Some people are self-promoting and can showcase themselves
at the expense of others. Their driving force is
vanity.
Ah, the attention, the roar of the crowds, the thrill of being in the
spotlight. Surely each of us has experienced (even if just in fantasy) a moment's
ecstasy: "Me? Me? Why they're applauding for me!" Imagine now that you're addicted to this Ecstasy, only sure of yourself in that moment of glory.
Until they pay attention to the call of their
souls, Threes look outward for their reflection in the eyes of others, and their inner
life is lacking. They are too focused on looking good. Thus, they tend to be
self-deceiving, reframing even failure as success. A. E. Housman explores the brevity of
triumph in
To an Athlete Dying Young:
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose...
The laurels do fade, but those who are crowned
in victory may be slow to search for deeper meaning. Jonathan Holden takes our breath away
as his poem
At a Low Mass For Two Hot-Rodders describes a
funeral mass for two teenage competitors who would not "chicken out and
swerve." He sees with the poet's eye the cost of winning ("they idle in a
feelingless embrace") and implies the paradox of losing's life-giving momentum. The
winners are wheeled to their common grave by the losers...
Black-jacketed and glum, who also steered
Toward absolute success with total pride,
But, inches from it, felt, and turned aside.
These boys who didn't crash are still
"glum" about having "felt," but this is a perfect metaphor for the
transitional state of a Three – to be, to feel is such a significant shift from
"doing," from keeping your eyes only on the prize. It takes some getting
used to. To lose that drive for others' applause we need to "walk where my own
nature would be leading," as Emily Brontë reminds us in
Stanzas.
Here, "the lonely mountains reveal"...
More glory and more grief than I can
tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.
Ah, but our own nature, "the legend
under" as William Stafford writes of it in
Bi-Focal, is
"deep as the darkest mine," and the signals along the way are spare
– "the
thick rocks won't tell." Why would Threes draw away from the accolades of the
world? When they come to see "the world happens twice"–
once what we see it as;
second as it legends itself
deep, the way it is.
If you read John Berryman's
The Animal Trainer (1) carefully you will see the
animals
represent the work that awaits Threes. The trainer thought he must leave the
circus, the "excitements of disappointment and praise." His animals had been his
"distraction," and he thinks that if he escapes "the smells and cages
here" he will "stand naked in the sun." But his heart said: "Can you
do without your animals?"
–You are an animal trainer, Heart replied.
Without your animals leaping at your side
No sun will save you, nor this bloodless pride.
–What must I do then? Must I stay and work
With animals, and confront the night, in the circus?
–You learn from animals. You learn in the
dark.
Threes do not become transformed by walking
away from the cages their egos have constructed. Like all of us, they learn from
their animals. They must confront the dark. However difficult the passage,
though, it becomes sweet as they surprise themselves with their own presence.
Other Poems by Published Poets
that Illustrate this Personality Style
Powers of Thirteen-6-Fancy-Pants
(John Hollander)
Fame (Irene McKinney)
