Jamie

CYNIC (noun)-- A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
"Shell Game"“Do you ever contemplate your place in this world?” she asked without ever looking at me. She did not even stop twirling her finger in the sand, something her fidgety self felt compelled to do from the moment we sat down on the beach.I was watching the seas meet the sky and listening to the tide crash against the shore. I only heard the tail end of her question, but I knew it would be best to come up with an answer off the cuff rather than ask her to repeat it. I knew her well enough to understand the kind of questions she would ask anyway. Such was the danger of befriending a Philosophy major.“No,” I said. “I am not that deep.”She finally looked up at me with brow knit. She stopped twirling her finger in the sand long enough to give me a disbelieving nudge on my upper arm. It was enough to finally draw my attention away from the water.“What?” I asked in mock surprise.“You. You are one of the most reserved people I know. Half the people you know think there is nothing going on in that head of yours and the other half are dying to pick your brain. I am in the latter half,” she said.I let out a deep sigh. This was not something I wanted to talk about.“About seven or eight years ago, I thought I was going to be a rich lawyer and beat a pathway to the governor’s mansion before I was fifty. At some point, I outgrew the idea, realized I might make a good but not great living, and could not win so much as a city council seat with my prickly as a porcupine personality. Now that idea is even gone with my health being what it is. So, no, I do not contemplate my place in this world.”“Why not?” she asked. I took a moment to be thrilled I hit the nail on the head in figuring out her original question. I hate looking like a clueless ninny. The joy did not last long, of course. Reality is a constant companion.“My world is…small. Smaller than it has ever been. My place is irrelevant.” I told her.“Oh, good grief,” she grumbled. She turned away from me and took a quick scan of the surrounding sand. She picked up four seashells scattered about and then placed them in a formation between us. As usual, I braced myself. I knew she was about to get a poignant lesson even though I had no idea what it might be.“Pick one up. Any one of them,” she said.I played along, hovering my hand over all four before I picked the one closest to her. I held it in my hand and looked up at her quizzically.“Now, what have you changed?” she asked.“Nothing,” I said. She rolled her eyes.“Come on. Think a little.”“All, right. There were four and then I moved one. Only three remain,” I answered.“That is why you are so cynical. You fail to see the big picture. You saw four shells and now there a three. You fail to realize those four shells, in that place, were a component of the entire world before you moved one. You have not just moved one shell. You have changed the entire world,” she told me.I looked at the shell in my hand, tossed it into the air, and caught it again. I cannot tell you how much I hated it when she did these things to me.“You know, that sounds like some hokey junk George Harrison would write a song about,” I quipped.“Could you just let me bask in the moment of using my liberal arts degree? Just once?” she asked mockingly.We both quietly stared off into the setting sun over the ocean waves. I let her bask. I had a lot of other things to think about.(Never Quite) The End

Does anyone actually read these things--particularly when they are so long? I tend to doubt it. Besides, the above factual fiction/fictional fact is about all you need to know about y current state and mindset. I have turned a rather sharp corner into uncharted territory in my life in which I am trying to find my own way. I have spent most all of my young adult life working towards a legal career. When I say young adult life, I am referring to about the age of sixteen on. You can call it a drive or an obsession. I will argue with neither assessment. It’s a long story, but fate stepped in more than once there towards the home stretch to keep me out of the legal profession. I go back and forth as to whether I am upset about, relieved, or just plain dazed and confused. Someday there will be a definite answer, but for now I wander about. I live a quiet, subdued life working on a novel mostly and playing with screenplay writing for kicks. It was always a second career choice for me, but I never could take the plunge and risk my lifestyle chasing rainbows. Had I known I was more risking my life by pursuing a law degree so doggedly, I might have changed my mind. In fact, if given the chance, I would go back to see my 17 year old self on the night I filled out my college application and kick him square in the behind for not studying journalism or becoming a history teacher instead so I could have time to write.
Do you want my life story in a nutshell? I can hamdle that. I was born December 11, 1976 in Hartsville, South Carolina. I became a Christian at the age of five while attending a private school run by a Baptist church. My entire school career was spent there. I graduated valedictorian and got a free ride to the University of South Carolina. Law had sounded like a fantastic idea from tenth grade on and Political Science seemed like the key to the law school door. Ergo, I studied the most useless academic subject this side of art history. I went through all the motions, working on political campaigns and quickly realizing these people were o good and I was fast becoming on of them. It is kind of like riding a tiger: you don’t want to stay on, but you don’t want to get off, either. After graduation, I spent a year as a real estate agent and living an out of character for me bohemian lifestyle while piddling around with novel writing for the first time. A health problem delayed law school yet again, but I eventually wound up at a fundamentalist Christian law school at which I fast became a moderate Christian and a much more spiritual person. Here is where the above story comes in and takes us to today.
There you have it. Your swashbuckling, aspiring writer, reluctant law degree holder in a nutshell. Otherwise, I am a pretty normal guy. I’m cynical, sarcastic, a bit melancholy, somewhat of a misanthrope, yet with a sense of right and wrong that annot be compromised. I have become a lot less rigid politically and religiously, preferring to let everyone do their own thing and take their lumps as they come. It is still a learning process for me and that process fuels my interest to write. As much as I regret the twists of fate that put me in my curent predicament, I have been given the freedom to write whenever I want for however much time I feel without having to worry about much else. It is not what I ever envisioned, but how often does life ever wind up like that? If any of this has inteested you, I keep a regular blog apart from MySpace called Eye of Polyphemus you may also like. Regradless, thank you for stopping by.
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