Boromir

I often think about my favorite characters in literature, more so now after finishing The Fountainhead. I think of the great heroes: Howard Roark, Harvey Swick, Aragorn... I think of the attributes that set them apart from those others who pursue the course within their adventures. I think of the ideals, the desires, and the willingness to bend to the reality of their present situations. Each time I think of these characters whom I admire so thoroughly I find that I lack the fibers that set them apart and above those others in their stories. I see through the eyes of those characters that could have been and fail. The Keatings, the Wynands, the Boromirs; these are my people. Each achieves greatness in his own way, and each fails to achieve the greatness they desire. I wonder, sometimes, if I have missed the calling I was meant for and if I fancy myself a writer for the purpose of filling the void of my failures with words that justify my shortcomings. Each time I write, a part of me feels that I could write something of worth, I get that nowhere else. Each time I write, I know that my words have been said somewhere else, by someone else more intelligent and eloquent than me. Does that make me a parasite? I champion the unoriginal. I cannot discover and tell a story unique to me, with elements coming from my mind singularly. I do not write well enough to be set apart from the rest of the rabble spouting the same tripe regurgitated by greater men who heard it from greater men than them and so on to the first picture of a man with a spear etched with charcoal on the wall of some primordial cave.

My people, the could have beens, the wanted to bes, the gave ins, are they all cursed with the knowledge of their weakness? Are some lucky souls able to go on through life repeating the words of the guy in the next cubicle and feel as though they are imparting wisdom unto those around them? Envy the ignorant... to some, I'm sure that I am one to envy, ignorant as the rest.

Good day...