At times, there seemed to Benny’s mind that there was no steady progress, or at least no way to measure any personal changes. Not that this mattered a great deal to Benny most of the time, but now and then he wondered about the point or direction all this prognostication was taking him — which, were he asked, he would say was a curse, but I knew he didn’t really think it was all a bad thing. In fact, if there was one thing that Benny and his private thinkings were convinced of — yes, okay, I know, guilty as charged — it was that there were far more negatives to stumble over from not thinking things through and not keeping focused.
What had become obvious was that an authenticity of outcomes was never accompanied (never channelled) by the self-importance that so many others brought to their own game. In the easy space of unguarded moments, Benny would find an open truth — that taking himself too seriously, and clinging to that conceit, can be a one-way ticket to getting tangled up on his own two smug feet.
The main focus for all the efforts along the way was to keep those feet on the ground, not get too uppity, not get too convinced that there was anything special going on, or anything that wasn’t also in the ambit of every other person walking around. All the thoughts and realisations and even the occasional ‘yeah!’ moments he’d been through and collected and filed away could probably be distilled down to one main point … drop the bullshit.
It was like that steaming cup of tea in the sunlight, that pretentious confection that this would ‘look better’ to someone else. He was glad to have realised some of the ridiculousness that ego and self-aggrandisement can allow. And glad that he had the occasional unguarded moment to be reminded. He needed more of those.
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