feel I engage in those things too.
I know who I am now and who I want to become. I have an outline of where I want to go. That is part of the purpose of the therapy and introspection. It is why we do the work because one ought to grow.
Can’t decide what song ought to accompany me after the events of the day. Could go with One Day More, Nessun Dorma or be the crying clown.
Maybe it is better to go a different direction. Maybe it is better to go with an old reminder about the importance of taking action.
Some of you have seen me undergo what you call a revolution but a few understand it is really just an evolution.
Read or don’t read. Talk or don’t talk. Act or don’t, time doesn’t care but I do and I refuse to give regret more space in my head or wallet.
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