The Quill of a Narcissist

My blog is largely a personal diary. It's strange really; the way I put into words some of my most latent feelings here, by simply imagining that this is some private space - much like the loose bundle of faded A4 sheets relegated to the corner of my very cluttered drawer or like the back page of my shiny-new semester-old "Renewable Energy" notebook. While, all along, I know that this is all but private; throwing my mysteries wide open to the very public I so meticulously hide them from and giving tangible form to certain cerebrations which I try desperately to hide from the cognitive part of my brain. It is something I simply can't avoid.

Personality tests jeer at me as they tell me that they are unable to place me as an 'Open' or 'Closed' person. 'Extraversion' is a greatly pursued quality and I'd be a terrible liar if I told you that I don't admire the kind who can do just about anything without giving it as much as a moment's thought. These are men and women who don't mind opening their lives out to the world and can remain all so comfortable despite all those prying eyes. These are the few who will not shirk a responsibility, shy away from hardship or run away from problems or even run around them. Head on - that's how they'll be taken down. These are people who can talk to anyone, anyone at all - be it a beggar, policeman, colleague, salesman, lecher, mayor, professor, lawyer, thief, boss... I hold these people a cut above the rest.

While there is no name which comes to my head when asked 'Who do you hate the most' and a very few come up as answers to the question 'Name your loved ones', I wonder if I really have the emotional capacity of a soap-strip! 20 years and only a half dozen names?! Now, really! But then, a quick revision allays these fears and gives birth an alarming number of new ones - Ones which makes my world a living purgatory. Because the outside world is left dancing blithely to the joyous tunes of a spring afternoon while the insides are tormented by the most vile and vicious wraiths; ghosts which will not leave.

I've often been told I think too much. I perform the process of thinking several times over, each time slightly varying a hypothetical stochastic variable, before the process of rethinking begins. In the end, the results are largely desirable. No one gets hurt. There is absolute control. There is no impulsiveness. The meagre changes which happen in life are feeble and they decay. But in the end, no one is hurt. One thing I can't bring myself to do is - hurt. To the extent that it often requires holding back desires, impulses, drives, urges, thoughts, dreams... While it hurts the self, no one else is hurt. And that's good.

I can talk to pretty much anyone. I can talk within that cage I have constructed for myself, with new bars apparating every now and again as newly formed barricades. I can open myself up to the world and be as extrovert as you want me to be - but you'll never really know me. I will detour around a possible threat and get a job done. Mind you, I'll do the job... even if it requires traversing a hugely convoluted path! And I will never let anyone know that I love someone or if I hate them, least of all myself. No wonder the damn Personality Test is confounded.

I've rambled on enough already... And even though I'll probably look at this and laugh tomorrow morning, I've decided not to think too much for once. I'm hitting 'Publish'. Cheerio.