The Jungian Thing

The unpredictability of day-to-day life never ceases to amaze me, but people do. Often, you appreciate people for whom they are and don't even attempt to define them, and then suddenly, like a hockey player being checked into glass, you see someone display an awesome boundary of their limitations, either through action or blunt inaction. These are the same people who will give you advice despite themselves, turning a blind eye to their flawed nature and repeating things they've heard, speaking with such hollow wisdom, embarrassing themselves without knowing it. They talk about a big picture but see the world through a pinhole. They correct your behavior and justify their own. They say exactly twenty words too far in the wrong direction, and everything after that is just mindless wandering in the weeds of their own dissatisfaction.

Words are as cheap as the unsolicited, unqualified opinions that literally litter every avenue of communication we know, and it's gone so far in recent times that people, I believe, have forgotten how to be polite to each other. People will enter a conversation - be it text, email, chat, or even in person - with one need in mind and upon getting what they need, the conversation ends on one side. It seems a growing majority want to be heard and not responded to. That's the impersonal Internet generation, built on more tenuous connections rather than few strong ones. That's where the search for real people becomes so difficult to hope for.

You know who you are.

And I mean that in the sense of you knowing where you stand. Are you sampling people and experiences from a party tray, or do you begin your search from within? Do you step outside and act with good intention, or do you immediately enter the race and cock your arm to strike down any person or idea that threatens to pull a distant spotlight from you? Do you know only about love for one, or do you know about love for all? This is not a test; I wrestle with those questions all the time, both with how people affect me and how I want to carry myself.

I said that you know who you are, and I meant it. Either you've examined yourself in a mirror and put it into words, or it's the theme song playing in your subconscious. These things are self-evident, and they create recurring patterns that can last a lifetime. One that comes to my mind is the constant reminder to rise above the moment and aspire, build, keep moving and searching for truth wherever I can get it. Most of what I've found lately has been the dirty and dense variety, poisonous and completely foreign. The minority - in truth - has been priceless and promising, and the very least I can do is weigh them equally. That's where I want to put my focus, as much as I'm able. I am distracted, but I haven't lost hope.

I am flawed, still reactive and can hold a grudge needlessly. While I try to practice diplomacy and steer away from emotional situations, I'm quick to react negatively when people make the simplest things difficult. In many respects, I'm stuck in the maze of my own making, but I'm not dull enough to believe the present resembles the future. I want more. I need to grow. I look up and off into the distance, and believe I can and should get there, even if I stand to fail many times on the way.

I will get there, despite myself. If I can help it, I'll choose the right words, find the right people, and let everything else fall away. The truth is - if I'm not blind to it - always right here, right now.