A week or so ago, someone commented that I was always keen to learn and that they admired that in me.

They’re right, I am. But it doesn’t stem from curiosity or intelligence or any of that stuff. I want to learn because I always have this feeling that I’m not quite good enough. I want to learn so that I can be accomplished and clever and good at things, but it always feels like that’s just out of my reach. And it’s frustrating.

It’s frustrating, for example, when I put work up for critique and people tell me they like it. Some weird little piece of me doesn’t want them to like it, it wants them to hate it and tear it to shreds so I can learn where I’m going wrong, get justification for why I don’t like it. I love critiques that pick up every nit pick, every tiny invisible bit of fluff, because I can learn from those. I can learn why it’s wrong, or at least find an excuse why it feels wrong to me.

And I like it when people tell me I screw up. For some strange reason it gives me a focus, gives me something to aim for.

Thinking back, I don’t know where this came from, why I’m like this. I don’t have a desire to compete, to be better than everyone else. And I wonder if I’m the only one who feels this way? Is this normal?

There’s a song that always makes me cry. Just the one, I don’t cry easily. It’s written by Eric Bogle, an ex-pat from Scotland who now lives in Australia.

His most famous song is And the Band Played Walzing Matilda — once recorded by the Pogues — but it’s another of his anti-war songs that gets me. A song called No Man’s Land. It seems fitting for today, somehow.

And I can’t help but wonder now Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end war?

For the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the pain
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
For Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.