Well, isn't today a day without precedent.
I'm writing on my blog which no one knows, and there's no sarcastic ramble in it. Not even one joke about myself or anything else I happen to be angry with today.
There's nothing to be angry about today, it seems. Nothing to joke about either.
Call me crazy, call me depressed, call me queer. And then again, call me excited.
It's tomorrow.
My first interview in, say, 4 years? It's hard to say how I feel, hard to even put thoughts to words and make them flow. Feels like a two year old trying to say 'slappablelebility' five times fast (thanks, Andrew Tam for this single word tongue-twister - you say the darndest things.)
Maybe it comes from having actively rejected this kind of experience for the mediocrity that I always believed I was fine with.
What was I then? Jaded? Inexperienced? Afraid? Lazy? Maybe all of the above, but definitely not none. Why else, I ask myself sometimes, would I have procrastinated so long to the point where I was sufficiently ruined, and for some reason had no confidence in getting what I wanted even when I decided I really wanted it, retreating instead to a pretentious cynical indignation at the so-called stagnations and shortfalls in the leadership. Reflecting upon it now, I can only call myself three things:
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. That I should be the source of my own troubles is tragically so laughable, and tragically so human.
But times like these are not times for moping; I've sort of gotten up from these falls of mine, and I know that I can still say 'Hey...this leadership thing, it's actually a lot of fun!' It's not just talk in a vacuum: The obvious thing is that if you draw meaning from doing something, it'll be fun to you.
Though, Confidence is one thing. Ability is another. Desire is only the tip of the iceberg. I believe I have all of those, but after those emails that were sent to us, and especially after the Council Talk and reading a blog that asked that very question, I've begun to consider these rhema more than ever before, though it has bugged me many times before: What is it that drives my desire, that raison d'etre for Council that will make me do it even when it gets hard, even when I'm shaken to my roots?
And then, it suddenly comes to me: Don't I already know what drives me in those times? I feel this is something that we have all felt before; that pure joy that lasted a fleeting moment when we saw the beginnings of a smile playing on the sides of a person's face, a face filled with genuine gratefulness for something that we have done; that joy that rests upon us like a cloak of light before it is sullied by our encroaching egos.
As a person and as a leader, I feel that I should strive towards those moments - how much that we avidly desire for its own sake or for some selfish want lasts any more than we need it, or any longer than the fad or whatever demands of us? Not many, and the time for which we will enjoy before it comes a dread weight is less.
But desiring leadership and that power is not craven in itself unless done for the sake of itself.
I was happy during my time as an EXCO in RV (Yes, I'll always love you guys! =3). I don't remember a moment when I genuinely hated my job, and I can proudly say why: It was because I was doing it for the good and the betterment of other people. Well sure, the CCA record looked pretty cool at the end of Sec 4, but it's in the end just a bunch of names and numbers that aren't really worth in themselves all that we went through to get it.
Big deal if I exceeded the maximum number of hours for CIP. Big deal if I went for almost every major CCA event there was since Secondary 2. If doing it without heed to the hours was hard enough, I can't imagine how torturous it would have been to do it if the hours was all I was thinking about. Just mere statistics or the brief glimmer of glory could never fulfill us or make things worth remembering other than a memory of bravado under fire, even if they could ostensibly do justice to all our blood, sweat and tears, no: It was the people, the smiles, the thank-yous, the toasts, the fun times even through hell and back that made things beautiful.
It's an old saying that the 'joy is in giving', and it's true; cliches all have truth in them when you look closer, and in this case, it's not just a touch of truth; it's a touch of heaven.
So then, it is not too young to have a life philosophy at 16, Dennis. We're going on 17, anyway, and the sooner we take a stand the better. I want to make people around me happy, and so do you. Is that a life philosophy? It's striving towards altruism, which is humanly impossible, but does that make it any less a good thing? Does that make it any less an ideal? Does that make it any less a good philosophy?
No, my dear boy. It's not fully formed yet, of course - neither yours nor mine, but it's something to start out on. It's at the very least...noble.
Now I guess some thanks are in order, I guess, even if it'll be as hard to find as my blog (which is conveniently isolated - I'd thank you all personally if only I knew who you were, even if there was only a few of you). I suppose I'd like to say 'thank-you' to those people who nominated me - thank you for telling me that I'm not the person I think I am, and that I don't have to be: You all reminded me that I can be much more than that, and for that I am grateful.
Also, thank you, all of you who smiled at me whenever I did something, whether I was self-serving enough to ask for it or not. It really did make a lot of difference, and I wouldn't have the guts to even write this if it wasn't for you people.
So, I've really thought it through this time: Though I'll give it everything I've got tomorrow, it doesn't really matter to me anymore if they kick me out of council over my screwed-up GPA or my accursed academic-competitions codex.
Okay, maybe I'll gloom over it for a while if it happens; I don't know how I'm not supposed to or anything like that, because that would be far too out of character for a human to not be disappointed at not getting something they are hoping for even if they are not daunted by it.
And if I do get in, I'll do my best to avoid the pitfalls of falling into the same lot as the eponymous dishonest scales, which can and most certainly will come with the popularity contest (and I believe that this is something that I am justified in being skeptical of) that is campaigning.
Ah, enough of that, too much stress is what I'm giving myself for just The Day Before. So, this is, and will be, my wishlist for life in RI(JC):
I want to give everything my all in all things - I've been impotently jaded with slacker leaders (and my own slacker tendencies) long enough.
I want to treasure my friends and the people around me like never before - they're family, and they deserve my respect and my gratitude for being there for me when all my philosophizing seemed so hard to put into practice.
I want to really love school and learning in school. Yeah, I wanna love school, every single unending period of it, just like I came to love 'leading by serving'. To quote someone whom I am indebted to in spite of what it looks like, it's an 'acquired taste'; I am determined to acquire it.
And at the end of these two years, I want to be able to say that I have added some vibrance...
...into this life of technicolor Green, Black, and White.
So help me God. Today, tomorrow and forever.
Amen.
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