Can't get this out of the Noggin'

I've been in what some people call a brain freeze lately. Before you switch over to another swell blog, let me explain, because I'd really dig some advice.

Like I wrote, this spring I've been having something that resembles ediblewoman's low self-efficacy. Although I don't see "myself as ineffectual," a parallel could be drawn to my deficiency (and mindfulness of it).

It's difficult to spell it out without seemingly rambling into colloquial speech for an unforgivable amount of HTML text. But here goes.

Basically I'm afraid that I'm not developing intellectually like I should, or like it appears my neighbors, Romans and countrymen are. Inherently it seems, I've always dipped into and out of two sets of friends. Surely that's normal. One group, I'll call them "Collaborating Coronary," because they deliver me with the same type of necessities that you might expect from coronary circulation... in essence they're the "blood vessels that supply blood to and from the heart muscle itself." That may seem romantic, and maybe it is and the analogy is seamless, but what I mean is that they supply me with more creativeness than my intellectual capacity can circumvent, or participate in. And that right there is the scenario I've been most conscious about this spring.

There's an intellectual level that I believe everyone operates at when you're conversing with others. An incredible conversation that the "Collaborating Coronary" usually undertakes is a notch above the ordinary operating level, where people are able to trade ideas and witty remarks like it's nothing; almost like they're in some sort of driver's seat, grooving to some off-beat Toots and the Maytals. Sometimes I feel like I can riff with them and I'd like to engage in it more often. But I feel a keen awareness that I'm not always up to that level.

I have two scapegoats that I think I can sort of "blame" this incapability on. One is my environment as a boyish youngin'. I didn't have a brother or sister to compete with or bounce ideas off of. I think having a sibling would have developed this responsive quickness in thought (some say wittiness). That and my parents weren't exactly the most creative in speech. They were weird hippies in their day, but they'd settled down and were fairly low key. It almost didn't seem important to riff or tell outlandish stories. If it had and we had done some of that at the dinner table or something maybe, I often think, I would have a different frame of mind.

The other scapegoat, which seems more logical, has been the consumption of alcohol. Perhaps it's just a sad excuse for social ineptness, but I sincerely believe a segment of my slowness owes its nature to drinking alcohol before fully developing. I've heard it over and over again. "This is the worst part of your life to drink." My psychology teacher extended this to his belief that it would be better for a toddler to drink alcohol than a person my age, because the connections between neurons is vitally important.

However, many of the "Collaborating Coronary" have the same habits that I do when it comes to substance. We don't abuse liquor and drugs, but we don't exactly go to great oceanic lengths to distance ourselves from the inhibitors. And part of that is the culture of Montanans. What a cheap excuse that is, ehh.

And so I wonder if anyone has had something like this realization. Yes, I should be comfortable in my own shoes, but perhaps there's something I can do to improve this self-perceived poor standing.