This week (and maybe this past year) I've been thinking about the unattained and what most people say and think is unattainable. Basically I'm thinking about how people thought attaining a 4 minute mile was impossible until someone did it and then shortly afterwards a few other people did it, proving that it was not only possible but quite easily attainable. I'm thinking about this because I think I'm a dreamer, I can see things. I'm often discontented with the way things are and I don't agree with the picture that most people around me have been seeing, the stereotypes, the bragging, the sexism, the need to feel superior to others or else feel that one isn't good enough. When I was a child I often wondered why I could not see the world the way everyone around me said they saw it, I couldn't agree with the cliches, I wished to fix my brain in order to fit in. As a child, I could not find someone to blow my mind, as a teenager that was pretty hard too. (I should add that to some extent I was confined by my own and my parents mental box and being in their small community of friends and religious acquaintances, who really did see the world that one way.)
In everyone around me it seemed I noticed the same insecurities that I was struggling with. I could not find someone that had gone beyond them to look up to even though my mind told me it was doable. To some extent I would feel a little guilty for having the 'arrogance' to hope that I could be 'better' than everyone else. I was very intimidated. I still am. I find I am usually willing to do things if one other person around me does them, I curiously don't question myself in that case. It's funny but I was asking myself today the equivalent of, "So if everyone still believed slavery was ok, and you didn't think it was, you would be afraid you were wrong and bad in thinking what you thought and acting on it because no one else thought so ?"
Perhaps I could have done some of the things I was dreaming of but I didn't want to do it alone. I really thought I couldn't be the only person seeing things the way I saw them and be 'right'. I've read some things that seem to imply that is is what separates very very bright people from the rest of the crowd, they have the confidence or strength of mind to do things that no one else is doing, it seems they have the confidence to do things even if it looks like that they are the only person in the world doing it. They apparently have a very rare kind of stubbornness, that separates them from even the very bright who are also stubborn but have more of a need or ability to fit in. I don't think I have this confidence. I seem to crumble if I think of myself at the only person in the world doing something. I find it hard to believe that I can accomplish or deserve to accomplish something no one else can. But I see the possibilities in my mind and they taunt me endlessly... when I do find someone that has managed to make those possibilities a reality or sees them too, I mentally hug them! I'm thinking, "I always KNEW this could be done! Thank you for validating what I've been seeing and nobody else would see. Yes I'm thinking that too."
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