Alternating Current
I have a lot of fires in my mind right now, and a lot of voices from within saying things that I can’t validate. How can I know what someone’s opinion is unless I ask them and they tell me? How can I know what they really feel unless I trust them? Until someone tells me I’m as stupid as I feel, why should it affect me? How can my interpretation of their outer presentation be accurate to what they aren’t able or willing to demonstrate?
“Since I’m the common denominator on a lot of these projects, they think I’m an idiot? Maybe they’re right.”
“Heavens no! It’s the opposite.”
I know how much I don’t know
I know how much I struggle to understand
I know how worthless I feel until I have a breakthrough and suddenly my pride roars to life like my blood is nitromethane. When my understanding of a problem locks in and I know exactly how right I am, I am no longer capable of insecurity; my confidence is wild and self-sustaining.
“Are you sure? That’s not what we did on the last one.”
“This is not the last one; this is this one, and if you're sure enough to question me, then why are you asking for my help?”
To a fault- I’m wrong. I didn’t understand the problem like I thought I did.
“But that’s an accountable margin of error! Trust me, you’re well within that sliver of a margin.”
To my success- I’m right. I am the only one who understands this problem.
“But it can’t be that.”
Too much of my sense of self is trapped in phases, and I think the problems come from believing one is right while the other is wrong. In whichever phase I’m in, the other phase feels false, but neither phase is right or wrong; the only difference is temporal. It’s the same signal. Confidence feels like arrogance and self-deception until a breakthrough inverts the same feeling: Confidence becomes clarity, and the clarity is so affirming that self-doubt becomes self-erasure.