Confidence / La Confianza / Confiance

...no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn't one or the other - Lord! What is he but funk and precautions?

- War of the World, H.G. Wells

As ever, the presence of this blog post signifies that I've been thinking about something lately. This might have something to do with my starting a new college in September, but I think it can be applied to Life in general.

It's occurred to me that a problem of mine in the past has been a lack of confidence, or conviction in myself. And I've noticed this sort of mind frame can terribly cripple you before you even set out on doing anything.

I think sometimes I've feared confidence for a number of reasons; for one, there is the fear of coming across as arrogant or cocky - these are two unappealing traits, and unfortunately I've been cursed with caring too much about what people think. (Though if I follow my rules, perhaps I'll get over this.) Secondly, it's that fear of failure or rejection. If one puts the effort of being confident into anything, it only feels to me as though when you fail, the crash will only come harder. But this is selfish talk. Why must I be so self-centred?

No, confidence is incredibly important. Confidence is the thing that separates the hopeless from the optimistic. And it's absolutely necessary. It's become apparent to me that confidence constitutes courage, and courage, bravery, is the sole fuel that allows you to reach for your dreams. With courage comes determination, and everyone knows that a determined person is twice as likely to succeed than a half-arsed one. But courage can't be achieved without some iota of confidence.

So I've decided, if I'm ever going to succeed in anything - relationships, dreams, etc. - I'm going to have to acquire a sense of confidence. I'm going to have to learn how to feign confidence, even when I lack it, because, to the on-looker, the most confident always looks the most apt. It doesn't matter what insecurities I have - it truly doesn't - I'll have to look past those and assume that I'm capable.

It's confidence and it's what, I believe, the best are made out of.

And if I fail? Well, I'll have to learn. Learn like children do when they fall and scrape their knees. They could cry and cry and cry, but what is it that their parents tell them? "Upsie-daisy" - it's simple: we have to get up.

Gain a sense of confidence, and assume that I'm capable.

Will this make me arrogant? Should I care, or is that selfish? I don't know, but right now, I'm convinced.

Gain a sense of confidence, and assume my capability.
Gain a sense of confidence, and assume my capability.
Gain a sense of confidence, and assume my capability.

And if it fails? Get up and move on (/try again).

This end marks a new beginning.

After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. ~J.K. Rowling, "The Man with Two Faces," Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, spoken by the character Albus Dumbledore

No one has died, but an era has ended. It's just past midnight, so it's now officially a new day, so I must phrase this differently. Yesterday was my very last day of secondary school. It's finished now, kaput, over. As far as I'm concerned, according to the law as of now, I'm legally allowed to never return to higher education. (Of course I will, but that's not the point; the point is it's over.)

A flurry of different emotions have tackled me today. From the morning, I felt excited to see everybody again for our Leavers' Assembly. Our pen-ultimate goodbye. Our farewell to ever wearing school uniform again. Seeing all the people who had had their last exam the week before and were technically finished then. Let's put it this way: I didn't have to be dragged out of bed this morning. Excitement.

Directly after the assembly came Stage I of the impending sense of 'End'. We all loitered about the school gates, supposedly all feeling this sensation. There were signings of shirts; there were hugs, emotional exchanges. It came to a point where a teacher of ours had to command us to, "Dissipate! Go home! You're finally free and now you won't leave?" But I didn't want to. I'm going to see them all again on Friday particularly, but this is the last time we're in uniform. There was a somewhat irrational uncertainty in the air.

After this, we went to my friend's house to chill for a bit. There's absolutely no way we could just leave for home now - how anti-climatic would that be? A complete destroyer of the day, an absolute downer. We had to do one last thing. We stayed at this friend's house from midday to roughly six PM. During this, the sense of 'End' slept for a while; we lost ourselves in our friendship, becoming quixotic in our beliefs of unity. We'll always keep in touch. We're us.

And so came the time to leave said friend's house. Initiate Stage II of the impending sense of 'End'. The amount of bodies present was significantly lower; it felt more tight-knit - Stage II was an intensified version of Stage I. (I predict Friday, the night of Prom, will harbour Stage III - the most intense stage of all). I didn't want to leave; we sat, stood, chatted in the streets for another hour until it was getting ridiculous. We had to part.

This is getting too long for myself now, so I'm going to fast-forward to an argument I had with a friend via IM. They (I'm using 'they' for the sake of protecting the gender) made me feel as though I wasn't their friend at all, and they lacked any sort of remorse ... Never able to admit they're in the wrong; they threw the day into a completely different perspective for me.

It got me thinking about how our journey has been like a hike and now we're approaching a precipice, a cliff. Those who are staying at the school for sixth-form are like those who turn from the cliff and search for a different way forward. Those of us who are moving, going to different schools/colleges to embark on our A Levels, are like those with wings, flying from the precipice. With my friend's annoying argument, it reminded me of why I'm leaving. I'm off to fly, to start afresh. Perhaps I'm slightly annoyed now and I feel as though I want to soar away and never look back, but when I calm, I know I won't want to completely sever contact. But the point is, I'm still flying away. And I love it.

The argument reminded me of what I love so much about life: the duality of it all. As they say, only a light can cast a shadow; so upon the arrival of shadow, one knows nearby there is light. And this is what I've found. My close friend made me feel as though our relationship is shit, but it only opened my eyes to the future ahead. The future, it's mine. I will hopefully make fantastic friends. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends now, but perhaps I will have friends that are constantly there for me, so I can constantly be there for them. Perhaps I'm asking too much of today's youth with this, but I just want a good old fashioned friendship.

This End seems dark, yet I can't help but descry the light in the distance.

I love life.

2 Golden Rules to Conversation

Agh, there's another thing on my mind and this is the Art of Conversation.

What? I hear you ask. There's an art to it? Don't you just, kinda, speak to people?

Well, I don't know. And that's my problem. If it was that easy, I wouldn't have a problem. I've found that when it comes to chatting online, via instant messenger or what have you, it's very easy - most probably because I'm in the field of communication in which I'm most comfortable*: writing. Unfortunately, to live a happy life, I don't think I can go by solely writing to people. That distance would depress me, surely. Anyway, my problem is that, when it comes to "real life", I can't for the life of me think of what to say to people, which promptly invites those Awkward Silences that wait patiently in the shadows to come and ruin the atmosphere.

I mean, this is just another impromptu blog post, but some stuff from Will Grayson, Will Grayson got me thinking on how to become a better communicator. There's basically this character (Will Grayson) who believes that the 2 golden rules in life are to: 1) Shut up and 2) not care. Will is proved pretty much completely wrong, but if we tweaked those rules slightly, perhaps I'd get the 2 Golden Rules to the Art of Conversation? I'm not saying that this works, as I've just made it up right now, but I don't want to be one of those people who can't hold a conversation unless it's random and meaningless.

So in an attempt to better myself at communication, I will write myself a letter, prescribing my own advice.

Dear me, do refer back to this letter whenever you are in doubt,

Rule 1: Speak your mind; tell the truth. Avoid concealing emotions simply to save yourself. This is selfish. By hiding yourself and your emotions, you are hiding your personality and that way nobody can really know you.

I mean, this is probably why it's so much easier to speak on IMs/in writing. You don't have to confront their facial expressions and worry about if they care about what you're saying because they are behind the Veil of Virtuality, as are you. You can say what you want because the Veil gives you instances of unparalleled confidence. This is bad; it's like a drug. You will keep returning to this drug for that confidence and you will avoid Real Life because - there - the confidence is harder to attain. However, try. Follow Rule 1.

As this is inspired by Will Grayson, Will Grayson I feel compelled to retrieve a quote that backs up what I'm saying.

"So I just say what I'm thinking. "I know it sucks, but in a way, it's good." He looks at me like I've just said something absolutely idiotic, which of course I have. "Love and truth being tied together, I mean. They make each other possible, you know?" "

Rule 2: Don't care all the time; don't let it control you. Now, of course caring is important, otherwise whatever you spew will be robotic crap said only to serve the purpose of making conversation. By this, I don't mean it like Will did. I mean, don't over-care about what the other person thinks about you - unless he's, like, your employer and you're in an interview or something. You're allowed to care then, but otherwise, relax. Rule 1 works in tandem with this rule. So long as you can try to not give a fuck for a bit, you can more easily speak your mind and tell the truth.

Another Will Grayson, Will Grayson quote:

" "The idea is that for ten minutes, we forget that we have feelings. And we forget about protecting ourselves or other people and we just say the truth. For ten minutes. And then we can go back to being lame." "

This one is sort of the perfect conclusion, because it incorporates both Rules. But here's the thing, in those ten minutes, Will becomes an apparently different person by removing those barricades - it becomes about raw communication. By doing this, the girl he likes is shocked into saying, "Can you be like this permanently?"

I'm not saying you shouldn't care permanently - no, that's reckless and a lot of people will just want to stop speaking to you - but just care less about yourself.

Now, I know this is a class example of it being "easier said than done", but try. Try to follow these rules and see where they get you. If they don't work, we'll change them later.

Yours truly (no, truly truly, I actually am yours as you are mine),

You.

P.S.

Lo siento. No es posible que habría podido escribir este en español - es demasiado complicado. :) Sin embargo, todavía escribí un poco hoy, en español, así que ... sí :)

*This isn't the right word. It's not that I'm not comfortable communicating in other ways; it's just that I communicate best when I write.

Anne Frank

You know a book's good when after you're done with it you stop and just think about it or - in my case - you're tempted to search the title up in Google to see what everybody else thought of it too. Another sign is if the book made you think while reading it. By this, I don't mean it has to be extremely challenging, all I mean is that it has to stimulate the mind and make you consider things.

The Diary of a Young Girl definitely did all these for me. It's honestly fantastic - she was a phenomenal writer and it makes you sad when you think of her fate. Sometimes it's hard to imagine such a bright and intelligent, bursting-with-hope character confined in one of those ridiculously horrible concentration camps, but I guess the diary's an icon of those times and a warning of sorts for the future. A warning not to let history repeat itself.

Anne Frank's diary is also, however, an honest-to-God documentation of a teenager's mind: the struggles with pretty much everything the world throws at them, getting used to this (actually, pretty awesome) place we all learn to call home. She seems to represent the typical teenager in a fantastically articulate fashion, yet she also seems to transcend mere adolescence in her thoughts and attitudes. To me, if I met a girl similar to how she was, now, I know I'd fall in love.

From everything: the imagery of having more than one persona, to seeing nature as a beacon of hope, her need for someone to confide in, and her passions/curiosities - she truly seems to have been ... I don't know... someone with potential? Someone who definitely would have followed their dreams and most probably have succeeded. The former, that quality, makes me happy. I hope I'll retain that same quality as I grow and chase all my dreams. I think Anne said it best,

“ I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people , even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!
”

There are so many other awesome things she wrote, too, but if I wrote them all out, you might as well have just bought the book.

I mean, that's not to say that there aren't some boring, list-y parts about the general goings-on of the Secret Annexe or whatever, but it's a diary, what d'you expect?

Anyway, I just really enjoyed reading it and thought I'd definitely write a post about it, what with the resuscitation of my blog and all. Now, however, onto Will Grayson, Will Grayson which I've been dying to read for ages now!

Until next time!

Some words that I like.

"All your quirks, all your problems, even your depressions

and your failures: that's what makes you you." - Gerard Way, MCR.