keninabu!

Reflections at 3am

I went out with friends tonight, after the Senior dinner at the Masters house, and on the way back, as my friend was dropping off this (really drunk) girl, right before she gets off the car she was hugging everyone and kissing them on the cheek, and RIGHT before she got off, after she pecked me on the cheek as well, she said something like "I hated you when you wrote that email" from a long time back, and disappeared off to look for a guy.

It was really unsettling.

Especially since earlier in the evening, we had been given back our roommate questionnaire, that we had filled in before we had arrived at Rice in our first year, and I had read my responses, and just laughed at how idealistic and Buddha-wannabe I was. It was an arrogance that is unbelievable, and it's really not too different from the "I am holier than thou" attitude of a lot of evangelicals.

I was reminded about how arrogant I was, and what a complete idiot I was back then.

I was so unsettled by what she said that while I was walking around with my laundry and washing myself, what she said kept resonating in my head. I didn't know what to make of it, so I felt the only way was to write to her directly, and not apologize (an apology just seems too... cliched and insincere) but just, explain, I guess. Here's the email below:

---
Hi A.,

Haha, I don't even know why I'm writing you right now. I do kind of know why, but not exactly.

What's on my mind is actually the very last thing you said to me tonight as you left the car, when you reminded me about that inappropriate email I had sent you four years back, when I was a pompous self-righteous idiot (albeit well-meaning, but still a git nonetheless) and I ... can't remember exactly what I wrote in that email except that it was highly inappropriate.

Did I say you were not comfortable with your skin or something like that... ? (Well, I hope I didn't recommend any cosmetic products in the process since I don't do endorsements. Bad joke. )

In any case, what you said, coupled with the roommate form that we had filled out before we arrived at Rice, just jerked back all these memories of the past.

It is kind of surreal, how looking back at myself in time, I feel like I'm not looking at myself, but looking at another person called keninabu, a 21 year old guy who finished the military and thought the world of himself. A guy who meant well (like a lot of idiots in this world, including the Commander in Chief) and who thought he was capable of no wrong, and any mistakes would be easily brushed off with the fact that he meant well and no harm.

That he was like a trainee surgeon walking around with a machete offering to remove patients' cataracts with lobotomies, was beside the point: he meant well and that was his talisman against mistakes, against error. He really wanted to help.

Looking back now, I can't help thinking, "Man, I was such a dick". And on top of that, I was an evangelical dick who didn't even realize my fly was open while I lectured others on propriety.

I was a fucking idiot. The scary thing is, I'm going to look back at myself now in 10 years and say the same thing (based on my past experience).

It took the major incident with the psychobitch ex for me to realize that I really am capable of being a total asshole, and of doing real harm to others. That I'm no saint, I'm just an idiot trying to get by in a world that's sometimes confusing and bewildering.

That's part of growing up, I guess. The realization that there are deeper fineties and subtleties, and that there is such a thing as a blunt way of doing something and a skillful way to dealing with things. And the realization that the undercurrents run deeper than I sometimes realize, and I really am a selfish dick, who pretends to be Gandhi on the surface when deep beneath that layer lies Hugh Hefner wanting to par-tay.

What am I trying to say here? I guess I am trying to say that I understand, when you say that you hated me for that email, and for the other things about me that were behind that email.

I think that's what I really wanted to say. That I really understand when you said that. That I can empathize with you, because I have had to live with that person you hated all this time. That I'm sorry that was the case, but can only hope things have changed, because I have changed and you have changed and the world around us has changed.

I can only hope that I've changed for the better, and hope that I've become more humble and more tolerant of humanity for all its flaws, faults and bad skin, and that I'm not as arrogant, presumptuous or too goddamned earnest (the latter might be a genetic defect, like the enzymatic dysfunction).

And, I'm kind of glad you're honest about what you said, because... not many people are.
:)

In vino veritas. That's why I stayed away from the Long Island teas.

cheers,
k.

---

What I didn't say (and which is still keeping me up right now even after sending the email) is the worry that I'm essentially repeating the same mistakes again. I'm pretty certain I'm going to look back in five years, read this blog and think to myself, "good grief, I was such an idiot!"

It reminds me of how the Tibetans practicie humility by focusing on one's own imperfections and others' perfections: it's a good exercise.

And my friend's comment came as a timely reminder of precisely that.

posted by keninabu @ 3:28 AM