Know-It-All

When I was young, I thought I knew everything. Okay. I didn't actually think I knew everything.

Adults always believe kids think they know everything. However in hindsight, I realize the attitude they are spying, YET I do not believe it is as they interpret.

A child is a student. A student of academia. A student of the household paradigm. A student of life. The only knowledge youth lends itself to is all the fundamentals. It’s easy to turn our noses up to the people who claim to “know best” when they don’t know algebra, they don’t know Avogadro’s number, they don’t remember how the Merchant of Venice ends, they don’t know how to get the boy, and they don’t know where I left my book bag. Then what DO they know and honestly why are they confused at our doubts of them knowing “it” best?

I never thought I knew everything.

I was, however, naive enough to think I knew more… and in some things I did. I only realize now knowing a lot about the material things of the world is NOT the same as knowing a little about the principle lessons of the world.

In fact, if we ever came off as knowing everything, it was probably a result of our measuring it against how much we knew in relation to the most essential thing… ourselves. Knowing zilch about ourselves translated into knowing a great deal about anything else.

As I have grown older, I have come to understand the importance of self-awareness. My success in my public and private life are a direct result of my self knowledge (or lack thereof sometimes.) The more I learn about myself, the less it seems important to remember all the phases of mitosis.

Furthermore, self awareness is only the jumping off point to acquiring a fundamental understanding of relationships and THIS is the CHIEF LIFE LESSON learned. When we are able to comprehend and then identify with others, the rest seems to crumble and dissipate.

Today I spoke with my father. For a few minutes of my life, I was allowed a glimpse into some of his essence. The topic was casual on my side and still I listened as our conversation flowed into an exposure of a painful encounter he once experienced. For a brief moment, my heart ached for a man I hardly know and a man who hardly knows me. Yet I desired as I never have before to hear of his “story”.

In the tenderness of the incident, I realized I knew nothing about him. And as I pondered on this, I realized I knew nothing about us. And as I pondered on this, I realized just how little I truly know.

Still I was grateful for the miniscule self knowledge I had. Without it, I might never have been able to identify with his emotion. I might never have realized the importance of it all. I might never have realized another viewpoint in life besides my own. One which may not have existed in me in that particular encounter but one which does exist within me.

Additionally, the more I know about me and those whom I relate with, the less I care about knowing the specifics of the world.

Me and the Morning

Every morning I awake to the beeps of a battery powered alarm clock. This vexes me. However, when the showering and the dressing and the apartment door have been locked behind me, I find myself in the car driving towards heaven… or as others call it, the gas station.

I have come to love this place since the day the college graduation tassel was packed away. (Ironically, I don’t have a college graduation tassel. I never attended my college graduation.) I spent the first month lackadaisically relaxing and then scurried around to find a job to support my adult lifestyle… alright my dwindling bank account.

I knew right away the workforce and I weren’t a good fit. I recognized this the same day the tassel was packed away. My college education satisfied my own personal curiosity and left me with little supposed value to employers despite the fact I believe a good knowledge of human behavior to be essential in this game we call life. The day my education ended, my grief commenced.

Don’t cry for me. I have proven a late bloomer in ALL areas of my life and assume career to follow perfectly in suit with what I have discovered about myself so far. I will find my niche.

Yet as an optimist, I have established a love affair with a social aspect to the workforce. The morning wake-up practice. Daily I make my way to the Mecca of others like me. The “evening” people or more importantly, the “non-morning” people gathering place. The caffeinated watering hole. The gas station though more significantly used and less frequently referenced as the convenient store.

It has taken on many names in my lifetime. 7-Eleven in my college days. Sheetz in my inaugural labor encounters. Mavrick of late. After all, I concur with the great playwright Shakespeare when he penned “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

I enjoy going there each morning. I have never awoken with any innate sense of civility in me. It’s something which has always come after an hour of open eyes, a decent beverage, and the knowledge of all around me to leave me to myself while my sluggish brain instigates the battle to once again perform.

Still, when I saunter into the store and the construction workers are buying sodas and processed meat sticks, the white collar drones purchasing coffee and newspapers, and the rest of us an energy drink and pop-tarts, against my initial morning grouchiness, I’m forced to smile. These are my people and this is my place.

This is where I wake. This is where I watch. This is where I continue to learn about the human condition in spite of that packed away graduation tassel. This is life in the real world and I can join forces with it. I fit into this.