Writing on the Stall
The Science of Confidence
By Cpt. Willard

      I am now a junior in college and an adult to boot. Twenty one years old and legally capable of satisfying myself through inebriation or perverted sexuality. It would seem my legal and societal adulthood entitles me to some form of independance. At least, this is what's expected of me. I'm supposed to be the architect of my own future, liberated through my choices. I couldn't be further from any of these expectations.
      As a child, I had hoped that, by this point in my life, I would be assured at all points; occupationally, creatively, and romantically. A child-like mind is precious for some things. Naivety is not one of them.
      I walk through what I think is the world; juxtaposed between an expectation to succeed financially, a world of pestilence and hurt that beckons me to compassion, and the war of love and lust within myself.
      This quarrel is usually concluded in a self-condemnation of my preoccupation with females, guilt for ignoring a dying world, and resentment for being placed in the very rigid system of acadamia and career aspiration: a pursuit that is, in actuality, completely of my own design.
      I am then placed in the awkward position of reconciling the choices I have made with the knowledge of what I should be. Kind of makes one jittery. Anyhow, it's definitley a long way from anything resembling assurance.
      In addition to fighting for my attention, all three of these supposed constructs then impose on me the duty to know whence I am going and why. If I do not answer them promptly and with authority, I am judged for indecision and cowardice.
      I know nothing. Yet, this has never prevented me from constructing a covert of pretense. Its foundation is unstable, resting upon my best guess at what confidence looks like. When I stop to examine it, I can clearly see that I'm not fooling anybody. I know nothing, but I'm not allowed to tell anyone. And so I convince myself that my dilapidated facade will have to suffice.
      This leads to the usual self-inquiry. Why am I trying so hard? Did I, in my squalor, suppose myself an Atlas? What does real faith feel like, because I can't seem to give 		up enough to know. And maybe that's where the real giving up begins, or maybe that's just what I tell myself to feel better. Either way, I am brought to my knees enough to need support.
      I really cannot continue without acknowledging a God that cares. How were entire generations and throngs of "great" thinkers able to avoid this conclusion? I've never understood that. I think the ultimate blunder is to ignore your own limitedness.
      And what place does joy have in a life devoid of that pure wellspring? I think we can conclude that we are incapable of being a well unto ourselves. We are entirely too fickle. How then can we operate apart from a source? A hand cannot grasp anything if severed from the brain, can it? Yes, it may quiver for a bit, as detached appendages sometimes do in cheap horror films, but no one can be daft enough to interpret that as autonomy.
      This then must be the confidence that everyone (including me) wishes myself to display: a pitiful quiver giving the appearance of consciousness, but not before gradually dying out into stillness. Yet, such perceived motion will no doubt suffice for mankind during this vapor we call a lifetime.
      I do not wish to exist like this, suspended in a quasi-reality, all the while dying. It would not even be a dramatic death, only the whimper T.S. Eliot foresaw.
      Believe it or not, this gives me joy. It is that very intangible satisfaction one gets when completing a puzzle, or deciphering a message, the joy of seeing things as they were all along.
      Do not misunderstand me. It is not the joy of knowing. It is the elation of realising you know nothing. In a way, that would appear as another fabrication of my psyche. I don't believe that, but anything is possible. I only know it to be a whisper of assurance that exists apart from me and I am completely dependant upon it. It feels fantastic to give up.


"I'm so full of what is right, I can't see what is good."-Rush