Fortune Favors The Bold

The History Of Understanding

alexbalk:

I always thought that there was one thing everyone else but I knew, as if I had missed a day of school in third grade when they handed out the instructions on how to handle life and then spent the rest of the time at a disadvantage without quite understanding what that one thing the rest of them had been told was. With every setback or disappointment I had an even more fervent belief that once I finally figured out what that one thing was that everyone else understood it all would fall into place for me. As I grew older I began to realize that everyone had that one thing too, and it was different for each person. But when I ultimately understood that there was a complete cartload of things that I didn’t understand, and that I never would, and that it didn’t really matter because I had already come this far and at the end of it there wasn’t some kind of gold watch or statue but just the ineffable indifference of the universe testifying to my ultimate insignificance, I finally figured out that none of it really mattered and that I had actually understood the way the it all worked the whole time. And then I understood that, uh oh, I was probably missing something important.

I sort of had the opposite issue - I was smart enough as a child that they tried to get me to skip grades (I chose not to) and I always felt confident to be able to figure out things quickly. Sure, I sucked at homework and pretty much went all the way from kindergarten through college without being able to effectively self-time-manage, but if anything I could make up for shortcomings by having a pretty solid understanding of most of the topics in advance - and through bulldozing through tests. And so I always figured that I’d be alright once I got away from the homework. I’m now finding out that my entire life always consists of self-starting work, there are no simple tests where I can “make up the difference”, and that my shortcomings are finally going to be ruinous. No extensions, no extra credit, and certainly no rewards. Yet I’m still smart enough to have figured a lot of things out. It’s clear I know a lot more than others who are more rich in resources and career flexibility than I am. Everyone knows it. It doesn’t matter at all. I’m still gonna flunk out. The lesson: I shoulda stuck with woodshop.