Original Title: At 2:47 a.m. on January 1, 2009, I became self-aware... New Title: That's a Crock!

[What I was going to post on January 2nd:]

I've been living a rather blissful life until today.  Sure, I've had a few setbacks along the way.  To be honest, the 21st century has been sort of "sucky" for me, but somehow I managed to obliviate the worst of it.

Somehow, for some unknown reason, everything changed at 2:47 a.m. this morning.  Less than three hours into the new year, and whoa! Perhaps you've had a similar experience at some point in your life... it's sometimes referred to as an epiphany, but I'd always assumed that having an epiphany was a good thing.  Realizing that you older, less fit and in-all-probability more annoying than you'd allowed yourself to believe?  Not so great.

It's not that I was completely unaware before this.  But I've managed to somehow keep things distorted just enough that I thought I was doing okay.  Waistline a bit larger? Ah well.  Eyes a bit weaker? That's 'cuz they're making all of the print smaller now.  Hair evaporating at an increasing rate? That's the upside of having those weaker eyes!

I think there's something about men in general (most men, anyway) that enables them to be more forgiving about their appearance than women.  In many ways this is a good thing, I suppose.  And yet, eventually, some sort of alarm should probably start going off!  (You know, like when the 50+ year old guy is wearing the same thing as most 20 year olds, and he's trying to pick-up women less than half-his age at the club.)

I'm not quite in that league, but it suddenly became clear to me that I'm no longer the athletic guy who is carrying a few too many pounds.  I'm now the guy who probably ought to get a complete physical before I go for a bike ride this spring.  After participating in long-distance events as a younger man, this is something that wasn't supposed to happen.

I miss my full head of hair, but truth-be-told, it hasn't been around for quite awhile.  The first inkling that things were changing began about 15 years ago when I started experiencing sunburn on the top of my head!  How did I know this?  Because when that happens, it hurts to comb your hair!  What's up with that!

Actually, I'm okay with thinning hair, but what I didn't anticipate was how much more challenging it is to find a reasonable way of cutting thin hair.  If you don't keep it really short, everyone will assume you're trying to do a comb-over, which is the absolute last thing I want to do.  I feel guilty now for laughing at all of the "old guys" I've seen over the years who appeared to be trying to cover their bald spots.  It turns out that bald spots typically aren't completely bald!  They just don't have much density, and the remaining hairs will look like a comb-over unless you shave them off completely!  So maybe that's the solution, but then I guess it's all or nothing, 'cuz I wouldn't know where to stop.  It's been below zero here in the Twin Cities, and I'm just not quite ready to do that.

[See what I mean... I started out intending to discuss self-awareness, and I went off on a tangent about going bald!  That's when I decided to table the whole thing... probably better to start over from the beginning.]

Okay, fast forward to the present:

I now understand that I wasn't really ready to discuss self-awareness after all.  Really!  It's a bit of folly to ever believe that we are truly self-aware.  Think about it.  Can we every really know how we relate to the world we're in, objectively speaking?  When we think we're being profound, can we be sure that there aren't people lining the wings and chuckling into the kerchiefs?  (What?  People have kerchiefs!  My people do... and they're NOT gay!)

When we think we're being hilarious, do we actually know whether others are rolling their eyes in disbelief at the tasteless references, or yet another Madonna Kabbalah joke.  I think not.

So here is the new revelation that I was really trying to get to at the start of the year... I just didn't fully realize it at the time.  It's all about delusion.  Especially self-delusion.  This is really just the flip-side of self-awareness.  The big difference is that self-delusion is much easier to achieve... especially if you're a Republican.  (Democrats can also be over-achievers in the realm of self-delusion, but they'll never be a match for Republicans.  After all, many still consider the last 8 years of the Bush administration a great success!)

Self-delusion is a protection mechanism, after all.  It helps us to avoid confronting the realities that are really really uncomfortable.  Maybe I'm not such as stud anymore.  Perhaps my heavy leveraging of tech stocks in 2000 was a bit imprudent.  I despise the values and principles of most of the people who are successful in my chosen profession... is this a problem? These are they kinds of realities we would prefer not to confront in our daily lives.  Confronting them is uncomfortable... scary even.

So I've decided that I will never ever assume that I'm truly self-aware.  Instead, I've chosen a much simpler objective.  I promise to update my delusions on a regular basis.  There is nothing more sad than someone who clings to a clearly discredited ideology simply because denial seems like their only option.   I chose to exercise my denial in a precisely allocated fashion.

Examples: Perhaps there are some corporate titans who are looking out for our interests.  Perhaps Dick Cheney truly had John Kerry's best interests at heart when he publicly lectured him (in absentia) about gun safety, in front of a group of NRA supporters.  (So what if he shot someone in the face with a shotgun a few months later!  It could happen to anyone!)

It all comes down to accepting one's denial.  Simple, isn't it?  Yet so profound!

Resolved: I, Mark Jepsen, do hereby accept my denial.  In fact, I will embrace my denial, because that's the healthy thing to do.

For those of you who are rashly seeking self-awareness... well, I pity your detachment from reality.  Denial and delusion would serve you much better.  Honestly, have you checked the headlines lately?  Look at Bush and Cheney!  They didn't make any real mistakes. It's just that some people choose to perceive those prudent actions as mistakes!

Corollary: Any sense that I am, in fact, free of self-delusion is perhaps the most direct indication (and proof extant) of the perverse presence of said self-delusion.  Thus, I will no longer harbor any thoughts of achieving a "non-delusional" state.

I'm really not sure how this helps any of you, but I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.  After all, if I listen to the right people, everything is really just fine... Good luck with your own journey to the delusional nirvana that is real... if you can just find that proper sense of denial to achieve it.