More reckoning thoughts...

This will take some time.

One other thing I forgot to mention about BD being "insufferably pompous." Again, it has to do with his work. If you are the top copy editor in America, you need to wield the language in its entirety with skill. To do so, you need to interact with it and use it regularly. Write with it regularly. Use every tool available at hand to you. Develop this area of intelligence and display it as much as possible. Wield words. Bend grammar to your will. Become a paragon of syntactical genius. And, as it may seem, display language in a way that may often appear, to the regular reader, highfalutin and somewhat unapproachable. Just like the Scripps National Spelling Bee needs to display words beyond the ken of even the most erudite scholars.

Does this excuse him being considered "insufferably pompous"? I think so. It's the equivalent of a computernik being considered geeky or too glued to his screen, or a top athlete considered too aggressive or obsessed with their sport. If you are that person, it stands to reason that you would do that...potentially at the neglect of other areas of life that may make you more approachable to the masses. (Examples I can think of are, respectively, Steve Wozniak, who I do admire, and Novak Djokovic, who I do not.) So, basically...is Benjamin Dreyer insufferably pompous? Yes: because his post requires it.

As much as I said that "I'm not going to be normal. So be it," these three have probably said the same, tenfold beyond me. (Or not? Maybe they just ignore or deign to deal with the masses as seldom as required on their way to their aeries of expertise. Who's to say?)

It's interesting to me that I bristle against this. Maybe it's that I no longer aspire to the lofty heights. Maybe I was never meant for them; my position as a doctor always felt way too high for me. And maybe I was pushed to those heights and given expectations that, though unreasonable, still stuck. And when I see people at those heights not just succeeding, but thriving and living their best lives, I resent it.

My recent time at Scripps may have played some part in this; if so, I'm not quite sure what it would be. simply being exposed to BD after such a long time away is really the issue.

Well, at any rate, writing about this is helping. That form of therapy, plus time, really, may do the trick. It certainly offers some significant insight into my life, and to live life fully, it should be examined fully.