Talented People

Oooooh...I have an idea. Why don't I take advantage of the imaginary anonymity of a blog to tear the veil from all those nasty secrets that I prefer to ignore and make the whole thing into a full-fledged confessional? That sounds cool. Right, nobody here but me, and my friends, and my family, and all the random strangers that may wander in? Excellent. Here goes.

I can't stand talented people. Which is bad because many of my closest friends are talented.
But I try to ignore that fact. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I can't stand talent. Or rather, I can't stand other people's talent.

Yep, that's about it. Right out there. Funny, I always thought that pride was my deadly sin. Maybe a dash of sloth, but mostly pride. And here it turns out that it was envy all along. Whoddathunkit?

Only really it is pride, deep down. Waaaaaaaaay deep down, where there's a little nasty demon just made out of pride. And everytime she sees other people with talents that she doesn't have, or hears other people being praised, she starts whining and scampering and gnawing like a Hawthorne bosom serpent.

And to be honest, she really, really gets on my nerves. I mean, who exactly does she think that she is, demanding to be the center of attention all the time? Or getting annoyed that other people can do things that she can't? But unfortunately, you can not hit metaphorical anthromorphisations over the head with shovels. But I wish you could.

And do you know what drives her the craziest? The fact that I don't really have any of these talents at all. I played piano, briefly, until I realized that a)I would never be much past mediocre, b) the whole thing was rather boring and c) it took a lot of time and energy. There was a time in the past when I thought that I could write, but I daily become more and more realistic about the exact scopes of my talent. I am, I will admit, good at school and writing papers and things like that, but it is hardly the stuff of a well-rounded personality.

Ah, well. And no, I'm not writing to be provided with encouragement and love and compliments. Nor to be given strategies on overcoming my negative traits. Nor yet to be told to get a life, although that is what I most evidently need. And no, I do not sit about moping every time somebody does something talented, nor do I secretly hate you if you are talented. And no, I was probably not sitting there silently fuming if you have ever displayed talent in my presence. I'm not that bad. Not sure why I did write this, actually.

Probably just to help me wield the shovel.