Titles #36 - "Sailing to Byzantium"
(Ok, here we go)
Sailing to Byzantium
I'm like most people, I think. I'm always striving to reach my great success. I say my great success because I do not wish to imply that I want to be better, more succesful than others. I only want to succeed in the things I set out to succeed in. Say, I want knowledge. I don't mean some all encompassing knowledge that allows me to lord over lesser men. Simply, let's say, the knowledge of why ants act the way that they do. Someone may confine themselves to only understanding ants and be, I believe, a very successful person indeed.
When I was ten years old, I knew another boy, also the same age, but large and stupid. I was an unwilling friend of his for a year before I had a sudden realization, in regards to my own feelings towards him. It was a revelation in every sense of the word, and I was to spend the following year as his happy enemy. I hounded and tormented and beat him daily, but only him, only him. Well, is this not also my success? I confined myself to the domination of one boy, and was, if my peers were any judge, quite successful. It was a limited but deeply personal victory. As I said, it lasted a year, and then we parted, for some reason that I can't recall.
A year later, I saw him one last time. He said just one thing to me. A brief and cutting statement.
"I don't understand what happened to you. You used to be so nice."
I do not remember how I responded.
(This one... well, the connection just isn't there. There's a connection between the first and second part in my mind, but I just couldn't make it on paper. It's an exceedingly unpleasant story anyway. Still, I'd be interested in what people think)
Sailing to Byzantium
I'm like most people, I think. I'm always striving to reach my great success. I say my great success because I do not wish to imply that I want to be better, more succesful than others. I only want to succeed in the things I set out to succeed in. Say, I want knowledge. I don't mean some all encompassing knowledge that allows me to lord over lesser men. Simply, let's say, the knowledge of why ants act the way that they do. Someone may confine themselves to only understanding ants and be, I believe, a very successful person indeed.
When I was ten years old, I knew another boy, also the same age, but large and stupid. I was an unwilling friend of his for a year before I had a sudden realization, in regards to my own feelings towards him. It was a revelation in every sense of the word, and I was to spend the following year as his happy enemy. I hounded and tormented and beat him daily, but only him, only him. Well, is this not also my success? I confined myself to the domination of one boy, and was, if my peers were any judge, quite successful. It was a limited but deeply personal victory. As I said, it lasted a year, and then we parted, for some reason that I can't recall.
A year later, I saw him one last time. He said just one thing to me. A brief and cutting statement.
"I don't understand what happened to you. You used to be so nice."
I do not remember how I responded.
(This one... well, the connection just isn't there. There's a connection between the first and second part in my mind, but I just couldn't make it on paper. It's an exceedingly unpleasant story anyway. Still, I'd be interested in what people think)