\Inconsistency has always been one of my strong points,"" I told my girlfriend as I skillfully separated the three hooks from whatever it is you call what they hook onto. You'd think that every guy would learn that trick as fast as possible. It's probably the number two most self-satisfying thing that I can do with my right hand. Still, I can only do the trick about a third of the time. I like to keep the people guessing. It's exciting and they expect less.
This is an important issue for me, to find my strengths, because I am leaving college. There will be no more structure. Claiming that my skill is the ability to deal with my own inconsistency is a neat trick I can pull. It means that I'm aware of my occasional ineptitude but still believe that I can do things. It means that I will always claim to want another try. It's a great assertion of my ability to learn, but then again sometimes I'm dense.
Still, inconsistency only goes so deep. There are certain things that will always be consistent about me. If I see a flower I will like it. I will always think that my tragic flaw is my capacity to find flaws in myself. I will always have a big head about knowing that about myself. I will always see that as a flaw and a secret little joy because it maintains the circular logic and I can keep knowing my mind in a biblical way over and over again.
You go to schools to find yourself, is what folks say. I went to college with the intention of finding new things about the interrelations and/or interactions of animals. I soon empirically discovered that the interaction of my short attention span with the rigors of empiricism did not make for good science.
So I turned to English and found a crazy world of yes AND no, entropy AND progress. I could apply my limited knowledge of DNA to the words ""genius"" and ""origin."" I felt happy when I realized that genius has meaning related to genesis and origin to originality, because it means that there always has to be a base to build on. Nothing that comes can shatter what came before. This means that things change and yet maintain a certain unity. Inconsistency is verified, vindicated and limited! The world is still the unified world, even though we can't totally know it. Ditto humans. But then, if there's a unity, shouldn't everyone's destiny be clear? Inconsistency!
I always thought that I was born to be a paleontologist or the first man on Mars, hopefully the first paleontologist on Mars, but those things aren't going to happen either. If there had just been dinosaurs on Mars, then I would have worked hard enough to become a paleontologist.
I'm cool with not being a paleontologist though, and there's still time for the other two, so maybe I'll get around to that once I'm out of college. My keychain flashlight of a mind is firmly trained on the eventuality of moving to Chicago with my girlfriend, and that tiny flashlight isn't illuminating much. I see some arts and crafts on a living room table. There's a typewriter on a small desk. There's an herb garden in the window and possibly a cat. I want to act like a grown-up, which, from what I've written here, appears to be a gay man. No wonder my aunt asked me about that. I'm just excited that soon I will get to define my own version of grown-upness. Now if I could just stop calling other people grown-ups, that would be a first step.
scavenberry@hotmail.com.
