Is it? Am I? Aw, screw that.

So, I'm paranoid.

~~

Okay, now that people have had time to get over that, let me explain myself. No, I'm not joking, and no, I'm not just being paranoid that I'm paranoid (EDIT: Aw, dang, no recursion, please...).

Firstly, paranoid is a very nice word, it must be admitted. There's just something special about the word that I can't identify. Maybe it's the elegant para- prefix, which means, generally, 'not the same as'. Or it could be the second half, -noid, which, contrary to what theurbandictionary.com says, does not mean a f***wit. Because that entomology, seriously, makes no freaking sense at all. It's derived from greek, and means 'head'. Now THAT's appropriate.

Okay, next. So, what would lead me to believe that I'm paranoid? Well, firstly, that earlier example of recursion is a good point. Just thinking that you worry too much is perfectly fine in itself. However, when you take this up a notch and start worrying about worrying too much, yeah. You're probably over the edge.

To demonstrate this, let me give you an example. Say something has happened, and you immediately jump to the worst conclusion. What does one do after this?

The non-paranoid person says to himself "Hey, chum, you're worrying too much. Let it go."

while

The paranoid person says to himself "Hey, chum, you're worrying too much. Wait, hold on: Am I really worrying too much, or is my worry justified? On the other hand, I could be overreacting to a simple statement, but it's possible that... Aw, dangit."

Yeah. That's what's going on in my head. (No wonder I appear weird to other people, I don't even understand what going on in my own head.) Well, it's possible that I could just be insecure, given my bevy (ooh, another nice word) of identity crises, but make of that what you will.

And lastly, my trump card, for people who still aren't convinced: If I wasn't paranoid, I wouldn't have spent one whole longish blog post talking about it, wouldn't I?

QED, suckas.