(no subject)
So, I'm updating from work when I ought not to be.
I'm not sure what made me decide to post this, but today I got called away from my normal job of selling wine to douchebags to do a bunch of loading and unloading out of a truck. Lately, for some reason, and reaching a peak today I've had this really strong desire to just quit it all and get a working class job. Smoke cigarrettes. Work to get by, fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
I've always felt like for some reason I was obligated to do something with myself, yet my strongest desire throughout my life has been to escape who I am. Though I've probably only told about two or three people in my life, I would give up everything I've ever had to be completely normal. I don't want people to think I'm smart, or I'm funny. I want to be completely indistinguishable from everyone else. I want people to hear my name mentioned and think "Who's Fred? I'm sure I've heard that name before..." I want to get C's.
I don't think of myself as smarter than anyone else. I've accepted it; and though I don't believe it, it's become part of my framework of consciousness because everyone I meet ascribes this characteristic to me. Indeed a social construction of reality. I don't know what it is about me that radiates this vibe that makes other people think I'm smart, but in the very core of my personhood I don't feel like I embody that trait in any way. It's because of the way other people have treated me, and continue to do so that I've felt this obligation (I hate the phrase Noblesse Oblige, but go ahead and use it if you need to).
Call it running away from something because I am at heart an incredibly weak person (a true statement), or romanticizing the working class in a patronizing and condescending way (also likely true though I don't mean it), but in many ways this feels a lot righter than the un-reality of academia right now.
I think that, by extension, this intelligence that I don't intuit, that I struggle to live up to has been one of the greatest sources of auto-dissatisfaction in my life. I have never felt like I was enough. I'm not as smart as people think, I'm horrendously unattractive, I don't really get how to interact socially, etc. Thinking back now, I see that my view of myself as ugly began about the same time as others began viewing me as different because I was intelligent (though I really didn't comprehend that I was at all abnormal until I was about 12, and these views reflect this indefinable undertow of sentiment in their lack of clarity or focus and my lack of objective understanding of them). Though I was told every day of my youth how ugly I was, I wonder if my own complex with it arose in tandem with my intellectual failing from my own eyes.
I'm looking back now over what I wrote, and almost can't believe the frankness with which I've written about myself. I'm honestly surprised that this has come out of me, and my instinct immediately is to delete it and pretend it didn't happen. I convince myself that most people won't even read it, or if they do it won't mean anything. Maybe that's true. But in the spirit of self-confrontation I'm daring myself to post it.
I just can't convince myself to stop typing so I can hit the "update journal" button.
Press it.
Damn it. I can't do this. Shit shit shit shit shit.
I'm not sure what made me decide to post this, but today I got called away from my normal job of selling wine to douchebags to do a bunch of loading and unloading out of a truck. Lately, for some reason, and reaching a peak today I've had this really strong desire to just quit it all and get a working class job. Smoke cigarrettes. Work to get by, fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
I've always felt like for some reason I was obligated to do something with myself, yet my strongest desire throughout my life has been to escape who I am. Though I've probably only told about two or three people in my life, I would give up everything I've ever had to be completely normal. I don't want people to think I'm smart, or I'm funny. I want to be completely indistinguishable from everyone else. I want people to hear my name mentioned and think "Who's Fred? I'm sure I've heard that name before..." I want to get C's.
I don't think of myself as smarter than anyone else. I've accepted it; and though I don't believe it, it's become part of my framework of consciousness because everyone I meet ascribes this characteristic to me. Indeed a social construction of reality. I don't know what it is about me that radiates this vibe that makes other people think I'm smart, but in the very core of my personhood I don't feel like I embody that trait in any way. It's because of the way other people have treated me, and continue to do so that I've felt this obligation (I hate the phrase Noblesse Oblige, but go ahead and use it if you need to).
Call it running away from something because I am at heart an incredibly weak person (a true statement), or romanticizing the working class in a patronizing and condescending way (also likely true though I don't mean it), but in many ways this feels a lot righter than the un-reality of academia right now.
I think that, by extension, this intelligence that I don't intuit, that I struggle to live up to has been one of the greatest sources of auto-dissatisfaction in my life. I have never felt like I was enough. I'm not as smart as people think, I'm horrendously unattractive, I don't really get how to interact socially, etc. Thinking back now, I see that my view of myself as ugly began about the same time as others began viewing me as different because I was intelligent (though I really didn't comprehend that I was at all abnormal until I was about 12, and these views reflect this indefinable undertow of sentiment in their lack of clarity or focus and my lack of objective understanding of them). Though I was told every day of my youth how ugly I was, I wonder if my own complex with it arose in tandem with my intellectual failing from my own eyes.
I'm looking back now over what I wrote, and almost can't believe the frankness with which I've written about myself. I'm honestly surprised that this has come out of me, and my instinct immediately is to delete it and pretend it didn't happen. I convince myself that most people won't even read it, or if they do it won't mean anything. Maybe that's true. But in the spirit of self-confrontation I'm daring myself to post it.
I just can't convince myself to stop typing so I can hit the "update journal" button.
Press it.
Damn it. I can't do this. Shit shit shit shit shit.