• 11:45 AM
  Thoughts on being a huge jerk

As you age, you are inexorably drawn to become more like the hypothetical uninfluenced form of yourself. The things which have prevented you from believing or saying what occurs to you have faded into irrelevance beside a lengthening perspective and the growing reality of mortal limits.

As you take on stronger characteristics of your ego, the people around you react, just as you always knew they would. Watching this reaction now brings a feeling of satisfying progress, like the passing of a gate which you had previously only known from pictures. The reactions you feared are confirmed, charted, accepted.

When you are very young, you may feel baffled anger at the selfish and apparently inconsiderate behavior of some unexplainable others. It is a relief and a bonding experience with the rest of humanity to find freedom to act this way in yourself.

Of course, the first venture into new territory will go too far, and you need to recognize and mind the alarmed voices of your true friends. But the way is now marked, and your character transformed. Maybe the next step is learning to be comfortable with selfish and compassionate motives, and the blurry moving line between.