Dear Vain Pain

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/daily-prompt-ugly/

Write a letter to the personality trait you like least, convincing it to shape up or ship out. Be as threatening, theatrical, or thoroughly charming as is necessary to get the job done.

You’re so vain, I bet you think this blog is about you

You’re so vain, so vain

I bet you think this blog is about you,

Don’t you, Don’t you

Oh Vain Pain,

We have known each other for many years, at least thirty something, though the time feels interminable.  I have listened to your oft quoted successes as a human being, a lover, a fighter, a thinker, an opinion-maker, an athlete, a worker, a world-problem-solver, a undiscovered genius, a non-running, non-elected master politician, a deity with his rear as high as his head and pretty much any and everything else that could possibly come to my mind; or to the millions of minds around the world at any instant.

I usually feign decent interest, only to turn my head and give a proverbial eye roll or two.  I laugh at your monotonous stories . . . monotonous, not because they are without excitement, but because you are always the subject.

If the ever flamboyant and accommodating Mr. Thenardier insisted on charging patrons, two percent for looking in the mirror twice, I dare say, in your case, he could have retired just on that extra charge alone.

But, for all my frustration with your vanity and pomp, I realize it is a small world in which you dwell.  To be the center of one’s own universe is nothing if not pathetic.  To be, not only the central, illuminating star; but each and every planet, lesser star, comet, asteroid, black hole, milky way and nebulae, must indeed, be a small, bland universe.

I would hate to think of looking at the vastness of God’s creation and seeing in it only my own reflection.  I would hate to hear Beethoven or Tchaikovsky played flawlessly and hear only my own self-droning tune.  I would hate to hear the great tenors and soloists and in them hear only my own voice.  I would hate to read the great thinkers, philosophers and theologians and in them sense only my own self-centered ideas.  I would hate to feel the movement of love and romance and sense only my own self-aggrandizing ego.

I would think your highest thoughts are saturated with delusions of grandeur.

Yet, you seem content and happy.

I am not one to burst another’s bubble.  So, for all that has been said, carry on my wayward son.  Live your life to the fullest, which in your case, means being the best you that you can adore.  Don’t mind the rest of us.  Don’t pay attention to people who speak of such absurd things as third-party perspective.

No, continue basking in the glow of your wall-mounted mirror.  The mirror that always says you are the fairest and noblest in the land.  A mirror which speaks in your own self-approving voice.

Sincerely,

Vain Pain Once Removed