Sometimes I\u2019m hot (good), but sometimes, not so much. So here are some further autobiographical notes that acknowledge the frailty of memory, the natural tendency to fill in the gaps, the unconscious forces that make us paint a picture of whatever we deeply emotionally want it to be. Autobiography is to some degree fiction, someone pointed out, \u201cfiction; badly written,\u201d as one definition put it. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty successful on the whole but yesterday bit off more than I could chew and gave a class that collapsed about my ears. Shame-filled, I finished a half-hour early. I hadn\u2019t prepared enough. I thought I had, but looking back, I was a bit too confident\u2014and also not so sure\u2014part of me knew. This humbling event fits in with this essay: My life has had its downs, its failures.<\/p>\n
Indeed. I want to deny this and wallow in my present good fortune\u2014loving, beautiful life; some material comfort in retirement; friends and acquaintances; a rich and deep philosophy and good stuff I want to witness to. But I confess that I\u2019m a little brittle and my autobiography, as it forms, must be recognized as \u201cIt kinda was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relative to many I seem wise, but I know that in various roles I\u2019m sorta clueless. I\u2019ve set things up so that my folly is buffered by enough safe stuff that it doesn\u2019t matter much. I don\u2019t really deny it\u2014witness this blog post!\u2014but it doesn\u2019t stop me cold. (Well, it sorta-kinda did yesterday.)<\/p>\n
Is there a spectrum ranging from raging inferiority complex to high self-esteem. When does the left side get neurotic and the right side narcissistically unrealistic or prideful. And all this plays in a culture shift where the general sense of \u201creal man\u201d or \u201csuccess\u201d is shifting from money or golf scores to whether one stands up to one\u2019s spouse.<\/p>\n
So this bit is just to set the record straight. Walt Whitman said in his Leaves of Grass, \u201cDo I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself! I am great! I contain multitudes!\u201d I like this, but the word great can be read as excellent or many-faceted. I am great in the second sense, and many of may facets are far from excellent. I have parts that know very little, parts that are a bit timid, lazy, non-adventurous, afraid of discomfort much less pain, and so forth. On balance I can like myself for what I do and am\u2014overall fairly nice\u2014but I\u2019m in no way a hero in many ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes I\u2019m hot (good), but sometimes, not so much. So here are some further autobiographical notes that acknowledge the frailty of memory, the natural tendency to fill in the gaps, the unconscious forces that make us paint a picture of whatever we deeply emotionally want it to be. Autobiography is to some degree fiction, someone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2122,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions\/2122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}