My Secret Vocabulary: Butt-Ass-Naked

Friday, April 17, 2009

Butt-Ass-Naked

Have you ever felt like you were completely exposed?

In my experience, while it is somewhat disconcerting at first, it is quite liberating.

The last time I felt like that was about a month ago while giving a presentation to four big-whig execs inside a small conference room of the manufacturing facility of the largest industrial manufacturer in Jacksonville. "This is my account," I thought. "This is the first step to the rest of my career. Don't blow it!" (Don't we always do this in these situations. Blow them up in our minds like balloons that are bound to burst at any second.) Nervous, yet prepared and confident, I did great.

I remember the turning point. It came just after I stuttered and stammered my way through a defensive explanation of our position in the face of a ridiculing question from the Largest man in the room. He was short, he spoke with an accent, and he didn't exactly look like a "Man with the Plan." He was smooth though. His game was like Billy from White Men Can't Jump; disguised and sudden enough that you didn't know he 'got you' until it was too late. As I spoke, he stared me down as if to weigh my composure with each of his now very aware eyes. When I finished, full of myself on adrenaline, I directed a deliberate glance with a quarter-cocky smile toward him. He smiled back approvingly and I felt about thirty times better. Better, not because I felt "clothed", but better, because I now felt comfortable in my own skin.

I guess it has been a necessary skill for me to acquire in my 26 years as a red-headed, freckle-faced, allergic-to-air ginger with mild astigmatism. At a certain point, a Man must shrug his shoulders, laugh at himself a little bit, confidently slap the court hard with both hands, look those whom you fear dead in the eyes, and do whatever it is that you do.

"This is me, Butt-Ass-Naked."

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Why Blog?

Or perhaps the question is, why write?

Within each of us, there is a creative itch that longs to be scratched and writing is the way that I scratch.

But if you asked me why I want to be a writer; if you really had to freakin know, I'd tell you that no one really wants to be a writer. I'd say that I wanta change the world with a blue pen. I'd say that I'm a philosopher and a hypothetical painter and I want the Sistine Chappel and I want to depict all of life's little intricacies and be read and influence and imprint myself upon many others or, at the very least, just one person at the time. But I don't nessesarily want to be a writer.

At present, I'm a young aspiring liver, still walking just beyond the fork of that safe road that is otherwise travelled - you know, the one that is beset on all sides by security and uncomfortable shoes and collared shirts and/or neckties that are color-coded to the weather, and it's bordered by walls of spreadsheets and monday morning meetings and the company of perpetually-wrinkled forehead, gray-haired men who live in mediocre-tall houses and spend their coffee-stained-teeth lunches whisperedly dreaming of the one-day fruit of their 401k fortunes and talking about those poor young wretches who'll never know the ways that used-to-be.

But more specifically, I'm a two-sided man - coffee-stained-teeth luncher by day, Manmoth by night, and a 12-year old for at least one hour per day. But really, you see, I'm an economist right down to the souls of my shoes, and I'm an endlessly endeavoring understandinger of the seemingly endless external and internal aspects associated with all aspects of human life and in looking for the ways in which they differ and, more importantly, are alike.

In that, I guess you could say that I'm an altruist and that's what interests me and, at the very least, I have my philosophical question - "What is Good?"

But enough of the present this rant and these blogs are about a aspiration for a greater life.

In short, money, more college, travel and writing, good times, fun, publish book(s), make one of 'em into a movie, more college, teach, charity, love, experience, passion, growth, pursue interests and learning. The only real order of which is the money and the college, each of which are pivotal to the attainment of the rest.

But why blog?

I blog because I'm not yet a published writer and it feels good to put oneself out there, butt ass naked and vulnerable to the whole world and, in short, be read.

But then, why write?

To change the world with words appease my curiosity at the same time. One day, once I've written about twenty-seven best sellers at least four hundred and thirty articles and I feel like I've mused on all there is to muse, I don't know what I'll do to scratch this itch that doesn't seem to ever attain satisfaction. At that point, I guess I'll have to learn to spell or paint or play the guitar or maybe then it'll be about time to roll over and die. (For more vocabulary, visit www.mysecretvocabulary.wordpress.com )