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2008-11-17 - 9:35 p.m. I've been bewailing my restlessness and inability to pursue a particular goal for a long time. But finally, science has provided me with some useful answers. I have come to the conclusion that I am a generalist by nature, and that my mental restlessness is inevitable given that spending too much time in one 'patch' of ideas yields diminishing returns. I can only spend so much time thinking about one thing and then the gain is simply not worth the energy expended...although I apply this selectively, and only to particular thoughts. Nonetheless, this is my current justification for the inevitably long time it is going to take me to finish my degree, if I ever do, as well as the feeling that I am likely to squander the conventional potential I seem to possess, and will be pitied for it. Fear is a very powerful motivator. I may end up a specialist against my biological will simply because fear of failure has been so repeatedly pounded into my head by this delightful system that I both despise and luxuriate in. Hopefully my fear of succumbing to this dammed mirage will come out on top. But people with oceans more (unconventional)potential than I have surrendered to worrying about how those huddling around the oasis pool perceive them, about whether or not they are esteemed and found worthy by their peers. It is a longing to be seen and acknowledged by people who cannot tell the difference between what is real or not any better than me, or you. By people who would turn their backs on the terrible beauty of the desert for the tamed but illusory beauty of their sybaritic oasis. They clutch to a candle rather than let their eyes adjust to the dark. They endlessly praise and denigrate one another and so never have to hear silence, and the roar and cry enfolded within it. I am sitting in this patch, comfortable at the moment but acutely aware that soon I shall feel increasingly hungry, and that this dissatisfaction will only grow the longer I stay put. I ache to leave this imagined oasis and find out those who have made homes in the desert. I am sure that their numbers are greater than rumored here by this pond. But I sit here, I pace in a circle, because my greatest fear accompanies all my thoughts as a shadow. And I know that so many of us share this shadow, because otherwise we'd all be out there jumping at stars in the dark. It is a fear that this mirage is a creation I cannot discard, a skin I cannot shed. It is a fear, above all things, that if I venture into the desert, I will never be able to see past the shimmering palms in my path. |
