Thursday, February 9, 2012

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Any word that I am unable to pronounce, given my sacred fidelity to words, absolutely must be the title of a piece. For your convenience I will not make you go to the dictionary - “an act or instance of judging something to be worthless or trivial.”

I have been writing for the last few days for spite. There are powers acting in my life that appear to have some problem with my pursuit of full-time employment as a scribe of merit. What exactly the definition of this term “scribe of merit” might be is also part of the mood I am in, and it is not pretty in here. The chief power that has laid siege to my dream is non-other than me, myself, and I. Well, that is, not so much my whole person but that part of me that exists in my psyche and decision making apparatus. I am defecating all over what self-esteem I possess and have come to the momentous decision to engage in a noble crusade against the heretical rantings of my opponent. I must be careful though, I have a personal code of ethics that forbids me from engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Would that I could just listen to my own values and cease participation in this pointless flight of foolishness! What fool is this that argues with himself as if it were a disagreement that could or would yield a winner? Why must I, once again, place roadblocks in my way to success?

That was the frame of mind I held when I began this piece. Nothing has been happening in my life as I wish and I have begun pondering if, perhaps, the writer of this piece might be the culpable party. Well, the truth is the hardest pill to swallow and while I wallow in righteously indignant clibber clabber, I must chronicle the fact that it most assuredly is me, and that if there is blame to be apportioned I need look no further than the mirror I use to shave.

I have an affinity for words and the very sound of them does something to me. The meaning of this word filled a need in me to denigrate my efforts as a scribe and, ultimately, a person. Deciphering worth is a tricky pastime. We have a set of values that seem important to us and there are the outside influences (friends, family, and co-workers) that bring their individual idiosyncrasies into the mix. I value the ability to make a point in a page or page and a half at the keyboard. That value has been my path to achieving that “scribe of merit” junk, and it has initiated what seems like a campaign against my success. It has taken me three tries, on this page, to do what normally but an hour or two. My values are within me and me is dissatisfied with me. So it appears I am in the process of committing “an act or instance of judging something to be worthless or trivial.”

I am not either worthless or trivial! I have a picture I snaked from the internet of two babies facing each other. One is crying and the other is holding his companion’s face with the caption – “YOU ARE LOVED, YOU MATTER, NO REALLY! YOU MATTER!” These words spoke volumes to me and, if I believe them, could realign my thought processes back to that person who knew better then to do battle with oneself.

Having taken so much of both my time and yours, I will close. An old friend once told me that this was my “pity blog” and the last three day that has been true. Well, enough is enough. I just received an e-mail from someone who wants me to edit a piece I submitted and re-submit it. Possibly for pay. It will not serve me, or you my faithful reader, to continue in this light. I must conclude this piece before it mutates into a diatribe on depression. A long discourse on that can wait until I really know something about it, other than feeling it. Well, maybe I need to listen to more learned heads then mine;

“By the time this screed gets to you the drafts may have come, but as I've heard nothing yet and been writing for two months now, you'd better have a look anyway. Will you please?”
-- Ernest Hemingway

Peace