My cousin Matthew is making a video for my grandmother for Christmas. The concept is that we each spend 30 seconds or so talking about what Christmas means to us. It’s our first year without Grandpa, but I don’t know how many of us want or need a reminder of that. Still, I won’t deny the kindness of the thought for Grandma.

Lately, I have tried to count my allies, people who support me in times of need. After all, I couldn’t find thirty seconds to record something for Matthew’s video, and my grandmother remains the most influential person in my life. I vacillated each time I began, tied up in my own misgivings and need to create art instead of sentiment. That attitude serves no one here, but I let it win.

So, who for me, would spend that thirty seconds? Probably more people than I could count, because I hold too low opinion of the people whom I call friend. Since I can’t forgive my own behavior, I assume they can’t. Many learning videos have popped up around me detailing impostor syndrome and the detrimental effects of social media. I have tried to maintain an awareness of them. I continue to drive myself to exercise and meditate.

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. – Hamlet, II.ii

All of my dreams involve my trying to do the best for everyone and finding everyone abandoning me. Leadership comes easily to me, and I enjoy it to some extent, but to have people question me when they simply want attention, I … well, in the dream, I flip tables. I tear my certification in front of them. I know they want me to compete. They want to show me how weak I am because I look out for them and will not fight. If they only knew the violence that I keep inside, the way I want to live differently than what my baser nature would dictate.

Do I have anyone’s respect? Have I earned it? They say you only need to please yourself, since you can never truly please others, but that way Trumpness lies. Balance? Sure, but internal balance cannot thrive in a world where man is in every way a social creature. Banish those from you who do not enhance you; but, how then to maintain empathy and to keep yourself from one-sided argument.

Were I born in a different time, a time of men like Washington, or Da Vinci, or Charlemagne, would I have made myself a tyrant? Did kindness become a rationalizing word for cowardice?

I would be a Viking, and shout “Fear profit a man nothing!” into the raging storms, but the world convinces me even that lacks honor. How can I find joy when all that I do is under scrutiny, from my wife, from the world, from myself? Embracing punk rebellion is childish, succumbing to authority, moreso. Then what?

I know it sounds absurd… please tell me who I am.