Superiority

Today I was unusually smart-mouthed in orchestra. When Bill (the teacher) said that Mozart was rolling in his grave, I said that maybe that way someone would be able to find it. Since nobody knows quite where he's buried. It made me laugh, but nobody else got it. Then, when we were playing the middle school-worthy edited version of some Les Miserables songs, Bill mentioned that the play took place during the French Revolution. Needless to say, I had to interject that it was, in fact, the second French Revolution, which pretty much got squished. After the first revolution, after all the chaos got to be too much, they put the freaking bourgeoisie back in power. What did they expect? Ah, those silly French are always revolting.

Anyway, the point is that all these comments of mine made me feel superior to everyone in the room, which is one of my favorite feelings. Right up there with eating exorbitant amounts of chocolate. Unfortunately, both are very unhealthy. I think that, secretly, I am afraid. I am afraid of being inferior, so I compensate by making sure everyone else thinks I'm better than they are. Smarter. Happier. More busy. While this superficial superiority makes me happy, it doesn't make me humble. I suffer from pride because, deep down, I know there's not much to be proud of. I make mistakes. I lie. I antagonize people. I'm a snob. I'm only mediocre at the things I do, but I pass it off as exceptional through sheer force of attitude. That may be the subconscious reason I didn't do Youth Symphony this year. In just plain old Orchestra, I can appear to be the best because I pretty much am.

I blew off the girl who wants to be my friend at lunch to study for my history test, and here I am, not studying. Go figure. I'd better figure out what happened between the civil war and the turn of the century.