The saddest thing a person can realize about himself is that he is not as great as he once assumed. If you’re lucky, you realize it early on in childhood. Maybe you find yourself always being picked last for red rover. Or maybe you just can’t seem to finish your math worksheets as quickly as the other kids. As you go through life, you see the realization of ungreatness hit your friends. Some decide to listen to different music than you, or they kiss the first girl who smiles at them, just so they can achieve some level of self-confidence and a sense of acceptance.
It’s a rite of passage that every human being goes through. It’s the search and struggle for belonging. The simplest metaphor is the migration of the American Indian. Stay with me… it’s really not that complicated. Let’s say that the ultimate goal of every single person crossing over the Bering Strait in 15,000 B.C. was to make it to Rio de Janeiro. Everyone just assumed it was the perfect spot on earth, so that’s where they headed.
On the way through Alaska, some Indians said, “You know, walking really sucks… and I think whale actually tastes pretty good, so I think I’ll stay here.” Further south into Canada, some said, “Have you guys tried this hockey thing? It’s pretty fucking awesome!” Onward into the Great Plains, some stopped and said, “I think if we stopped in this general area… and then maybe moved east, we should find some pretty nice real estate that we can hang on to for a while.” Still some soldiered on, losing a few to the jungles of Central America, where sacrificing virgins on the tops of pyramids is not only accepted, but encouraged!
The brave few that made it all the way to Rio were certainly proud of their achievement. They managed to persevere despite the inviting allure of settling for “good enough.” But as they set their tent pecks and look around, they say, “It’s nice… I mean it’s a little colder than I thought… but it’s nice… not great but nice…”
Underwhelmed, they give their buddies in Peru a call, but they’re so coaked up, partying with their “Peru” friends that they don’t answer the smoke signals. They give their buddies in Mexico a call, but they haven’t really talked to them since their Pan American reunion last year and before that they had totally lost touch the summer they left for Columbia.
So the Rio Indians are the ones who achieved their goals in life, or at least THE goal set during the childhood. Now they look around and they wonder what the hell all that walking was for. Why didn’t they just stop in Arizona… it was a total party tribe. Sure they wouldn’t be schmoozing it up with other well-healed Rio Indians, but they could have partied like rock stars, gotten a BA and started their own adobe construction company.
So there it is. My metaphor for what it’s like being a middle class white kid. Everyone starts off assuming they’re going to be doctors, lawyers, professional athletes or, worst case scenario, the president of the United States. The vast majority will discover their own limitations before they get to high school.
When did I realize that I was nothing special… or better yet, where did my Indian metaphor decide to settle? I think he ended up somewhere in central Texas. See… he decided to take a shortcut to Rio once he got to the Rocky Mountains. He knew he didn’t have it in him to just walk his ass all the way to Rio, so he jumped on a log in the Colorado River, assuming that he could take it all the way to the Caribbean and then swim up the mouth of the Amazon River. He had it all planned out, but once he hit Austin, TX he realized that not everyone is meant to make it to Rio.
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