In the past few posts I've been writing about the turmoil I went through in those months after we immigrated from Germany to Canada (hence the unclever title). And during that time nothing caused me more grief than one simple question... It completely changed my life... Here's the story:
One day during gym class I got into a verbal altercation with a classmate named Dan Maslanka. I don't remember what set me off but I do remember giving him some serious attitude. And he finally got in my face and said: "Just what the expletive is so special about you???"
It was obviously a rhetorical question... but I suddenly realized that I didn't know the answer...
A lot of things flashed through my mind in the seconds that followed, like:
I used to live in a 3 story house with a maid.
I used to belong to an exclusive tennis club where servants brought my food.
My parents used to be well to do.
I used to be an honor student at an exclusive private school.
But that was not my current reality:
My family lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment.
I didn't belong to an exclusive anything.
My mom was looking for a job.
I was a C+ student at the same school Dan went to.
Yeah - it was one of those epiphanies: In a flash I realized that everything I thought was special about me had nothing to do with me. And now it was all history...
And that was only the beginning (I have mild OCD, remember?) ... Over the following months I revisited everything I thought I knew about myself:
If I was so smart how come I wasn't getting A's?
If I was so "good looking" why were girls ignoring me?
If I was such an amazing guy why didn't I have any friends?
Why did I only feel "right" wearing a suit? - What was wrong with blue jeans and T-shirts?
Why did I feel so much "better" than "working class" people?
And what about art and music?
I was well versed in classical music. Did that make me somehow special? I didn't even like a lot of it. Same with art... I'd been taught what "good art" was, but if I really understood art why did I have to know who the artist was to decide if a particular piece was "good"?
Yes - I had been (unfortunately) raised to be "sophisticated"...
Aside: I honestly don't know why people think being sophisticated is a good thing. The dictionary defines it as "Having acquired worldly knowledge or refinement; lacking natural simplicity or naivete". So what the expletive is so great about that??
IMHO acquiring "knowledge and refinement" is nothing more than adopting the opinions of others as your own... (Yeah - you have to be really special to do that...) And there's nothing I value more in a person than "natural simplicity" - it's so rare these days... But I digress...
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg but the point is that I spent 3 months in pure psychological hell - I was absolutely devastated... I had spent my whole life feeling so special and in an instant realized that it was all an illusion... I could not find a single truly special thing about me... And that changed my life.
I'd like to say that I totally stopped judging people as a result - but that didn't happen... Although I did try :-) And I do try and treat everyone with respect (especially when I'm being a lawyer)... but I can still be an arrogant jerk sometimes :-)
I've found that it really helps to think of my "intelligence" (whatever the heck that is) as kind of a "birth defect" - it's something I have to live with but it doesn't have to define me :-)
There's a lot more that came from all that soul searching - it will become evident as the story unfolds - all because I couldn't answer one simple question...
About Me
- pdx70rt
- The title of my blog is "Screws fall out all the time". This, of course, is a line from "The Breakfast Club". What follows is "we live in an imperfect world" and that is the thing I found most interesting (and amusing) about life...
4 comments:
Actually, I think that realizing that one isn't particularly "special," (or that maybe everyone is special in some way) can be immensely liberating. I remember I used to be terribly self-conscious e.g. when entering a room. Then an ex-boyfriend said, "Why on earth do you think people are looking at YOU?" He meant to be unkind, but in fact he was right. And it was great.
Going through all that was defintely a positive thing and it was certainly liberating in a lot of ways.
Like - my goal of maintaining a 2.5 GPA throughout high school was easily achievable. I even had to skip an occasional test to keep it that low - but that's a future story :-)
It was just a bit painful going through the process of "deconstruction" (especially at 13).
And yeah - whenever I get too stressed I think about how many people there are on our planet, and how many solar systems are in our galaxy and how many galaxies are in the universe... From that perspective it's hard to take much of anything very seriously :-)
I love the idea of intelligence as a birth defect! I wouldn't want to give mine up for anything, but it does cause me grief sometimes.
For example...perhaps you recall the evaluation you and mom had to fill out about me when I was in the fifth grade. I still have it in my filing cabinet and the most noteworthy line came in the section where you were supposed to note things I could improve on and wrote that I have little patience for those who are less apt than I am. Now I've actually made a conscious effort in my adult life to not be smug about my intelligence and I truly have learned to value and admire other types of intelligence. Yet, my supervisor recently told me (at a bar, so totally unofficially) that he thinks that my biggest obstacle to advancement (given another equally qualified candidate, as was the case recently) is "always having to be the smartest person in the room". I'm still kinda puzzled and unsure exactly what he meant...I don't feel any need to be the smartest person in the room, I just say stuff when I know stuff!! It's pretty frustrating to know that people perceive an attitude that I don't have...
But back to you...I think it shows real strength of character that you actually went through this incredibly painful self-exploration rather than just ignoring the kid...
Yeah - as an engineer I always used to make fun of humanities majors. But then they kicked my butt in law school :-)
And you're right about different types of intelligence - I have encountered the most AMAZING people in the most unexpected places :-)
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