Sushi chefs and Hamlets

Criticism is easy enough to hear, I’m not married to my work habits. I can ignore advice I deem to be given in poor judgement, but the real sin is having my coworker ordering me to shuck oysters when he looks up briefly from his TikTok videos from a comfy chair. I’m happy to lend favor, but I resent doing the dirty work to afford someone else’s unearned luxury. Annoyance fades, but respect keeps a tally.

It's not hard for me to give arbitrary competancies value, so chess has always been a natural obsession. Those abstract kingdoms present complex logical planes to navigate through. The nature of a victory concerns territorial dominance and an acquisition of resources. The mythology of this emperialist pursuit fills us with delight. Here, intellectual fascism is seen as sanctioned fun.

Merit is an intoxicating muse. The ego has ways of proving its worth, and it's best we follow its fancies for us. We understand we are not who we ought to be, and our drive for becoming rests on an ideal. Perhaps it is vaguely conceived, or designed meticulously to our preferences, but rarely do we capture its essence. Resting on one's laurels is hardly becoming. But an inverse issue takes place in those who create a standard they wish to fulfill, deem the steps beyond their abilities to achieve, and accept a version of themselves they know to be suboptimal.

This acceptance can be devestating, as the ego's surrender convinces this failed psyche to decorate themselves in the make-up of excellence. Consequently, the manipulation of image-control tyrannizes all who fall into their social orbit. If this phenomenon attaches itself to a more passive personality type, you'll find these characters with an Airpod in their ear, doing their best to be invisible. A similar idea expressed by Shakespeare:

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action

I've noticed the industrious ones with their sharp minds will rattle their intellect off from a resevoir. Their memorization acumen might be strong, but they are less likely to escavate the floor of their thinking and polish their findings to reveal finer detail. Those who are committed to doing will settle on premises quickly so as to get on with the action. I sometimes covet this sense of resolve I see in them, but I understand the role of my demeanor could have an untold purpose.

Human psychology is usually touched with survivalist mechanisms, so there's potential that a pale cast of thought could host flourishing in the right environment. But when we get overextended into monotony, an urge for pith and caprice rise to the surface of us. Maybe the itch speaks of an event with the power to reframe how we see ourselves, and the substance to transform the meaning of our memories. Viewed this way, it's a fitting interpretation that upholds the characterization of ambition as a self-destructive mission. When a dream is realized, a dream is killed, so you go on assassinating your aspirations until pieces of your identity are shed in a sea of forgotten motivations. We can avoid the word tragedy, and even avoid the word futility, but I reject a life that moves in circles, and fails to preserve eternal relationships by way of constant shedding. Move with caution, and embrace your precious doubts.