Finding the Middle

I have an all-or-nothing personality. My task at this point in my life is to try and find a middle ground.

People don’t like middle grounds. We like conflict and gladiatorial bloodshed. Hell. I like conflict and gladiatorial bloodshed. But trying to point out that this is not Rome and that we cannot turn everything into Russell Crowe fighting a guy in a scary mask does not go over well with anyone, myself included. Even trying to stay neutral causes conflict. Trying to make judicious decisions, or even arguing that the world we live in is not concrete but fluid, gets you labeled as an untrustworthy fence-sitter.

Maybe I am. But to be fair, it’s not easy. Here’s what I’ve ascertained so far, sitting on my pickets.

I should probably be an atheist, but I believe in God nonetheless. I’m incredibly cynical and jaded when it comes to romance, but if my iPod were played in public all lactose intolerant persons in the near vicinity would drop dead to the ground, choked to death by cheesy Spanish love songs and the angry eminations of their own treacherous intestines.

I am both the cause of much chaos and the solution to it. Depending on the situation, I can be yin or yang, leaving me to wonder if I am a boring person with a wild side or a wild person with a boring streak. In the words of James Hilton, all things in moderation – even moderation. Dull situations turn me into the ladle that stirs the pot of excitement, but during exciting times, I am the sole voice of restraint. Perhaps one day when those sides of me balance into quiescence, I will be the ladle of restraint among my friends and neighbors in Shangri La, prodding shy cattle forward and rapping the knuckles of unrighteous.

I have a knack for thinking only of myself, of being shortsighted and egotistic, reducing my world to something "manageable." Yet under the right circumstances, I can be nuturing, protective, concerned, patrician to the point of mothering people into eating more tacos when they are clearly full. I’m told I’d be a good shrink or a good mob boss.

I am a reactionary rubber band prone to snapping clear across to the other side of the room in a fit of devil’s advocacy. I hide things in plain sight, and I tend to distrust gut feelings, both because they are uninformed and because I have IBS, so the only feelings in my gut are painful ones. I have good instincts, though. I just usually disregard them. I turned 21 a few months ago, but most people think I’m at least five years older. And married for some reason. Trying to act younger just exacerbates people’s perceptions.

I am no closer to finding the middle than when I started writing this. Maybe if I throw more rocks into the Yin-Yang pond analogy posited by Wikipedia, I can watch the ripples even out and then figure it out.

Philosophy and introspection blow.