You have an idea of who you are. You are a highly complex character, a unique product of your own existence and experience. Etched within the walls of your mind (Sorry Prof. Snape) are details as broad as ‘not a dickhead’ and specific as ‘can be a dickhead but in a self-deprecating way if it gives others a laugh’ and ‘a bit pretentious; okay with it though.’

You take these details, these landmarks on the roadmap of your character, and you do your best to display and control them in a way which make you appear to family, friends, colleagues and complete strangers as the absolute best intimation of yourself. Except sometimes it becomes just an imitation of yourself.

Although you have not attempted to control the broadcast of your character to a point where you are infallible, without fault or flaw, you have attempted to control the flaws which you see as most desirable within yourself, those which do, paradoxically, make you more attractive to potential lovers, friends, employers. After all, you yourself are attracted to certain flaws and a vision of perfection is so subjective you believe it foolish to search for; at least at an aesthetic level.

Ideally you see yourself as someone who is genuine, kind, accepting, funny and weird in a way that draws people in. You are not someone to suffer the bullshit or idiocy of others; and though you don’t become angry at stupid people, you attempt to emulate your father’s ability to tell people to go to hell, while having them look forward to the journey. Your ability to handle stress is one of your defining characteristics. You advocate knowledge and you rebuke those who preach ignorance through idealism. You are good at your job but you will not let it define you. You live for a lifestyle which allows you to both explore these aspects of your character and also ignore them for the sake of pleasure. You are outwardly happy, and if you are not inwardly happy you remove yourself from the company of others so as to not bring them down. You constantly question each of these aspects and every decision they lead to.

But right now you are sitting on a couch in a library, mentally noting that if you were a parent on holidays in Margaret River on a 40 degree day you would totally take your kids to the library and give them a book and a beanbag. Man you’d be such a good Dad if you were remotely interested in ever having kids.

You are sitting here inwardly exploring in some kind of pseudo-intellectual philosophical ramble because you are on holidays, and you’ve allowed yourself the time to indulge in such nonsense. But you have to question why you’re on holiday, and you have realised it’s exactly because of a fault in the character you have worked so hard to not appear to work hard at maintaining. You lost control; you lashed out; you became angry. You let an aspect of your job overwhelm and control you. At the time you thought your rant was eloquent and informative, controlled yet deservedly biting. But it was just angry, bitter and savage.

But you won’t dwell on that, you just need a little time away to indulge in sunshine, live music, art, surf and the beautiful people you surround yourself with. You deserve it, man. Motherfucker you just wrote two entire newspapers on your own, give yourself a high five. Better yet, tell someone else to high five you. Now stop talking to yourself, because this whole character control thing is becoming vaguely OCD. It’s okay though, because it’s self aware. Almost meta. Should probably stop talking to yourself though.