This is the entry I originally had planned for Friday but angst happened. I have been meaning to write it for a while now, but I kept putting it off because I know it will not be easy for me. But it needs doing.

So today I will try to list all my good points and put them all in one document so I can try to cobble together a positive version of myself that I can believe in, or at least try.

Let’s get the big obvious one out of the way first : I am crazy smart.

I have a massive brain (metaphorically speaking). I have been way too smart for my own good for my entire life. Schoolwork was always easy, I never studied for tests, yadda yadda yadda.

This big brain, along with an introverted and introspective personality (aided by having a lot of time in school where I had nothing to do but think), has made me quite the deep thinker. I have a deep understanding of human nature and why people do the things they do (handy for a writer) and a great deal of philosophical insight and political understanding in this bulging noggin of mind.

I also have the maaad verbal skills. I am a wizard of words, and the English language is my bitch. Verbal communication has always been easy for me, and I am a fluent and eloquent speaker with real knack for expressing both ideas and emotion with inspired metaphors and evocative language.

And other good word things.

I am also quite funny. I used to wonder about that, because I did not exactly make a lot of people laugh when I was younger, but something inside me compelled me to keep trying till I got it right and now I have had a lot of people either tell me I am funny or tell me how funny they found one of the skits I have written, and that is enough positive feedback for me to conclude that I must be one hilarious dude.

Why I haven’t written the next Hitchhiker’s Guide yet is beyond even me.

I also have a very sharp analytical mind, good with science and other quantitative disciplines. I am quite comfortable with working with numbers and I think I have a natural flair for accounting and business.

What can I say… I grok money!

But that is all brain stuff, stuck on that overbearing cold circuit of mine. Sure, I have a lot of impressive brain circuitry which could really make me an asset to any enterprise lucky enough to hire me, but what kind of a person am I?

Pretty nice, I think. I am sensitive and understanding towards others and I really, truly want to understand the world from their point of view. I firmnly believe that you don’t know anything until you have looked at the world from angles other than your own, just like you can’t know all of what an object looks like in 3D if all you have seen is a 2D photograph.

And I truly care about people. I really want everyone to be happy and I really feel for people when they are feeling down. I have a strong urge to help people and I have no problem with listening to people vent about their lives or express all the sadness and pain inside because I know how much good can be done by simply listening to people and thus helping them release their inner demons and let the ghosts inside them scream into the night, never to return.

See? Pictures with words!

In fact, when people share their innermost pain with me, I feel privileged. It honors and pleases me to be the trustworthy and understanding voice for someone, a midwife to their pain, a witness to their unburdening.

To me, it feels downright holy. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. It gives me the feeling of reverence and joy that I can only assume is what people get from traditional religion.

Also in my favor : I am an atheist, but I’m not an asshole about it.

I am also pretty charismatic. Not in a handsome actor way, of course, but more a combination of projecting personal warmth and the magnetism of my mighty and mysterious mind. When I am relaxed and not self-conscious, I can be the life of the party, or at least a compelling raconteur.

What else. I have a pretty good intuitive grasp of music, and I definitely could not live without my MP3 collection. In all things, I have pretty broad and far-ranging taste. There is good art and there is bad art and that is the only distinction that matters. All other categories like genre or cuisine are only tools to guide you towards other things you might like. They should in no way define or restrict you.

Go ahead, look around at what other people have on their plates. Maybe you will want to order it yourself some day, when you are feeling bored with your usual fare.

Oh, and I am, if I say so myself, extraordinarily independent of mind. I accept no authority and I test everything in the laboratory of my mind before I accept it. That doesn’t make me a hardcore skeptic (at least, not since I was 20) but it does mean that my point of view tends to lie quite outside the mainstream.

That gets you some pretty weird looks sometimes.

One last thing : I am also brilliantly creative. My mind overflows with ideas and I can come up with unique solutions for problems without a lot of effort.

So with all those wonderful qualities, does it matter that I am klutzy and goofy and not great with physical things? This is the era of information, after all. A good brain is far more useful than big muscles or agile hands in this day and age.

So sure, I have my limits like everybody else.

But overall, I think I am one heck of a guy.