Skin deep and deeper still

By Johnny D. Symon

This week's edition looks pretty much to me a space in which I'm getting absorbed in some kind of "sands of time" musings. Life has never been fuller, so full that I'm beginning to realize that my age-old spoutings to others that there ain't sufficient hours in the day, were in fact little white lies. All along I'd been fooling myself but remained unaware of this fact.

For busy bees like myself, 24 hours is sufficient time to take care of the business of living, otherwise the statement "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" would be a lie. I guess the trick behind fulfilling our work responsibilities each and every day lies in the order and execution of our allotted tasks. So as I rise each early morn I've become increasingly confident that this day will end with a full out-box.

As a very young and very green whippersnapper, I grew fond of studying all humanity around me, and trying to match the view I held of myself with the multi-minions before me. I quickly grew honest about myself and pieced together the pros and cons surrounding yours truly and my place in the scheme of things. In retrospect I'd actually set up a work station replete with two in-boxes and two out-boxes. One in-box began very quickly to overflow with things most needy of attention, this particular in-box grew twice as full as the other, and it was labeled "cons."

You see, I'd already formed an understanding about myself that as I look back through the years to that primal stage in my life, still rings true in most respects, though I reckon that I went a little overboard on my negatives. Without a doubt I was in many ways an erratic and stupid kid. I'd jump head first into situations without any form of prior consideration, and despite the passing of many years I still can observe the bodily evidence of childhood foolishness; the bumps, the dents, and the scars. But the memories are a different matter entirely, for layer upon layer, I set about erasing them to make room for the new.

As I surveyed the wondrous scene of adult humanity around me, and it's apparent order, beauty, and intelligence, I slammed one in-box of my own with folders entitled "ugly," "stupid," "impetuous," and "inept." The other one lay quite empty, except for a folder entitled "promising possibilities." Little did I know back then that my undoubtedly rough and ugly visage would find itself moving from the first in-box into the second entitled "promising possibilities," and I reckon it happened because when you feel that you've no looks to lose, you lose any sense of fear during physical combat. I turned a primary negative into something positive.

But as time drew on, and with that still strong view embedded within myself that I was no great shakes in anything, I began to see the rosy view I'd held of all else around me, fade like a rose and, dry petal after dry petal, flutter to the ground.

Therefore as I bring you all back from thoughts of my primal past, to the physical reality of my present self today, I can honestly assure you that both my in-boxes are real different to the state they were in years back. My first negative in-box has transmuted from bad blood to good wine. I'm proof that miracles still occur. I'm losing count of the many people who have sought me out to solve their problems, or to give them advice, and by saying this I'm not being egotistical, I'm simply trying to grasp the reasons why.

You see, while as a kid I'd formed a true picture of myself, the picture I'd held of the multi-minions surrounding me, the "apparent order, beauty, and intelligence" of them, was far from true reality. The advancement of a New World Order is apparent but transparent, having no genuine and lasting substance. Our leaders who embark on a "give me your vote and your trust" trip are most times of apparent beauty, though most times also it's beauty that's just skin deep, for underneath their epidermis lies another skin preparing for the light of day, a day when all is said and done and the first skin is shed to reveal another which lies below.

Intelligence comes in two packages ... two in- and out-boxes even ... for one type proves itself by action to be labeled "smooth-tongued," and the other simply "forked." At least it's how I nowadays view the world around me, and I can't relate to the smooth and forked tongues mentioned above.

Maybe I'm still the one who erstwhile felt that he did not belong in the world; in the scheme of things, sure, but increasingly I sense a personal disassociation with the direction, apparent order, beauty, and doubtful intelligence of those holding the helm of our present day world.

© Johnny D. Symon