Clay

When you meet someone with a burning desire, a rock-solid, arrow-straight focus, do you relate?

I have known who I am from early in my life.  Doesn't mean I've stayed focused on me and my desires, though.

This week, like every week of my life, I have observed those around me.  I have listened to their stories.  I have heard how they found their desires and focused their energy on getting what they want/wanted.

Like me, they use "I" frequently.  But they also talk about "them" - their children, their spouses, their business partners, their sports buddies, their ... everyone but themselves.

I can break down these relationships from many perspectives.  For instance, I can point out our atomic interactions in what defines a relationship or our relationships' effects on solar system movements.

I can look at myself writing about observing people who may or may not objectively observe themselves in their daily relationship buildups and breakdowns.

I can step into the general persona a person projects, and pretend to see the world from that person's perspective.

I can see parents and siblings and peers and the body a person sees when that person looks in a mirror.

I can be part of this moment in which I write this blog entry and part of the moments of the lives of others when they were telling me about previous moments of the lives of their family and friends.

I am a writer.  I am not a professional author of a particular genre although I have published books and novels.  I write because I think through written/typed words.

Because I know who I am and I know I am a person who likes to string words together, I am in control of the future focus of my thoughts and how they're articulated.

I have no desire to exist as a strong personality in the world of people.  I am a chameleon who changes colours in order to find connections where they would not show themselves if my personality dominated a room full of people who may or may not have direct relationships with one another.

I step into a room and sometimes wonder who I will be in the moment.  Will I be the personality who cannot stand intolerance and uses his connections to take care of business in ways some cannot tolerate (don't bother pointing out the paradox in that)?  Will I be the quiet, unobtrusive kind?  Will my smartass school days show themselves?  Will my logical side demonstrate its capabilities?

These are questions I have repeated here in virtual space, I know.  I repeat them, typically, when I find myself in a personality state that doesn't allow me to go ahead and act on my natural desire to focus on what drives me to get out of bed every day.

Today is such a moment.  How do I overcome this moment?  How do I reconcile the issue at hand?

Actions speak louder than words.

I am a writer.  I observe others in order to hear in their voices and see in their actions the motivations that they think they keep out of the open - then I write about their motivations in relation to the world around them in the moment.

What if I deliberately put myself in a situation where I couldn't write about my observations?  What/who does that make me?

"I" versus "not I" versus "not me."  If I am not me - the observer/writer - then who am I?

Labor credits, in the form of electronic/physical money, buy me not only basic nourishment, clothing and housing but also creature comforts of other kinds, including food and gifts I buy for those around me.

When I take labor credits to keep me from being me, who have I become?

Every voice is important, including the voice of the one who makes other voices come to life here.

Data management and conflict resolution go hand-in-hand.

ADSL reference designs tested in a small town in northern Alabama go hand-in-hand with achieving almost 100% saturation of the high-speed Internet connections in South Korea.  Same with testing an F-111 in Thailand during a conflict with Vietnam, taking time off from teaching to help make people count, hoping your son finds the burning desire to tackle opponents on the football field, losing your 87-year old father in-law to a car smashup caused by an absent-minded mobile-phone using teenager driving too fast, or retiring from a career of criminal justice to a new town you don't know.

I am a sack of wet modeling clay sitting in a corner waiting to form shapes others see as themselves.  Always have been, always will be.

As a teenage Boy Scout, I was a librarian and chaplain because that's where my young writerly personality fit best.

Where I am now, where am I now?