I have organized my thoughts and lists alphabetically as long as I can remember. I find myself wanting to memorize lists as exercise, and going through the letters is a standard method. I used to doodle the alphabet, using different ways of writing the letters, bubbled letters, long narrow lines illegible until the pad is angled up, cursives and angles and blocks, shadowed and scribbled, and later in the army phonetic alphabet. Very useful when I began to work at the library. Mis-shelving I called "creative alphabetization" with great derision. It's a random ordering, ultimately, but one that is grooved into my brain. I even taught myself to recite it backwards, and know it in finger spelling, when I was small.
I've been pondering generosity lately. Because I'm not. Oh, with my time, my heart, yes. But with food, or something made, products of effort, no. I remember having to bring cupcakes to school, using as little frosting as possible, because I wanted it myself. Didn't mind about the cupcakes, but hated the idea of giving all that wonderful frosting to children who bullied and taunted me. I don't mind sharing food at my home, but I don't want to bring food for cow-orkers who actually enjoy cooking, when I don't. As a result, I eat little when I visit family, not at all at pot-lucks when I don't bring food. Seems only fair. I like free stuff, but not when I feel I should reciprocate. So, I dislike gift giving occasions, because I have almost never gotten anything I would want, and I don't like giving random gifts that will not be the right things.
Trades need to be more or less even, and if I don't trust others to please me, or me to please them, then I'd rather skip it.
On the other side, I'd like to be generous, not count so much. I think I'd be a happier person. But I also think that although I can live better, my basic character, my core mood, is what I have to work with. And I will never be optimistic and chipper consistently. This grim cynicism is such a large part of my natural resource, that to be otherwise is to try to build a grass shack when all I have are bricks. I have choices, I can learn to cope better, I can be more happy, but I will still be dark and sarcastic and sad me. I can oscillate around that core, but I must be myself.
6 comments:
well put
I wonder if this should not have been two posts, the first alphabetical, the second generosity.
I try to be generous whenever it is convenient to be so, and a little more often than not at all when it is inconvenient. So far this has served me well.
Keeping to your nature is, of course, the wisest thing to do as that is what you would be doing anyways.
60
I have my moments.
PP
But what if you are an evil genius?
The last paragraph delighted me with its eloquence and resonance.
You almost throw away the matter of heart and time, as though they were not by far the more important things...
Tousers
I live to delight.
Lucy,
Do I?
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