God's blood...but I am a fool.
Not exactly a newsflash for some, I know.
Pride doth indeed cometh before the fall. I can only pray that my feet come back under me on solid ground, and soon.
Guilty, I may very well be. Of what, though? The first offense that springs to mind is that in my soul, I hold people to the same standards I set for myself. Those standards being honesty and consistency. Lord knows though, I've probably failed these standards more than a few times, and am bound to do so again. The joy of being human, I suppose.
If I have another failing at the forefront of the rest, it is that I see only what I want to see in people. And I tend to believe in the best of them. A charming naivete in someone who's purportedly poisoned in her soul. I suppose though, if I lost that faith in others, I would lose everything within myself.
In my heart of hearts, I do not particularly care what other's may think of me. Whether they like me or no, that is their decision. That they decide to respect me is also up to them. At the end of the day, regardless of feelings, I would have it that I've been aboveboard in my dealings with them, and entirely consistent. Beyond them is beyond me. Some may call this arrogance. They may very well be right. I call it a survival mechanism.
I know that I am not the easiest person to deal with by any means (a vast understatement according to some), but again, I am who I am. I will not compromise that. My own fault in that is that sometimes I will waver and temporarily compromise that, thus provoking an ugly response from the other party when I come back to myself. For those I've wounded, I do apologise as it was never intentionally done. Let that be as a lesson learned, more so for myself.
In Hamlet, Polonius tells his son Laertes:
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
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For pleasing others above yourself is an empty, foolish, and prideful task. Rather:
D. John. I wonder that thou, being,—as thou say’st thou art,—born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. 8
Con. Yea; but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta’en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest.
D. John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.
Con. Can you make no use of your discontent?
D. John. I make all use of it, for I use it only.
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Let us hope that I can but learn from my folly.
