The real me

I’ll start by saying that the title above is complete horse shit.

There are moments in my life that delineate my more ignorant periods from my less ignorant periods.  I recently had one of these delineating moments a few weeks ago.  A co-worker of mine came into  my office because some work was passed to him that originated from me.  At the time the work was passed to the group he was working for, I made a statement that would soon come back to bite me in the ass.  I said, “It works.”  I will henceforth qualify that statement with, “No guarantees though.”  This co-worker is a very sharp guy.  He told me what his opinions were very clearly about my early mistake plus some.  I deserved it, because it was a genuine mistake on my part.  That isn’t to say that I wasn’t being a little defensive about it.  I admitted that I made a mistake and explained that my lack of foresight brought about this error.  That would’ve ended it there for me if the co-worker had allowed to speak.  He didn’t.  He kept talking over me.  I could not get a word in.  I was the condemned man and the trial was merely a formality.  Let’s just say that I was a little hot-under the collar.  I raised my voice and gave him an assessment of my emotional state at that moment.  Paraphrase:  [I’m mad and you’re not helping the situation by keeping your gums flapping].  Luckily my phone rang followed by a conversation on it that dulled my righteous indignation enough to gather my wits and sheath my claws.  The universe wasn’t sure I had cooled my jets and thus rang my mobile phone almost immediately after the first call.  Assessing the situation, I took the call just to allow myself more time to cool off.

I finally got back to my co-worker who surprisingly was still sitting in my office.  I explained myself and apologized.  He left and I was struck by a thought.  Before my co-worker entered I thought that I was more mature than I was during my 20’s.  I had left my immature and passionate self behind.  After my co-worker left, it was obvious that there is still a vestigial part of me from that period.  It may have atrophied but it was still there.  A more nuanced thought followed.  The perception I had of myself absent other people’s input isn’t wrong.  The perception people have of me without my input isn’t wrong either.  What’s common is that they’re both incomplete.  I realized that the “real” me is the sum of everyone’s experiences where I’m involved.  The same goes for everyone else.  A man’s complete story is told by him and everyone he’s ever interacted with.