You know, if what you want is hot takes with no filter, I’m kind of your guy.
I don’t even edit.
It felt good to get my various confessions out.
The only possible plausible explanation for how I get away with only ever doing a single draft is the one I mention in the vid, that I must be incredibly talented.
And honestly, that ain’t even half of it, because what I failed to mention in the above is that only did I never do a second draft at any level of my education, writing that first draft was super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Never in my entire educational history have I felt seriously challenged. When I was going to VFS, it was only in the final semester that I felt any strain.
So much for the big scary “intensive” program.
And honestly, that should have pointed to my having stellar life prospects. I could have gone into any number of historically academically challenging fields like law or medicine or business and kicked royal ass and then, who knows?
But I had no guidance from anyone as a teen. I mean, the guidance counselors were pathetic jokes. The one in junior high was a total knob and the two in my high school had absolutely no interest in doing their jobs.
All it would have taken was for someone to sit me down and tell me that I was very, very gifted and needed to apply for every scholarship under the sun so I could afford to go to a decent university that could offer me real prospects as opposed to the second worst college in Canada, UPEI.
On my own and with nobody to tell me where to go and what to do, I was far too lacking in ambition and focus to think to do any of that when I was a teen. On my own, I’m a happy go lucky directionless wanderer who doesn’t think much about the future.
Or at least I was. I am getting over that now.
I want things, dammit. Like a job. And a husband. And a HOUSE.
I suppose I should get over being embarrassed by my excellence. I mean, what purpose does that serve? It’s not my fault if my amazingness makes somebody else feel bad by comparison.
Someone like my brother. I get the feeling that his jealousy had a much larger impact on my life than I’ve ever considered before.
Well fuck that. I’m a brilliant scintillating star and I’m going to shine, shine, shine.
And I’m going to get some fucking respect while I’m at it, too. By any measure, I practically have superpowers, and this hero’s got to fly.
Looks like our little robot alien boy is finally growing up.
The other big confession was the fact that I don’t edit. And I get away with it. There was a time when I honestly thought I would reach a point where my first drafts wouldn’t be good enough any more and that would be my wake up call to get serious and buckle down and actual write like a normal person.
But nope. Never happened. Maybe if I had gone on to graduate school I would have finally met my match, or at least found some degree of challenge, but maybe not.
Maybe I could have sailed through law school and pass the bar with flying colors and made a career as an ass kicking lawyer who fights for the little guy.
I would love to be one of those lawyers who forces insurance companies to pay out when they are trying to get away with stiffing some regular person or people.
Call me. I’ll make the bastards pay.
I feel a thrill just typing that.
More after the break.
My feeling of power
It’s probably overblown. By a lot.
But even if it isn’t – even if I walk godlike amongst the mere mortals of the world and they should tremble at my might – I’ve got to get some kind of handle on it.
Right now, it mostly underwrites my fears. As if I am Gulliver in Lilliput and I have to be infinitely careful how I move or speak lest I crush the life out of the tiny creatures who swarm around my feet.
I don’t know where this sense of my own gigantism came from. Probably in elementary school, when I first realized how different I was from the other kids. How I towered above them intellectually.
But that doesn’t explain this stultifying sense of responsibility. I don’t know why I feel like I have to tread so very carefully.
So carefully, in fact, that my best option is to just not go anywhere.
Can’t step on anybody if you don’t move, right?
Perhaps it was born that day when two different philosophy teachers, completely independently of one another, took it upon themselves to ask me to stop dominating class discussions and give other people a chance to speak.
Maybe I took that lesson way too hard. I know that by the time the second teacher was half way through their speech, I felt really bad about the whole thing.
Especially because I’d had no idea I was doing it. I suppose back then I would have assumed that you had to choose to do evil.
And it came just as I was really starting to “feel my oats” as an intellectual.
Maybe I should have taken the asshole route and said, “Hey, if they can’t hold their own against me when I talk, too freaking bad. Get stronger or shut up. ”
That would have made me a horrible human being, but possibly a much more successful and happy and competent one.
I’d have something upon which to construct a positive image of myself.
And I probably would have gotten over myself eventually. Probably.
Well it’s too late for that now. You can get away with a lot at the age of 19 that you could never get away with at 51.
Besides, I know better now.
In conclusion, I am still trying to integrate my abilities into my sense of self without losing my mind completely.
I’m working on it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.