Enduring Lessons In Passivity

At the leadership course I was sent on
I tried to follow the lecturers' attempts at making
holding court with a crowd sound philosophical, home spun and personal.
It was as if their every word and pause deserved my attention.
But however hard I tried to feel welcomed, their court
was not my home. All the time I was there I was only ever
a follower who was there to be lectured to on what to believe.
The worst part was how for so many years after
I was disallowed from seeing myself as passive-
until my lecturers were long dead voices in my head.