John Swinburn

The difference between confidence and arrogance is like the difference between belief and desire; there’s a connection, but it is distant and labyrinthine. There exists a similarity, too—and a gulf—between confidence and timidity. The appearance of timidity does not necessarily signify a lack of confidence; it often signals respect for another’s right to hold a different point of view.

As I sit at my desk, peering out the window into the shadowy darkness; the differences between day and night command my contemplation.

On a clear day, awash in a wild spectrum of colors and contrasts, my eyes delight in seeing jagged ribbons of bark—grey and sage and brown—snake up the trunks of the trees outside the window, the shadows between ribbon enriching the tapestry and making it complex. Drab green lichens writhe up and around trees. Moss rests atop rock outcroppings in a sea of mottled brown and tan leaves covering the ground. The bright blue sky forms a backdrop to pine trees across the street. Looking at the trees and the leaf-littered ground, I see everything in high-definition, crisp and sharp. The brightness of the day is a metaphor for fulfillment and joy.

At this hour, though, the color is gone. There’s only darkness, interrupted by dull shadows and an occasional dim light; or maybe it’s just a reflection of light on a drop of water on a leaf. Though I know there are trees outside my window, I cannot see them. I cannot see the leaves on the ground, nor the moss-covered rocks. There may be nocturnal animals crawling along the ground, sniffing at the house. I can see nothing but shadows. The dimness of the pre-dawn darkness is a metaphor for sorrow.

Yet when the sun begins to crawl over the horizon, a hint of a smile emerges across the sky; the melancholy of darkness begins its transition to vivacity. The evolution of night to day is a metaphor for hope. And I forecast the darkness outside my window will evolve into a bright, clear day.

This new day is replete with opportunities to counter frustrations; I intend to seize on every single one of them.

I coax myself into believing things I want to believe. I think I see or sense emotions in another person and hope I am right; believe there’s truth in my hoped-for perception. But, when my self-deception can no longer sustain itself, I must acknowledge the stark reality that fantasies and facts do not necessarily coincide in the real world. There is nothing wrong with daydreams, but emerging from their reverie to find them shattered tends to tear at the fabric of euphoria, turning vindication into sorrow.

I started to write this morning about looking in the mirror and seeing a man I like more now than I did a few years ago. But, in the back of my mind, it occurred to me that I’ve written a number of pieces in which I mention mirrors. I did a search, just on my blog, and counted forty-three separate pieces of writing that include the word “mirror.” Discovering that oddity makes me wonder what I find special—either appealing or revelatory—about mirrors. I suspect it’s that I see my eyes when I look in the mirror; I’ve always considered a person’s eyes to be windows into their minds. By looking in the mirror, I am peering in from the outside, the way I do when I look into someone’s eyes. I wonder whether I see the same when I peer in from the outside that she sees in the mirror.

I find it almost impossible to keep silent about something I so desperately want to say. But I’m afraid the world as I know it would end if I said it. Fear, or should I say cowardice, again wins the day.

Paint your thoughts on a thin canvas with a feather dipped in graphite dust. You’ll have to explain, of course, but that will be reason enough for you to spend adequate time on the matter so you, yourself, will understand what propelled that feather, what created that image.

Some questions go unasked out of fear of repercussions; fear that the subtle clues that led to them were misread. Conversations that might have led to extraordinary joy, therefore, go unspoken. Yet, if the clues were indeed misread, then the justifiable fears prevent explosive emotional rifts incapable of salvation. Risks versus rewards. We settle for safe mid-ground when the other options are damnation or ecstasy.

My voice, spoken through my fingers tapping on the keyboard, expresses thoughts too intimate for my tongue and my teeth to fashion into words. My virtually unknown blog allows me the freedom to express myself in ways I am unlikely to ever do in most personal encounters. Only after I feel absolute trust for a person can I express, face to face, what I express online and, beyond that, things I would never write. I wonder whether everyone is like me in that way? I suspect so, but one cannot know what is in another person’s mind unless that person is willing to share it.

I watched the day creep along, hobbling along like an old man with a bent and unusable walking stick, insisting it was enough to support him. He insisted he was strong enough to hobble up the hill. I shouldn’t have listened. He rolled down the hill, a rolling pin out of control on a brutal slope. No, this didn’t happen. But it might have. And I wonder if I would have prevented the accident.

The age of the universe is, according to theorists well-versed in such things, 13.79 billion years, give or take 21 million years. That, they theorize, is the amount of time that’s lapsed since the Big Bang. Prior to the Big Bang there was…nothing? I cannot wrap my head around that concept, that there was nothing that became something…or that the pre-universe was an ultra-dense mass that suddenly and violently exploded to create…everything. Scientists in the 19th and early 20th century (not all of them, I suppose) believed the universe was simply an eternal, steady state of existence. Other theories suggest our universe is simply one of an infinite number of multiverses. No wonder people believe in some form of deity; reality is too hard to understand without relying on supernatural magic. I don’t need a deity; I’m perfectly happy to be utterly confused by reality.

I am so distant from knowledge I want desperately to have; but I’m too afraid of the efforts required to get it. A case in point was, coincidentally, shown on last night’s TV. I’d love to know the intimate details of motorcycle gangs, but I’m utterly unwilling to put myself in the middle of whatever it takes to learn about them. I guess the strength of one’s curiosity is measured in one’s willingness to take risks. My curiosity is too damn weak. There’s shame in that.