all hail the ill-read prophet

I think the first thing to go with age is ego. Or rather, it is in an ideal world. In actual fact it’s more likely to be bright eyes and dewy skin. 

 

At 20 I thought I owned the world. By 30 I was trying to give it back. Today, I’m happy to rent for now while my ego goes walkabout. It comes from a good place: a Buddist-style valuing of everyone and everything’s equal contribution to this world; a magnanimous streak, maybe; not least, a realization that leaving one’s mark is the purview of megalomaniacs. 

 

Ironically I’ve always felt I had main-character energy. No matter the situation, even when I was the shyest girl in the room. My confidence is a deep, still well fed by the swelling waters of my parents’ eternal love. No matter what a bad boss, mean friend or crap date may do, my hurt is usually felt as indignation. How very dare they? Don’t they know they’re in my movie?

 

I am, in my own mind, the next big contemporary culture prophet. I’ve never gotten past the book-jacket blurb of a Malcom Gladwell book, yet I know that I’m his peer. I’m a pundit without a soapbox. A pontificator without an audience. I spend a lot of time thinking about how and why humans are how they are, and by golly, I’m usually right. 

 

I never studied sociology. My knowledge of psychology is of the pop variety. I love a good philosophical discussion, so long as I come out on top. I want to want to read the great thinkers of today, if only to know who I stand beside—because I swear, the only thing stopping me from getting that 5-book advance is that I’m so poorly read. I can’t stomach other people’s musings. I’m shamefully ill-read and shamelessly unwilling to change. 

 

I write for a living but can’t stand to read. I think for a living but am unlikely to act. I rule my own universe but play well with others. My continually opening mind is leaving memory gaps. I think the first thing to go with age is ego.