I've noticed a common trait among charismatic people recently.

There is a certain capacity to make a promise.

The promise itself can be quite vague or inconsequential. The way that the promise is given, though, is as a gift, thereby allowing the giver to create a sense of initiating and fulfilling the obligation in the same moment -- without necessarily having done anything at all.

A strange talent, if it could be called that.

Recently, there seems to be an impasse; a sense of almost "negative wanting"... in the sense that one aspect exists along a linear progression of daily momentum. Another aspect, however, seems to have entirely different intentions.

Not exactly a contest of wills inside one person, the sense is more of the same intention being experimentally guided by two hands that seem largely unaware of one another, yet always at odds regarding how to proceed.

One part wants to become regimented; early to bed, early to rise, keeping a strict regimen of journaling, calendaring and milestone-setting. The other part wants to sleep whenever, awake whenever (as long as the sleep is adequate), keep an intentionally long leash on new ideas in order to allow for exploration and the full consideration of all possible paths.

To militaristically tame, romantically indulge, or become a "modern person" by going nearly mad trying to do both at the same time... this is the fork in the road. I have very few role models for options one or three. The second, however, tends to result in rich, deep yet short lives. It also may be the case that longevity is overrated. Not a decision to make on a whim.

Or perhaps that is the only way to decide... after all, the conscious mind is expert at thinking, and fundamentally inadequate when it comes to the doing. Yet, there are still other methods. Self-motivation as measured by competition against others is one of them.

The issue surrounding competition is simple: knowing when to stop. Knowing when to stop entails planning to the end. The real question, then, is: how can the entire path be presumed known from the outset? If external pressure (competition, in this case) is required to keep the fire burning strong and bright, at what point is the goal itself overtaken by the desire to succeed beyond all competitors?

The ego is fire in a world of petrified forests, dried woods, and brittle grasses; the match is lit by intention. How many have ignited mindless, destructive wildfires by the simple, naive desire to stay warm, safe and alive?

Somewhere in or near the shower today, the memory of a person seemed to stand out and offer something more. The thought quickly became a simple theory of self-obsession.

Basically: a person prone to over-thinking finds him/herself in a difficult situation. "I have to figure this out," the person says. This begins the cycle. Thinking becomes rumination, and over time, the process of rumination begins to take on a certitude of its own. The thoughts become increasingly complex, growing into belief systems, an ideology. Meanwhile, the outside world and time spent actively doing begins to diminish as thinking takes center stage.

And if other people are providing less and less feedback, who is doing all the talking? The self -- the person who is "figuring" everything out. Over time, that person's self-perception continues to amplify its own importance while, paradoxically, the rest of the world cares less and less. The self-obsessed person becomes God-like in his or her own mirror-image, while simultaneously becoming more and more isolated from the feedback that would alert the person to the injurious nature of over-thinking and a self-centered mentality.

Strange how having to deal with certain parts of other people can bring awareness to aspects of the self that otherwise would have remained hidden. Learning can come from the most unexpected places.

Fish.

Wriggling, scales shimmering just below the waves. Sustenance, life.

High above the reflective liquid surface, slightly ruffled by the early summer sky's occasional bluster, wings rode the updrafts and sidestepped heavier gusts, easily gliding along the airstream high in the sky. Looking down below, the iridescent side-to-side motion of slender fins belonging to schools of sleek-bodied creatures beckoned irresistibly.

An errant gust distracted the hungry winged pilot from the impending feast, a hard stinging slap across a feathered cheek. Then another, as the sky became clouded almost as suddenly as the wind began to rise, humidity creating an unnatural stillness and sauna-like trapping of heat. The sudden atmospheric imbalance turned each successive gust into a rude shove, the waves below becoming choppy and beginning to heave as the body of water became an agonized rise and fall, pushing itself up to increasingly precarious, white-crested heights only to crash back upon itself, folding wave upon towering wave.

Flying higher to escape the waves only led to increased exposure to the unpredictable flows of air, once placid-winds stirred into a howling frenzy, blinding, pushing, pulling. The sky became a salty, stinging mixture of mist thrown up from the sea and rain pouring down from lightning-laced clouds. Drowning at high altitude, there was no escape from the elemental forces tearing at the eyes and clawing past feathers to skin and hollowed bones.

Lost in the darkness and suffocated by the chaos surrounding all, there came a moment of stillness. All struggle ceased; there was no more fighting to be done. Within the random barrage of tortuous particles and insatiable furies, a rhythmic sensation of soundless calm washed over and within. At the end of all things, at the moment when there was no more life to be wrung out from the wretched creature caught in the jaws of inexplicable circumstance, falling from the sky became an unexpected relief, a descent into long-awaited sleep...

... and just as soon as it came, the winds themselves died down, lightning succumbing to sun's light thinly veiled behind bright clouds, and seas returning to their playful lapping and bounding toward the shore. Still falling, the battered flier fell exhausted toward the once-more placid shimmering surfaces, seemingly diving for fish as they hovered unawares once a few miters below...

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If this life is little more than a series of dreams interrupted by sleep, how then, to catch glimpse of the real? I wonder how silly that question is, really.