A Year’s Worth of Me
This title may sound a bit self-serving, though it’s not really meant that way. But since this essay represents the 52nd weekly post detailing my perspectives about life, the world, and myself, I suppose there is an overtly egotistical quality to the project as a whole. In essence I want to believe the words I write have value, that they have the ability to open up new perspectives, both for others and for myself. And as I’ve stated in previous posts, this is most likely just wishful thinking.
In my initial essay I wrote: “In many ways, writing to no one in particular is like I’m tossing a net into an open sea and when pulling it aboard, I won’t know if anything or anyone will be there. Life is a series of casting nets, hoping to find kindred souls, seeking answers to questions that I haven’t even asked, searching for fellow tribesmen or maybe just a reader who nods their head in agreement.”
This overarching desire to connect has not changed since that first post, in fact it has intensified based on being another year older plus living in a world that appears to be descending into greater and greater chaos. So I ask myself if I should continue to produce these essays. As of the writing of this piece, I don’t have a definitive answer. What I do know is that what I have tried to accomplish in the past 74 years has been a set up for failure. Not that the ideas and the work I have accomplished have been futile, but my sense of self never reached a point of satisfaction.
Perhaps that’s the case for many people, that upon self-assessment they feel they’ve missed the boat. Certainly that’s the feeling I have regarding my own life. So I look back to a time when I was four years old attending a nursery school run by the University of Washington. Even today I can picture the playground and the fence where I would stand and watch the trucks go by. The school was a part of a research project instituted by UW to study the behavior and interactive characteristics of the participating children. I still have the 16-page report detailing the observations made about me. Out of all of that analysis, the one sentence that has haunted me for the past 70 years were the words spoken to my mother by one of the teachers. “Your son has so much Potential that he’s not meeting.”
I have lived in fear of not meeting my potential since that time. This is certainly not a rational fear, nor is it something that a four-year-old should have internalized, but here I am, still dreading the specter of Potential. There is a part of me that wonders if I haven’t sabotaged myself. That the diagnosis given by that teacher mandated a lifelong self-fulfilling prophecy of never reaching whatever potential I may or may not have had. I doubt if I will ever find a decisive answer to this question, but at least I can continue to place blame on that long-deceased teacher who had no idea of the impact of her words on the still developing mind of an impressionable child. Or more than likely that’s just an excuse, a cop-out for not taking responsibility for my own life?
Okay, so this is probably what would be referred to as overthinking a situation and obsessing about aspects of childhood experiences I cannot change. But I’ve also always been prone to obsession of sorts, not having the mental means to disengage from much of my past and to spend more time focusing on the health of my immediate future. I continue to replay scenarios from years ago wondering if there wasn’t some better way of handling a situation or relationship. I suspect the friends I’ve lost along the way rarely, if ever, concern themselves with how we might have remained close. Oh well. As the French so succinctly remind us, “C’est la vie!”
Even with all of this introspection, none of the musings in today’s post have answered whether or not I’m going to continue down this path of weekly offerings. What I do have is a list of topics I put together when I started. I’ve only gone through about half of the subject matters I’ve considered writing about, so who knows? So let’s suspend the notion of continuing this experiment or not and just see if something shows up in your email next week. Without making a definite commitment, my sense is that I will keep going since I think I’ve become addicted to writing these. But time will tell.
I’ll leave you today with a favorite of my old poems. The image at the top of this post is intended to go with this piece:
Descending
From five miles up,
brown hardscrabble land
feigns a tranquil glamor,
as metal roofed shacks
glisten with a diamond’s fire,
and weathered remnants of
once majestic mountains,
now eaten by rain, cover the ground
like giant rough-textured sheets.
I understand how we stay aloft,
the dynamics of air on wing,
but I still wonder;
if the air grew tired
and felt enough was enough,
would the ground beckon.
Would rocks call out,
“We have been waiting for you
longer than we can remember.”
In those last few moments
I would not curse the air
for growing tired,
I am weary as well.
I would not blame the rocks
for wanting company,
they too know sorrow,
or at least I want to believe they do.
In the end, the ephemeral nature
of nature itself is revealed.
Just as rivers fill with the mud
of great mountains, inevitably
returning them to the sea,
so will the deeds of men erode.
And all that counts is now.
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I suspect that every one of my teachers from first to the fifth grade must have voiced the exact same evaluation to my parents, likely my father, “Jerry has so much potential, but…..” I was lucky though in that every one of those teachers did what they could to ignite the potential. It would take another 20 years before the kindling took flame.
I know that you will continue to write because words are powerful, and seductive to the writer. And sometimes a reader comes along at just the right time for him/herself….
Your poem suggests that nature, even in the mundane elements (air) can become tired, wearied with human interposition. A commercial jet “rests” upon air, a type of transportation necessary to our way of life. A commercial airliner also happens to generate planet warming waste. I am willing to believe every single thing has a modicum of mind. A mind can only be “put upon” so much and then it will break. Is there any doubt our planet is breaking?
Now, is the time and place of living, dying, loving, and plundering. All that counts is right now.
Thank you, Jerry, for your insights, as always. Many religions place a humanistic element into the elements of the Earth that we might normally view as inanimate. I believe that giving a kind of consciousness to nature allows us to feel like we are incorporated into our environment. Even though we anthropomorphize the items we see around us, I doubt if these aspects of our world actually have that consciousness, but it’s a nice thought. Indeed now is what we have and so we can either continue to work towards the betterment of the world or we can sit back and trust that others will do what’s best. I think we both know that passivity only leads to greater dystopia.
My friend, this feels like it needs a whole conversation and not just a comment. What I will say is that statement – “Your son has so much Potential that he’s not meeting.” might be one of the cruelest things a teacher could say about a student. What the fuck does that even mean for a young child, and talk about setting expectations that may be limiting or unrealistic? How about – “your son shows signs of great intelligence and creativity. Let’s see how we can foster that for him”. Isn’t that what education should be doing instead of feeding us into the machine of potential and productivity and success or failure based on that?
OK, rant over. Would love to chat sometime with you about this. And, please, keep writing. Your words matter and we need them right now.
Paul – Your words are always so on point and are more encouraging and supportive that one can imagine. I look forward to connecting with you by phone in the very near future. Thank you!
Unbeknownst to us kids at the time, teachers had their own unfulfilled positive potentials filled to overflowing with negatives, which us kids then track around like shit on a shoe the rest of our lives.. That ain’t poetry. It is only the truth.