I wander through life slightly ajar. About a decade ago a friend of mine Gretchen, whom I’d reconnected with in the first Facebook boom of 2008. A reverse exodus of Gen Xers flocked to the app to see where their college, high school and childhood friends had landed. Sometimes with awe, and other times with a “I knew that loser wouldn’t amount to anything,” sort of glee.” Gretchen fell into the first groups. Always cool, a college friends ex girlfriend, she got away to Oregon and settled well.
I bring her up because somewhere along the way of our reconnecting, we were messaging back and forth and she either said I was or implied she was being “willfully obtuse”. I loved that saying so much and I still use it today.
I like it because despite it probably having its own direct definition, there’s a little wiggle room. Obtuse means to be difficult to understand. Not sharp. Blunt. All of these applied. Over time I’ve used it as a way to describe someone who’s also trying to put on airs and be something they’re not. Poetic license’s power lying in the writers hand.
That was a tangent. The first sentence is what I’m really thinking about a lot of the time. I look at the world from a truly “I know that’s how the rest of the world does it, but this is how I do it,” point of view. I think it’s special and unique. A lot of times it’s just the harder way, but I can’t change that. I think one day you’ll understand. That you’ll see that my way is different. Unique. Maybe better.
In the 90’s I played music. I remember working with a number of musicians, many more talented than I. We all played shows and had some moderate successes. I always felt that I was different. That what I was doing was somehow more serious, better, that they didn’t get it but they would one day. Or at least they’d see when I made it. I never made it. I still think it was different.
To say this is all narcissistic, discounts the deeper truths. That people who create and start things have to think this way. Right? You have to have an inner confidence in what you’re creating to fight off the eternal doubts. Any artist can copy what’s out there and try and be what already is and some do. I don’t think a lot of the best ones do. To create is to let it out of your soul in whatever shape it is.
To be willfully obtuse implies that you’re faking it and it goes a lot of ways. A lot of people find out (too late) that they’ve willfully fit themselves into what the world says they should. 9-5 real jobs with benefits and keeping up with the Jones’s. I sometimes long for that, because the way my brain says to go seems to be harder a lot of the time. I simply can’t do it that way.
After a long time of doing this,“this”being feeling like I am swimming against all the currents, I do get to see my ways achieve some success. This feels vindicating internally even if it’s not much of anything.
As I sit here and consider my version of willfully obtuse I realize we all think it’s different for each of us. How can it be anything but that as we gaze out from our own perspectives? It’s okay to embrace that. To be steadfast in saying that “you don’t get it,” because how could anyone, really.
Today, like almost every other, Ill do it my way.
Willfully.
Obtuse.
#hugsandhi5s
