So, about Project Big Ego…

I realized today that part of the reason that I have resisted my potential for a big ego for so long is that I really don’t want to look down on people. The thought of it makes me feel queasy. I want to be with people, included and accepted. Looking down on them is like the opposite of that.

In some ways, I would rather be included at the bottom than lonely at the top.

Plus there’s the issue of responsibility and leadership. Were I to give in and assume the throne I have denied all my life, I would feel like it was now my responsibility to use the throne to lead people to a better life, and not only does that feel to me like a pathway to Crazytown, the idea of that much responsibility weighing me down and restricting me scares the ever loving bejesus out of me.

That’s always been the paradox with me. To me, power and responsibility are intimately linked on a 1:1 basis, and that is not negotiable. I am not capable of knowingly behaving in an irresponsible way. This is both a virtue and a burden. It could be argued that I would be better off not taking things so seriously. But I am what I am.

But responsibility scares me. I am someone who values his autonomy very highly, perhaps too highly. I can only feel safe when I am free to move as I please in all directions in order to evade or escape the bad stuff. Restrictions fill me with dread so acute it’s more or less panic. I deeply suspect that if I could work through that panic, I would come out the other side of it far healthier and stronger, and wonder what all the fuss was about.

But I am who I am right now, and right now, it’s freakout city.

Thus far, my solution has been simple, elegant, and awful : simple avoid having any power. No power, no responsibility, no panic. An ingenious form of self-defeat.

Well I am nothing if not clever.

But the thing is, I do have power. The same power I have always had : the power of my mind. Intelligence is a profound kind of power, and combined with my creativity, insight, and all the rest, I am walking around with a head full of power 24/7. Power so profound that it scares me sometimes.

Even I sometimes feel like nobody is supposed to be as smart as I am.

So the real situation is not that I am safely powerless, it’s that I pretend to be powerless while ignoring, discounting, and otherwise suppressing the power I do have.

That’s why I keep coming back to the question of whether or not someone has a moral obligation to use their gifts to benefit society. I have always held that if you have the power to help, you must help. It’s a positive duty, something you must do, as opposed to a negative duty, something you must NOT do.

By that logic, I should be out there using my gifts to help in any way I can. For instance, I could be a fairly potent spokesperson for a noble and just cause. Or I could work behind the scenes writing speeches and organizing advocacy. I could write about my own brand of pragmatic liberalism with hopes of starting a movement. And so forth and so on.

But I want a life as well. And a fun career. I want to write for television, and I will just have to save the world that way, so to speak. Whatever I write, I will find ways to advance my agenda, often in ways that seem like nothing but harmless fun and silliness. I’m sneaky like that.

As always, there is also the lurking issue of option paralysis to contend with. There are so many things I could do with all this potential. How do I know which one is right? I can’t help but feel that if I was a less cerebral person and more in touch with my emotions and instincts, I would be better equipped to make that kind of decision. I would have gut instincts I trusted and a sense that even if I make the wrong choice, I will be okay.

Instead, I am like the Wimpy Kirk from the Two Kirks episode of the original Star Trek series. Sensitive…. but indecisive.

And I definitely feel that this indecision is an excuse that I hide behind. An excuse to avoid risk and stay in the safe world of mere potential instead of having to become a real person.

That’s why I like that I have now made a choice. I am going to write for TV. All I have to do is keep plugging away at school and I will get there. I chose my bus and got on it, so I am now on my way to somewhere instead of remaining an inert lump of nothingness that played video games and hung out online.

For twenty fucking years. Damn.

Which brings us all the way back to… the topic! Quelle shoq!

If I were to really take full responsibility for my power and sit my ass down on that throne, the only way I can see of relating to the world is to turn those around me into adherents to the cult of me. Not that I dream of power, but the problem is that if I felt this responsibility for the welfare of others, it would inevitably lead to my feeling the need to lead them.

And I don’t know any other way to lead than to get people believing in me and my own, for lack of a better word, wisdom. There are formal ways of getting power, like rising up in an organization, but that is not the sort of power I am looking for.

It would have to be a cult of personality.

And I hate those.

So what’s a fella suppose to do?

Stay a humble human just trying to get by in this big ol room, I guess.

But I could be so much more.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.