I think it's inevitable, in a 'meritocratic' society that equates education with worth, that those with an illustrious education history (grades, schools etc) tend to feel just a little bit superior to the less academically inclined. I do know this is quite a generalisation, but still, it does happen, in subtle thoughts and little gestures that suggest a patient tolerance of ignorance. Sometimes though, one of these supposedly 'less smart' people comes along and shows you everything you needed to know but did not want to find out about yourself.
There's this boy in my new church, let's call him FloppyHair13. FloppyHair13 has an illustrious history of the alternative kind, from being called up to police stations, gang and drug related activities. Fatherless with a mother who works long hours and leaves him to his own devices, he engages in attention-seeking behaviour, speaks loudly, but sometimes you catch him sitting quietly in a corner, biting his nails to shreds. He exhibits great musical ability though, acute sense of pitch, awareness of tone quality, strong rhythmic sense, and has a really nice voice (despite the fact that it's breaking). Last week I volunteered to teach him how to play the guitar, maybe out of fascination to see how far he could progress, or out of an insufferable saviour complex. He did amazingly - picked up chords fast, and he really wants to learn, anything and everything, wants to attempt the difficult stuff, but doesn't mind repeating things over and over again just to get it right.
And I remember my cello standing neglected and accumulating rosin dust, sneak a peek and the textbooks lying at the bottom of a drawer, and wonder what is this indifference, this lack of motivation; there's so much to learn but so little I want to know, because knowledge is at once empowering and frustrating, because you see how much you cannot do/how much more you have to cram.
FloppyHair13 is probably immune to the concept of failure, maybe because he hears it all the time, from his teachers, his mother etc. Or maybe he knows exactly what it is but it doesn't matter to him. Either way he's better off.
On a strange note, I realised that I'm currently at Erikson's developmental stage of generativity vs. stagnation, which is supposedly characteristic of adults undergoing mid-life crisis. On a weird note, one of my lecturers was just talking about an elderly person who, through therapeutic writing, reconciled her past experiences with her current identity, and said this person was at the stage of integrity vs. despair (characteristic of the elderly). Which coincidentally was exactly what I wrote in my therapeutic writing essay/reflection. Middle aged or elderly, it isn't much of a choice. Either way, I think now I know that I'm aging prematurely.
