Year 3, Day 308: Shakespeare Institute -- Giving Cause for Concern

For a PhD student, nothing stings quite so much as the expression, "Giving Cause for Concern."  It is what they put on your supervision form when they believe you to be underachieving in your writing.  They have just had a supervision with you where you could not answer all of their questions, because part of your process to get the most out of each meeting was to clear your mind (as it is sometimes hard to follow the supervisor's train of thought if you have your own agenda in there) and you couldn't think of a sufficient answer to the question they are now "Giving Cause for Concern" over.  Every time you have a supervision, both of the people assigned to you talk about you and your work until the very moment they have something else going on, a meeting, another victim, a lunch, or something, which can either be a good thing as they are excited by your work, or a bad thing, because they have a lot of criticism for you.  The strange thing is that you don't know which it is until about a day later... because all of us in the PhD business strut around this tiny village day in and day out needing to be taken down a peg or two... when you get the supervision report saying they are "Giving Cause for Concern" over the work you have just handed in.

I have been told I am satisfactory before in these reports.  I really have.  Never a "Very Satisfactory" from them -- which is a real classification, by the way, as if to say one's work could be "incredibly normal" or "ultra-mediocre" if one worked hard enough at it -- but I've been told that I am good enough.  On paper.  Where they, instead of highlighting "Giving Cause for Concern", I imagine them nodding to themselves and saying, "Oh, why not?  He's done an alright job for us this month, nothing incredible, and he certainly doesn't stand out from a crowd.  But we'll give him this moment... Satisfactory!"  It says a lot that you are aiming right at the middle of the bunch when you are writing a PhD (a work that is supposed to be an actual, original piece of scholarship, bt-dubs-) so that you don't rock the boat, or act the upstart, or insult those that have come before you.  I've been told that no one ever recieves a compliment around here, especially about their writing, when they are writing a PhD.  Once again, because us PhD students are the jackasses who invented the "construction-worker-wolf-whistle", the "I-don't-care-if-I'm-standing-in-a-crowded-elevator-fart", and "Donald Trump Hair", and therefore need a dose of humility every chance the administration gets.

I'm fairly certain I'm completely alone on this one.  No other PhD student has ever felt this way, ever. The fact that I have admitted to receiving a "Giving Cause for Concern" means that I am weak-willed and shall never recieve a University appointment, or that I shall be run out of town as soon as the villagers have decided to fire up the torches and pitchforks, or that my supervisors look on me with shame and embarrassment and will insist on calling every academic institution in the world after this to let them know that I am not worthy.  I will be relagated to a minimum-wage customer service call center in the middle of America for AT&T, or CableVision, or Comcast, or Verizon, or the complaint center for Young Misunderstood Democrats in Texas... My brain goes overboard sometimes, but you get the idea.  Getting this 'grade' is bad.

In fact, the only thing I can do, other than throw myself off a metaphorical bridge, is ignore this and move on.  Keep writing the best I can, and keep getting the crap kicked outta me.  Ask for acceptance and get denied.  Keep asking, keep writing, and one day I'll have a PhD and feel relief because I no longer have to ask people if I'm a bad writer.  This bad grade, as it were, is not recognized by me.  If I get kicked to the curb it will undoubtedly be unpleasant, but way less torturous than I have imagined it to be.

Today's lesson: If you tell someone they suck at something often enough, they will eventually ignore you and do it anyway without you.  If you express your disappointment in someone often enough, they will eventually ignore you and be awesome without you.  If you are taking your bad day out on everyone around you often enough, your friends will write it off as a personality quirk and avoid you on those days... your students will believe it is their fault, process this blame-cycle, eventually see reason, then ignore you and do it anyway without you.  Unless you are JK Simmons at the end of Whiplash, then and only then will your dickishness pay off in the form of a killer drum solo.

Dromio:
But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?

Antipholus:
Dost thou not know?

Dromio:
Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

Antipholus:
Shall I tell you why?

Dromio:
Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say, every why hath a
wherefore.

Antipholus:
Why, first, for flouting me, and then wherefore, for
urging it the second time to me.

Dromio:
Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason? -- Comedy of Errors (II.ii)

Year 3, Day 308 - Words Written: --Reset Counter Back to "0"--

Year 3, Day 294: Shakespeare Institute - "Listen to the PhD, child..."

The reason I am doing my PhD has been made clear to me many times.  I began this whole process in an effort to make people listen, and a PhD hanging on my office wall might help me do that.  If I publish a book, a few more people might listen.  I could change the world if I could only make people listen.  If only...

Instead, I have come to the conclusion that the PhD is for no one else but myself.  I have studied, researched, and written about Shakespeare, the RSC, and A Midsummer Night's Dream enough to know that a PhD is not a lesson to the rest of the world that speaks volumes about the guy who bothered to write it.  It is a lesson in listening.  You cannot come to a conclusion about someone unless you've heard their story, and even then, it is only speculation.  It is a lesson in learning.  No kidding.  When does research end and scholarship begin?  Right about the time you are no longer a casual observer, but an active participant in the process.  In other words, its as if you were watching a movie and then one of the characters on screen turned to you and asked, "hey, what do you think?" or actually reached through the fourth wall to shake your hand when you proffered it.  Not because you were looking to change things, but because you were paying attention so well that they in turn paid attention to you.  If you listen well enough and ask the questions that need answering, those that you would hear speak, will begin to listen.

The PhD does not make people listen to you.  Most people will pause maybe long enough to bother to see what the PhD was actually written on (e.g. paper or plastic).  Having the prefix "Dr." as anything other than an M.D. means that you are probably going to bore the crap out of them that listen to whatever it is you have to say, so why bother, right?  So, the smartest thing you can be in this world is a collector of stories, a listener, an examiner, and an inquirer...  (I'm not suggesting y'all start writing a magazine or newspaper, but if its something you believe in, could it hurt?)  ... and a PhD is the greatest lesson in listening ever devised.

That all being said, I suck at listening and really need to work on that.  Maybe if I yell a little louder, I will hear a little better.  That's how it works, right?

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WONT'S
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me-
Anthing can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be. --Shel Silverstein, "Where The Sidewalk Ends"

Year 3, Day 294 - Words Written: -- something, something, blog, something, the end --

REVIEW: Open Stages 2015 @ The Royal Shakespeare Company

I have, of late, noticed that the review I wrote for Twelfth Night a long, long, time ago still gets the most hits on this blog (and by most, I mean "tens" more than other posts), I thought I'd write another review.  This time it is for a one-off show that involves over 250 people being onstage in a single evening, a performance those performers will never forget and one that you, the reader, have likely never heard of.  It is the 2015 Open Stages Showcase, and it goes up this evening, and it is the culmination of two years hard work by amateurs all over the country and the folks over at the RSC.  This is a story, one of many I'm sure, that is told by one of the amateur practitioners that has been a part of the process since the beginning.  This is the best that I can tell it, I think... I might edit it later on.

In early July 2012, we, of the Shakespeare Institute Players, were asked by the RSC to pitch a play to the Open Stages Project that they were beginning in September.  Long story, very short, I pitched a play on behalf of the Players, a production of Measure for Measure set in "Dust Bowl" America, that was accepted to the project.  It was one of about 90 productions from around the country that was accepted to be a part of it.  There were a few reasons that all of us in the Players wanted to be a part of this incredible venture (and when I say "all" and "we", of course I am speaking just for me, when in fact there were lots of other people that took part in this.)

First, we got to work with the RSC, their staff, on their stages, in any capacity whatsoever.  We got to take classes with RSC professionals for free (Voice, Speech, Acting, Movement, Stage Combat, Stage Management, Directing, Design, Music, and many others) over the course of the next year.  As students ourselves, and ones that were paying the University of Birmingham for the privelege of being called so, a free class(es) with working practitioners at a professional company was something none of us wished to pass up.

Second, this was an opportunity to perform on stage at the RSC (or, in my case, have a production I've directed staged at the Swan Theatre.)  Putting the entire show up at the Shakespeare Institute in the summer of 2014, and having RSC professionals come to see it and give us critical feedback on it, was once again an incredible, enlightening experience.  The unique part of this was that, as a member of the Open Stages Project, we were to get together about a year later to bring the show back from the dead to rehash an excerpt of it on the RSC stage at the Swan Theatre (ten minutes, consisting of three scenes and one song performed as if on a speeded-up playback).  That day is today, 14 June 2015.

Third, in 2016, another project was going to happen cleverly called "Dream 16".  This is still to be (it hasn't happened yet) the culmination for the RSC on their country-wide collaboration and celebration of amateur theatre-makers that will be performed in February 2016.  The idea was that they would get a troupe of amateur actors to portray the mechanicals in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, including the rather large role of Bottom the Weaver.  We auditioned, we had fun, we did not get the part, such is life.

Fourth, this was our one (and most likely, only) chance to work in such a hallowed space.

My thesis topic, loosely interpreted, is the study of one particular production's design at the RSC, so I don't have the words to express my joy in all that has happened to me and around me for the last two years with regards to working with the RSC and the Open Stages Project.  That I get to see a piece of Shakespeare's work, directed by me, onstage at the Swan... well, that's more than I'd ever thought to hope for and I wish I could say thank you enough times for the people involved to start believing my gratitude.  Right now, I think it annoys RSC folk when I hug them for showing me to the toilet.

I know there were some companies that did not get into Open Stages, and even more companies that did not get into "Dream 16".  We were told only once after our audition (via email) that we weren't good enough, and that stung enough to know that I wouldn't wish it on anyone.  The reality of that is, I recognize the people who live with that feeling everyday (mostly other actors at other auditions) and have nothing but admiration for them as they pick themselves back up, dust themselves off, and try again.

The reason I mention that is because I would like to enlighten the disillusioned.  The project, and especially today here at the end of our two-year process, has not been all musk-roses, sunshine, and Shakespeare.  It's been the usual production hell that theatre professionals have come to expect around the world, and because it's the RSC, amp that hell up to about 1000 degrees centigrade, throw 220 actors on the barbie, and cook until they stop squirming and "just deal with it"... and you've got yourself one hell of a show that no one, well maybe the parents of the kids who are a part of it, will ever see.  If you are reading this, you probably know me and know that I have seen professional and amateur companies alike go thru "tech hell", it might even be that some of you reading this were actually there and know of what I speak... I'll just say, the assessment is equal and fair.

(On a more personal note, I would've preferred not to have been told by the company stage manager at the RSC that my lighting ideas in my production script were shit, or rather, "not-well-planned-out and terrible", but since she asked for design notes two months ago on a script and blocking that has changed many times since then... and she probably has union lighting guys barking in her ear about what a crappy set-up this was, and also what a shit detail it is to have to come in on a Sunday morning and cater to a bunch of non-professionals, she might also rather just be home sleeping... I figured she was just taking her anger, frustration, and crap out on one of the people that actually wanted to be there, and one that could do nothing about an RSC professional stage manager making their day just a little less bright.  I digress, and since this is my blog, I needed to vent so that I could return to that stage door this evening with my head held high.)

I'm not complaining.  Let me repeat that, I am not complaining.  I get to see "My Shakespeare, rise!" for the first time tonight in a place that I have and will call "church" for a long time coming.  Here's to dreams coming true and many more being created all at the same time...


"I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give."  -- Ben Jonson
"To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare"
(Printed on one of the first few pages of the First Folio, published in 1623)

Year ?, Day ? - Words written: ?
(this post is anamolous and should be considered outside the realm of PhD-land)

Year 3, Day 262: Shakespeare Institute -- What I've learned...

You don't need a PhD to become an authority on something.

(DISCLAIMER: No one will believe that you are an authority, or want to hear about your research, or ever discuss your topic with you at length or in any fashion whatsoever after they've heard you rant about it after the first, maybe your second, for certain, your third time.  But, hey, that happens to PhDs as well. All. The. Time.)

As a PhD, most of your research can be done for free, at a library, an archive, or a museum.  This privilege is also extended to those non-PhDs out there.  That's what libraries, archives, and museums are for, and most of them are free and/or reliant on donations.  You'd be surprised at how many people don't know this and insist on paying hundreds of dollars (US) or tens of GBP (UK) a month for the 'privelege' of getting the internet in their home (A lot of libraries, archives, and museums offer that for free as well.)

I won't lecture you in how you spend your time.

The point is that I have read and researched so much on my topic that I could now be considered an authority... but I'll keep reading this one last thing so that I can show off my smarts to exactly no one.  Just as some of my friends here have, according to me, become the authority figures on their own topics.  Should I ever have a question on John Fletcher (contemporary of Shakespeare), or really any of the Early Modern British dramatists?  I know who to go to.

A really potent idea that occurred to me this morning is that we, as a species, have recently spent a lot of time commenting on other people's strange fascinations, and as a result, tend not to pursue any of our own strange fascinations for fear of public ridicule, or even private shaming... disdain, jeering, or even 'badinage' (look it up).  It's perfectly acceptable to find biology interesting as your friend, the soon-to-be or already doctor of medicine, does in his spare time between saving lives and delivering babies.   It's alright, and I guess it's acceptable to play music as your friend, the talented one, does everyday... for four hours at no pay.  It's pretentious-and-more-than-a-bit-obnoxious acceptable to speak Shakespearean verse during everyday conversation as your soon-to-be-ex friend better stop doing when you are standing at a urinal.  That's weird, right?  Everywhere else, you've come to accept it.

The strange thing is that, it is not perfectly acceptable for you to drink coffee and tell the customers at Starbucks about how much you love it as you stand behind the counter making slightly above minimum wage with great benefits... you must hate that, right?  Don't you just hate crunching numbers as an accountant?  What is an economist and why is that useful?  Teachers have such a hard time, so they really must hate their jobs, don't you?  There must be something desperately wrong with you that you want to... wait, you want write a textbook?  That's even worse than what I was thinking that you did.

I'm betting that actress/hoteliere/banker who made twenty-two million dollars on their last film/real estate purchase/finance deal is so happy with herself/himself that she/he holds parties at her/his Malibu-Barbie-Beach mansion entitled, "I'm glad I'm me"... don't you want to be her, or him, or them?

You can know about the central nervous system without being a doctor, and it won't be weird, it'll be fascinating.  You can learn about the harvesting of coffee beans in Nicaragua and the plight of the worker without ever having worked as a barista or ever intending to hold a protest.  You can learn a new language because you want to, and learn the guitar because you like the way it sounds, and even work a Shakespearean quote into your next conversation because you're seeing if your friends notice it.  You're allowed to like stuff and study it and become an authority (a pretentious speaker and thinker of knowledge that far surpasses those around you) on just about anything that you are interested in.

----

The point of this rant is that we have gone so far to homogenize our lives and our interests that we forget to remember ourselves as the most important part of our own happiness, contentment, and regular source of entertainment.  The sentence: "I once spent a year learning how to hogtie a goat" is not one that is easily walked away from at parties, even if the explanation is as simple as"I felt like it."

-Quote to insert into your next conversation-

"Well, sir, learn to jest in good time:
There's a time for all things." -- Comedy of Errors (II.ii)

Year 3, Day 262 - Words Written:  Another 4,000.

Year 3, Day 248: Shakespeare Institute -- Recipe for the PhD

There is a process to making a PhD happen.  The first thing to do is have an idea.  Not just any idea, mind you, a good idea.  An idea that you think could change the world, or at least your small flat corner of it at any rate.  An idea that you can't get out if your head, and one that you, most of all, think is cool, or amazing, or interesting, or even, awesome.

The next step is to find a professor that is interested in your idea.  It's important to find a school at which you could thrive too, but find the professor there that is interested in exploring this idea of yours.  Check this professor out.  Do a background check as if you are the FBI and they have applied to work there.  Have they ever stolen someone's work and presented it as their own (or has there been a claim that such has happened)?  Who are their current students and what are they working on?  How long have they been at the job?  All of these things are important.  One, if they've been on the job ten years or more at this university, it is unlikely they will leave you in the middle of the PhD.  Two, if the other students are working on similar PhD ideas, you can talk to them about yours and bounce ideas off of them.  Three, if the professor has even had allegations from former students it is already an issue, and one that you want NO part of.

The third step is easy.  Get accepted to the university and professor of your choice.

Fourth step.  Change your idea because your professor has a better one for you, and you write that.  But keep your original idea in the back of your brain, and write some papers on it while you are writing the monograph known as your thesis.

Fifth step.  Add resolve.  Make a schedule, do an outline, keep it up for 3 or 4 years straight.  You are now working on a paper that you are somewhat interested in, that will maybe change the world but will most definitely rock your own little flat corner.  Your first book is going to be terrible, or more terrible than you dreamed it would, and no one will read it.  Don't worry, everyone's is and no one reads them (except Stephen King.  The man first started writing The Gunslinger in 1970 at age 23.  His first published novel was Carrie in 1974, that has since gone on to have movies and a Broadway musical written in just his first book's name.  We can't all be Stephen King.)  Write your first book/ thesis about something you're okay with screwing up.  The world changing idea will be your magnum opus.  Mr. King did not publish The Gunslinger until 1978.  He waited until he knew the idea had festered long enough.  Become a better writer first.

Sixth step.  Finish it and move on.  Don't let it sit by while you casually write a blog about the process.  Write the damn thing.  Get your PhD and pay off your loans.  Pick at the great idea and don't ever let it scab over.

---

All this is not to say that this particular cautionary tale has happened to me exactly.  I don't think anyone has stolen my ideas yet.  I didn't investigate the person who got me into this university and she left before I'd even met her.  No one here is doing the same investigative work I am, so talking with people in depth about my work is an impossibility.  The thesis I'm working on is not the one I wanted to do at the beginning.  I will finish it, and have used stories of famous authors and theatrical practitioners as inspiration to keep myself on the right path... or at least a path, with forward motion, that sometimes veers into a bog that you can only see five feet in front of you and you are pretty sure is completely filled with poisonous snakes, bugs that'll suck the life from you, and there is no way you come out the other side without being completely covered in shit.  But, hey, at least your putting one foot in front of the other and you haven't died yet.

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action." -- Hamlet (III.i)

Year 3, Day 248 - Words written: 4,000 last month... 4,000 this month... 4,000 next month.

Year 3, Day 202: Shakespeare Institute -- The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Writing an outline.  Again.  Writing up the Thesis Schedule, so that I have now planned to write 4,000 words a month for the next 17 months.  This will somehow result in the masses celebrating my ascension in education, and then I shall have an entire year after that in which to submit the 80,000 word monster (called, 'the write-up year').  That's me, all caught up.

What I've actually been thinking about is the poem, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron.  The first stanza of that piece is as follows:

You will not be able to stay at home, brother

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag

And skip out for beer during commericals

Because the revolution will not be televised.

It is that first line which I cannot get out of my head.  The implication that the speaker is family, or as close to me as my own, and that there is a revolution coming that I cannot avoid.  It won't be anywhere that it can be observed passively, for it is just beyond my front door and it is happening whether I want it to or not.  That my entire community, people I see, know, love, and laugh with, are and will be the revolution. (The rest of the poem is just as pertinent today as it was when it was released in 1970, which believe it or not, was 45 years ago.  Read it yourself, here.)

This poem, funny as it may seem, reminds me to get out of the house.  Rent a car, and drive to wherever.  Walk to the store.  Don't order it all online.  It even reminds me that if something pisses me off, I shouldn't post about it on Facebook.  I should write my congressman, my senator, my president, or even my friends, and tell them all about it.  I should be informed by all sides, not just the ones I agree with, and keep an open mind.  I should always remember that I am not a poster child for any one cause, but a free-thinking person who believes in many ideas... and so is everyone else.  Just because you agree on one thing, doesn't mean the person standing on the soap box is your brother, your family, or your revolution.  The poem reminds me that this has all happened before, and will keep happening until there is actually a revolution.  The world is not out to get you, and will not care about you unless you are out to get the world.  Get it?  Get it.

The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

I don't think any of this is especially relevant to my PhD, or the writing of it.  Call it an emotional purge, so that I can move on and not think about all the stupid stuff going on in the world, and praying that one day I will no longer have to think about it.  Praying that one day, a revolution will come to my doorstep.

Shakespeare wrote something similar, even though it wasn't a revolution televised that he spoke of, it was a book:

"O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die." -- King Henry IV (2 Henry IV, III.i)

Year 3, Day 202 - Words Written: 26,707 and counting.

Year 3, Day 177: Shakespeare Institute - Catching up.

Dear All,
This is a conglomeration of blog posts that I have begun, and summarily left to be finished at some later date... the first of which was written over three months ago around the New Year.  I have decided to clear the baffles, as it were, and post all of my half-assed dimwittery here.
Enjoy.

_____
I've written a chapter.  A whole damn chapter of about 25,000 words on one topic.  Mostly one topic, though I might have strayed a bit... gone off on a tangent or two... been a little preachy... told one or two long-winded stories... and bored the pants off the readers, who by the way, have read far better things in their lives and still have the patience to give me feedback.  God bless them.  (NOTE: It ended there.)
_____
I have had a realization, a few in fact, since I begun this journey through academia four and a half years ago.  The one that has become less truth and more fact in my mind is the realization that I am not the best at what I do, and despite my early life dreams of changing the world through the myriad of professions that I have attempted, I do not ever want to be the best at what I do.  I do not ever want to be at the pinnacle of my profession, nor do I wish to be famous for it.  I don't want to write the great American novel or play or pilot for the greatest TV show to have ever graced the medium.  I don't ever want the feeling of what comes afterwards, ever.

Bitter celebrity.  The resentment that comes with being on the backside and downslope of success is so debilitating that you feel as if your life has ended and yet you still breathe.  The world moves on and you stand still because all you see before you is downhill and uninspiring and the end of that wonderful high you once knew.  (NOTE: I was remembering my life as a professional swing dancer, and all the crap that came with it.)
______
I've been quite busy recently.  Now that one part of my life at the Shakespeare Institute is coming to a close, I think I can speak about it now.  I've been the Technical Director for the "Shakespeare & Creativity" MA module... (NOTE: I didn't speak about it, for whatever reason.  It's enough to say that in a few months it will be over and I can write about the experience.)
______

I wish that I could disappear into the background sometimes.  I wish that I could walk down the street and be just as anonymous as I was on the streets of New York.  I want to say, "I don't want to be responsible for you anymore.  I've got me, my wife, my life, and my work... I can't deal with you too."  (Note to future self -- this was said before any children are in the picture.)

I don't say this because I can't handle any of those things.  In fact, I couldn't be happier with me, my wife, my life, and my work.  It just seems that I have to hand-hold people who don't share my faith in me, or my ability to handle life.  Sometimes it comes in the form of wanting to look out for me, saying to me that I should consider something a little easier for my work or my life.  Sometimes it comes in the form of people not wanting to inconvenience me, so they dance around a subject so as not to make a conversation or interaction awkward.  Sometimes it comes in the form of them wanting to "make me smile" or "cheer me up" and so they presume that I would enjoy such an interaction because they would enjoy it themselves if someone would only think to do it for them (nudge, nudge... nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh? eh? eh?)  I have to convince people of my confidence in myself.

Think about that one for a second.  Convincing someone that you have confidence in anything, especially yourself, is surreal.  It's like trying to convince a lifeguard that you weren't drowning, but were in fact just swimming, all while he is trying to drag you to shore.  I guess the only thing I can do is relax and go with it, force a smile and tell them, "fine" and "no problem" as they condescend to me.  I'm a grown man.  I don't need hand-holding when a good kick in pants will do.  I don't need to be tip-toed around, just say what's on your mind.  I don't need to be cheered up by you, if I'm frowning while you are talking it probably has something to do with what you are saying to me and not an invitation to keep on spewing.

I appreciate the faith people do have in me.  I really do, and I truly wish that I could repay the kindness.  It is nice to know that you notice me, and are looking out for me, and that you got my back.  I think I need to learn a little more about instilling confidence in those around me, enough for them to know that I got this and they need to stop worrying.  I will ask for help, and I will be direct about it when I need it.

If you are reading this, it is highly unlikely that I am talking about you.  People who treat me this way do not read this blog.  I write it here to get it off my chest.  Venting the exhaust, as it were.  Don't take this personally, please.
______

Those earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights,
Than those that walk, and wot not what they are.
Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame;
And every godfather can give a name. -- Berowne (Biron) in Love's Labour's Lost (I.i)

Year 3, Day 177 - Words written: Enough for now.