I grew up being afraid to make mistakes. Like any mistake. Or transgression. Or anything which might be interpreted as such.

I'll give you a fer example. When I was in Kindergarten, I missed four problems in math. All year, I only got four problems wrong. And my entire year's worth of math mistakes came on one day. Basically, I completely torched some ordering assignment. I thought I was supposed to list the sunflowers from highest to lowest, and it was the other way around. This put me into a serious funk. A month-long depression, really. I got better only after resolving not to miss any math problems for all of first grade.

I didn't miss any math problems in first grade, either.

I did, however, take second grade math that year, and I missed a few of those. I rationalized this "failure" by saying that it was okay to miss a question from a higher grade. Unfortunately, this short burst of reasonable thinking went away as fast as it arrived. It vacated my brain about the time I rationalized skipping second grade by saying I had done the work already (which I had, come to think of it, and anyway, I'm quite glad I skipped the grade).

Unlike most kids, I had a definite sense of right and wrong. I bit the apple soon after I was born, I think, and I've always known the right and proper way to do things. For a long time, I worked my ass off to do things in only the right and proper ways. Well, with the exception of making my bed, but that's a whole different story.

Things got so bad that by the time I was in drivers' ed I was apologizing left and right for my "mistakes". Every time I didn't brake just so or hit the turn signal at the right time, I said a very audible "I'm sorry." My instructor tried to wean me from this habit, but it didn't work. Him yelling at me simply brought out a multitude of apologies.

Since grade school I was something of an insomniac. A lot of it had to do with a natural nocturnal impulse (I really don't get tired until at least two in the morning), but a good amount of it had to do with the baggage I was dragging along behind me.

I was wound up way too tight. This situation was probably somewhat my parents' fault (they do have similar tendencies sometimes), but mostly, I was a victim of my own twisted logic. I lived in a black and white world, and every time something didn't fit, I forced the peg in anyway.

I don't need to mention that I broke my family's "Perfection" game by cramming a hexagon piece into a pentagon slot.

My senior year in high school, I became friends with a guy named Gerry. He's a big guy, 6' 6" and well past 200 pounds. As long as I've known him, he's had an attitude of "it's okay". He got on my ass whenever I became contrite about some silly thing or another, telling me to not worry about things so much, to just accept life on its own terms. Actually, he'd say things like "What the fuck are you thinking? It's just a goddamn vocabulary test."

After about a year of such treatment, I began to see things more along Gerry's lines. I consciously disobeyed my parents, I started allowing myself to question religion, I started writing seriously and what do you know? I finally could sleep at night. For the most part, anyway.

Now I've gone much the other way. I never really cared what people thought of me, but my logical process is different. When I was younger, I didn't care because I knew I was perfect. Nowadays I don't care because it doesn't matter one way or the other. If I don't have to deal with these people, why should I worry about what they think?

Yes, I still say "I'm sorry" when I make a silly mistake. Usually, though, the utterance is only in my head. I speak only when I'm feeling particularly set upon one way or another. In general, I've come to realize that stress is completely self-generated and not particularly useful. Now when I get stressed, I talk myself into not being stressed. Which is much easier than my old method, trying to change whatever it is that is stressing me.

See, Gerry is right. It's okay. Even if I get fired, my house burns down, my wife leaves me and no record label will ever speak to me again, it's still okay. I'm still around.

That's the only thing that really matters, y'know?

Jon Worley would like to apologize for the philosophy session. He promises to return to more superficial subject next week.