Cryptic References to Non-Events
Oh, so many things on my mind and so many ways to get into trouble talking about them.
To look at me, you’d never know that I’m the repository of so many secrets. I know so many things I shouldn’t that, at times, I think I’ll split at the seams and they’ll come rushing out in a sticky mess that will leave stains on the carpet. But, I dare not talk about them, or write about there here. If I tell Secret X, then Ms. Y will never confide in me again. If Secret Z comes out, then Mr. A will be so depressed there’s no telling what he might do. Worse yet, if I share about the thing with the people in the place who are dealing with that technical issue… Well, let’s just say it would be bad. Honestly, I never knew I was so trustworthy until I sat down last night to write about all the things on my mind that I simply shouldn’t talk about in public and started listing the secrets people have entrusted to me.
Worse still are the other things I more voluntarily keep inside though. Nothing the NSA would care about, mind, but important to me. To share those thoughts and feelings, I would have to make myself vulnerable to you, my few, faithful readers, and that, history has proven, is not the best idea. Besides, not all my readers are friendly. Some of them are down right mean and nasty, though those few seem to have finally learned that I won’t post their comments. I pretty well know what they think and, well, y’all know what they say about opinions…
I know, rumor has it that you blog-readers like reading about fear, uncertainty and doubt, but it’s gotten hard for me to share that. A little honesty is good, but, too much apparently leads to disaster on a Hindenburg-like scale. In the past, my experience being vulnerable with people has, to put it mildly, not worked out well at all. My therapist tells me that my sarcasm is a defense mechanism that keeps me from having to be in that oh, so delicate position of being vulnerable. Yet, I recognize that I must open myself to that potential pain, again and again, if I am to ever really connect with another human being. And, I really do want that, at least once before I die. Yes, I question that, in spite of having been married, that I’ve ever really been connected in a significant way with anyone, outside of family, anyway. Family is a different kind of connection, more fundamental, easier, more natural. The trick, I guess, is doing it in the right measure. Give them enough to let them in on the secret of me, but not so much that they get that “sticky-floor-in-a-cheap-movie-theater” feel about me.
That is a surprisingly tough balancing act.
Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"There's more than one way to do it"
--Unofficial PERL Coder's Motto
