I may have a genius IQ. I am very curious. I like learning. I have some people skills and presentation skills. As far as capitalist success, I’m pretty set up. I have ADD and anxiety and the stuff that most teachers wanted me to do in school was just not interesting to me. I didn’t do homework and I think I ended up graduating with a 1.8 grade point average. I was acing tests, class-clowning, and ignoring homework as often as would allow me to continue school.
The thing often told to my mom was “Scot has so much potential if he would only apply himself.” This anti-motivated me for two reasons…
Limited thinking
Potential to what? Most of my school seemed to be geared up to go to a local college, stay in town, do a normal job, get a normal house, have a normal family. Getting to normal isn’t what I would consider “so much potential.”
Unlimited thinking
I have potential to everything. Even if i wasn’t born so privileged i could still be a soldier, a senator, a doctor, a tv actor, whatever… potential is endless and amorphous. Shooting for achieving my potential is a terrible goal. Even if I’m the richest person in the world, I’m still not pursuing my potential of being a soccer player or a house-husband or whatever other infinite potential things
The trap of infinity
I am all for people maximizing on their gifts. I’m all for people using their whole selves – for shooting big and dumping everything into it! Potential is a tarpit. It’s a trap that i still fall into on a regular basis. I think what’s possible and get a nose-bleed. Then, I get paralyzed. The remedy for me is to switch the search for “potential” to the search for “opportunity” … what’s in front of me now, or what will be in front of me. What’s fun? How do i like spending my time? Who do I like spending my time with? Opportunity is real even though my lens of the world is distorted, it’s a tangible path instead of just an endless void waiting to be filled.
Side: in space movies, they fly in any direction they want near light speed through meteor showers and dodge rocks. Like, people get in wrecks on a two dimentional road with lines drawn on it. Are these space drivers that much better? seems impossible.