Be that as it may, I’m looking up so and so, and that person, oh and her–Ph.D, good on her–etc. I’m quite sure my high school hasn’t the faintest idea how to find me, so I haven’t been invited, ever, and I doubt very much I would go if I were. All my friends were in classes above me.
Most of my friends have been very successful: I count a software company founder, a professor, a high-up-the-corporate-ladder, and an investment banker, none of whom I have spoken to in many years.
And I think to myself, for the umpteenth time: what is wrong with you? I have a high I.Q. I was a National Merit Scholar. All I had to do was stay in my head, play the nerd game, carry it through to a Masters or Ph.D in some egghead field–and Humanities is fine, if you are on board politically–and build a life around that.
And I could have done that. And I would have gotten to the end of my life never knowing myself. I would have wondered all my life why I could never fully relax, why I was on edge, why I was irritable. There would have been nothing in the way of me pushing people away from me forever. I could have lived happily–relatively speaking–in my head.
Without knowing why, I have consistently thrown myself into things for which I was congenitally–or habitually–unsuited, with Sales being the most obvious example. I have turned into a competent sales person, but I would never have thought that in a million years. I am a competent tradesman. I also never would have thought that.
What I think I felt is that if you are overbalanced in one area, it is important to do something else. And I did that. I have done that.
My head tells me, because my heart doubts me, that a life spent pursuing personal growth, self knowledge, is a life spent well. I look outside my window, though, and this seems to be a rare sentiment. I am keenly aware that I am different, that my decisions do not and have not followed the normal flow chart.
Just in the last few days have I contacted, finally, an energy within me which wishes me well. So much of my life has been spent dodging arrows and sling bullets that I have been firing at myself, lest someone else do it.
I may wind up in a shack in my last years, but I hope when it comes my time to die, I will not have to lie when I say to myself I did my best to become the best I was capable of becoming. I have looked myself in the eyes and unhesitatingly told the truth. This trauma–the puzzle of my past and more importantly what to do about it–has been an extraordinarily complicated problem to solve, but I have nearly solved it.
I can feel peace just over the next hilltop. That is all I’ve ever truly wanted. People who have not breathed hellfire likely cannot understand this.
I have also long said that my biggest fear is getting to the end of my life and realizing I lived someone else’s life. I say this mostly in earnest. This is a big issue for the children of narcissists. It can take a very long time to figure out where to set boundaries, and where you end and everything else and everyone else begins.
But even for the children of healthy parents, I think it is common to get sucked into whirlpools of various sorts. To live authentically, all of us have to endure at least moments of feeling crazy, because as far as we know, we are the only people on the planet thinking x, y, or z. For most things, this illusion is quickly dispelled, because most varieties of crazy are actually quite common, normal, and healthy.
For others of us, not so much. I am going back and forth with an economist at present on my ideas, and he seems not able to wrap his head around seeing the trees in a new way. Trying to convince professional economists to think new thoughts, and failing, and failing repeatedly, is just not a problem most people have. Actually, though, to tell the truth, I like that problem. It’s an interesting challenge.
The gestalt, the Ursprung, from which all this flows, though, is quite unique, and I find being ignored vastly preferable to being misunderstood, particularly by earnest people, but being ignored has its cost too.
Woe is me, woe is me!!!! It must be time for bed. Nothing wrong with me a good night’s sleep won’t fix. Sleep: the Reset button for life.