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Whose Clothes?

The best picture I took when I was 25.

An old roommate just wrote me, telling me that he felt like he knew everything about my life from reading about it online, and that he felt weird that I didn't know about his. I guess it doesn't take too much deep reading to get insights into my personal life on here, but it surprised me because I try to avoid the heavy diary type entries that I wrote while in Brazil last summer. Anyway, I thought I'd use my time this week to give a slightly more personal update on my life.

I just turned 26 on Sunday. I don't know why this age seems any different from, say, 25, but something seems strange. It might just sound like an older number, but I sense there's something else going on.

It's hard to believe that my life a year ago , was really just a year ago. It seems like the 24/25 year old me is a totally different person than the current me, and I'd say that's a very good thing. I've learned that I really hadn't figured out any of the things that I thought I had figured out last May, and I'm smarter because of it. I'm immensely grateful to all of my friends, new and old, who have helped make this year so great.

Now, I'm diving headlong into the last DC summer in my foreseeable future. I've got a lot on my plate and I'm looking forward to resting my mind before I head back into an academic setting, but I'm trying to keep something important in mind: the emperor's new clothes (please read).

One thing I often try to do on these pages (and whenever my mind wanders) is examine how people, me and my people in particular, are pushed and pulled by various ideas, images, conceptions, beliefs, and events. I find myself ping-ponging between varying degrees of cynicism, skepticism, optimism, pragmatism, and idealism, but I'm careful to avoid pessimism. While I don't know how I'm going to come out of this wash, I'm always hoping that I'll have a clearer understanding of the reality in which I live so that I'll be better able to improve it. I've found that few media present clearer pictures of reality than children's stories, and the story of the emperor's new clothes has become like scripture to me over the past year.

Understanding the nature of the emperor's new clothes isn't only about not being deceived, but it's about understanding why people deceive themselves. It's about not only the importance of understanding how things are, but how they seem and how people would like them to seem. It's exciting to focus on the heroic and innocent declaration that "[the emperor] is naked," but it's essential, when we seek truth, that we understand the minds of the mischievous tailors, the gullible emperor, and the fawning public. I'd be a wiser critic if I could keep this in mind.

The Emperor realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either stupid or incompetent. And he stood stiffly on his carriage, while behind him a page held his imaginary mantle.