(That's what I will say the next time someone calls me an egotist.)
I was talking to Molly the other day about nothing much when this came up:
Her: I was talking to Tom online, and he was saying that everyone is the protagonist of their own story. And I was like, "But there is no story."
Me: Of course there is.
Her: Well, okay, maybe there's a story, but there's no plot.
Me: ...Yeah there is.
Her: No there's not. It's just a sequence of events. There's no exposition and rising action and climax and falling action and resolution. I mean, maybe you could... Find a way to make your life work out like that, but...
Me: Alright, I guess.
Her: But I was thinking... I don't think I make a very good protagonist. I just think I'm too boring.
Me: You're not boring.
Her: Well, maybe you just think that because we're both boring. I mean, I don't think you're boring, but maybe that's just because I'm boring.
Me: I don't think it's a question of being interesting. I think you become a good protaonist when you think of yourself as the protagonist. Your life becomes interesting when you think of it as being interesting.
Her: Isn't that selfish though?
Me: ...No. No, everyone's motivated by their own needs, anyone who thinks they're not is just kidding themselves. And that doesn't mean you're a jerk, it just means that when you do good things, you're doing it because it feels good. You're nice to other people because it feels good to be a good person. You even recognize your own faults because it feels good not to be considered arrogant. And I mean, is selfishness even necessarily bad? I've noticed it doesn't really have any effect on my opinion of people. For example, Tom. He's completely self centered, but I still like him.
Her: I guess.
Pause.
Me: So would you rather be a good protagonist, or not be selfish?
Her: I'm not sure.
Me: You're not a relativist, are you?
Her: Of course not, I'm a fundamentalist Christian.
Me: Oh. Point.
Internal Voice: I forgot about that.
Me: I'm not totally a relativist. I mean, I am in some ways. I like the existentialist idea that all that really matters is your perspective because it's all that exists for you. But I'm not - I mean, I'm not as much as Mr. Sampson is.
Her: Is he...?
Me: He's... A fundamentalist relativist.
Her: (laughs)
Me: He litereally thinks that whatever's true for you is true, and that like, if he's not looking at something, it's not there.
Her: (Looks bothered) See, I'm just like... No. Maybe a little, but... Some things are just true.
This is about when we got to my house. (She was in the process of dropping me off.)
So, point: This conversation made me realize that I am completely self centered. I still think I hold the opinion that everyone basically is. But I think that I am more overtly, or more in the traditional sense, or... just more, or something. The thing that matters the most to me is how awesome I am. Almost everything that I do is in some way an attempt to make myself more awesome. On days when I am convinced that I am awesome, I am happy. On days when I am afraid that I might be sucky or insignificant, I am unhappy. Most of the time, I think that I do posess some quality that makes me awesome. I've been trying to name this quality for a while. It's not intelligence, or creativity, or goodheartedness or strength or originality or even self confidence. I certainly have some of all of these things to different degrees, but it's not like there is one of them that I have so much of that I can say, "Yup, that's what makes me awesome." But I think that Molly (or Tom, I guess) pretty much named it: I make a very good protagonist.
Then I realized, "Dude, it's not a quality, it's that you're you. You're not inherantly awesome, it's just that the story is told from your point of view." So, I love myself unconditionally. I am an unconditional egotist. Huh.
Maybe not everyone is self centered. Maybe just introverts are. Now that I think about it, it seems like that's what "introvert" really means. That's what makes being an introvert different from just being shy. A shy person can still see himself as being part of a larger, concrete universe. An introvert sees the universe as being within himself.
I maintain that Julian is the ideal exisentialist.
I'm probably philosophizing badly. I'll stop now. I don't even know all that much about existentailism.
Anyway, the party was had. Emma didn't end up coming. She's in the hospital again. She got dehydrated for a few days, but she's significantly better now. I don't really know what's going on with that. I left a note on her hospital website out of guilt.
Eric did show up though. Huh. I was so sure he was lying. Maybe, as Dave suggested, Eric is just sarcastic so often that when he actually tells the truth, no one believes him.
It was a pretty good time. We watched The Life of Brian. Most of the conversation was gossip, and most of the gossip was band gossip. A couple of important band-political things were established:
Eric has a feature, and it is almost certain that I will be conducting during it. That's good.
Dave is low brass section leader, and Schultz is sax section leader. This has become a pretty important band politics issue lately since neither of them got assistant drum major. This was the best way it could have turned out. Schultz is only kind of a saxophone, and we were afraid that Mr. Thomas would consider him as being part of low brass and that Sarah or Mike would be sax section leader and either Dave or Schultz would end up with nothing. Schultz, pretty outraged that he didn't get assistant drum major, vowed to quit if he didn't get a section leader position. Dave didn't go quite that far, but I think he would have been pretty upset if he hadn't gotten low brass - he essentially acted as the section leader even last year when it wasn't official, and he clearly loved it. He also told me that he was worried that if he got it and Schultz got nothing, he would just feel awkward all year. So yeah, that worked out well.
Eric talked quite a bit about being drum major. He is clearly pretty psyched. I don't blame him, I would have been too. It still hurts a little bit. Not so much that what he said wasn't amusing, but a little bit. We made fun of him because he's going to drum major camp. I think it'll be funny to hear about that - apparantly it's really intense, and it's just a camp... filled with drum majors. Questions arise such as, "Wait... Who are you conducting?" And it was funny. But every time he mentioned it, part of me went, "I wish I were going to drum major camp." When he was talking, I realized that Mr. Thomas must talk to him like he's special all the time too. He does that to me. Whenever he talks to me, he boosts my ego like crazy and I get the impression that he thinks I'm something special. But one day recently he actually showed up at Eric's house, and they talked, and that's how Eric knew everything - the section leaders, his feature, the fact that he's going to drum major camp - I thought a little about what that conversation must have been like. I guess I'm not that special.
I think the drum major thing has a lot to do with what I was talking about in the first part of this entry. I used to think that it embodied that quality that I thought I had. "That's it. That's what I have. Drum major-ness." Now I'm pretty certain that I just wanted assurance that I am the center of the universe.
Well, not "just." There was more to it than that. The music, and everything... I shouldn't go into it again.
Anyway, the party ended after midnight, at which point I had already said, "So. Get out of my house," at least a couple of times.
I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. Fun times.
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