LISTEN TO MYSELF
I have often during the last seventeen years referred to my "counselor." I have invoked him as the reason for breaking commitments I had made, for launching projects seemingly inconsistent with my general behavior, for suddenly ending relationships I no longer wanted to maintain, and for countless acts and decisions which seemed to need an explanation. He has functioned as guru, jury, father confessor, advice columnist and so much else. Occasionally, impressed by what they believe to be the wisdom of his judgments, people have asked who he was and how he could be contacted. I smile at times like that because--well, the secret's out: I myself am the "counselor." I created him because I am a coward. I cannot "discard" a lover when that is precisely what I am doing: I have to offer reasons rooted in my various physical and psychological ailments--all, of course, in the language, and sometimes technological vocabulary of my "counselor." I do not have the guts to refuse certain invitations on the grounds that I will be bored, or that I dislike the individuals involved. So: every morning, for twenty minutes, I get comfortable in my reading chair, and THINK. I review the events of the previous day, promises I have made and want to break, things I am committed to do in the future, relationships, mistakes, anticipations--all aspects of my living. If there are things I want to change or do, without revealing real reasons, I compose a message from my counselor, mostly to get off hooks I have impaled myself on. He is often my only shield against blunders shaped by the screaming demons of my depressions.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: I would rather sit on one unripe watermelon than on ten thousand overripe plums.
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A SELF UNSHARED SHRIVELS.