I am targeted by extroverts, energizers and the generously invigorated. I wholeheartedly
concede to being methodical, deliberate and perhaps analytical but I think labeling me as
indolent is just plain mean. I am not in a race or competition except with my own fiery
aspirations and goals. My primary goal on the surface may not seem as lofty as some but I
challenge anyone to accomplish theirs without a pulse. Upon waking with one, my work is nearly
done. The groups I alluded to above have hurled insults such as slacker, malingerer and
layabout. I hesitate to mention it but perhaps what injured me the most was being called a
dawdler. My emotional armour is not all it seems.
There are advantages to coasting in the non-passing lane of life, absent the constant pressure
to win, win, go faster, achieve more. An example is the nation and world’s response to the Covid
dilemma. With mandates of masks, social distancing and too many restrictions to mention, my
transition was a seamless one. With Amazon for books, Meijer Thrifty Acres for grocery and
beer delivery, life is quite comfortable. If I fear being overcome with euphoria, I turn on the news
for ten minutes or so and voila. I step outside to retrieve the mail and once a week or so to
monitor the lawn cutting of which I am exacting, by my renter from the porch. Sans a renter my
grass grows until one cannot see the porch.
As apparent, I retreat to my office and laptop to share the wealth of knowledge that rolls and
careens in my head like a ball bearing in a box car. Intelligence is what you make it. If a
speaker can leave a conversation or address, with others enlightened and/or too dumbfounded
to respond, his or her oration has been a successful one. Leave an audience or fellow
conversers absolutely baffled and you have laid the path to thinking. I definitely feel I am lacking
the accolades and/or positive reinforcement from those who generously call themselves my
peers.
I prefer to view what others might call ‘pitfalls’ as attributes. Those that would judge others as
procrastinators in a negative light, should delve deeper to perhaps find what they saw was
patience. A neighbor who hasn’t washed their automobile in seven years, may very well be
demonstrating their ecological consciousness. I for one, will not be cajoled or bullied into
another’s destructive lifestyle or mindset.
I pray you have found this essay helpful and worthy of implementation in your life’s travels. If
during said excursions, you should happen to find doomsayers as described herein, maintain a
professional and mature demeanor. Afterall, they are just big stupid dumbheads, so tell’em to
fuck off.
wjk/10/15/21/469