Sleepless Ranting

When I was young - high school age, or thereabouts - I had started developing a theory about how space was made up of something, and the way that something distorted around the mass of the massive objects in space is what created gravity. I had read a decent amount of physics for my age, far more than most anyone else I knew, anyway, but not nearly enough to be developing any kind of theory on that level.

Shortly after that, I discovered Einstein's theory of General Relativity and it was the first time in my life I truly felt a huge ego blow. You would think that a teenager discovering they were in line with the thinking of one of the most brilliant minds of recorded human history would have been an ego boost, but no. It destroyed me. It was one of the first times I felt truly small in this world. And it was also one of the first times I felt like my own world, too, was small.

And after that, I met my first real girlfriend. She was the first person I had ever met that had read physics and philosophy and psychology. It was the first person who I could talk to for hours about such deep topics. Of course, anyone who knows me also knows how all that went, but to say she ended up being manipulative would be an understatement.

Going back in time from all of that, though, while I was in middle school I had decided to give it my all. I wanted National Honor Society, and I was really going to put forth all the effort I possibly could. I can't remember what class it was, but I ended up getting a B- or a C or something of that nature - definitely not something worth remembering at this point in my life for any other reason than to exemplify the point. Putting forth what felt like so much effort to fail on my goal made me feel like it was all worthless to even try. It was at that point in time that I truly stopped trying in school, and what ultimately led me to graduating at the very bottom of my high school class - in fact, having to go to summer school my senior year to gain that final credit to graduate.

When I graduated high school, I went straight into the work life. I did construction for years, but there was a point in time where I truly thought that going to college was going to be for me. I went to fill out the FAFSA in order to get student loans, but my parents would not give me their tax information in order to get approved for any of the said student loans and I most certainly did not have the money to go to college. So, I stayed working. Maybe I would have graduated and it wouldn't have changed anything else for me, or maybe I could have pursued some career like a college professor of philosophy or physics or become an engineer or who knows. Its all a life that never panned out, nor will it ever.

At this point, however, I feel like I have spent the vast majority of my life getting to a certain point in my jobs where I hit a glass ceiling, and it is never a place in which feels satisfactory.

I say all this because I don't feel like I am unique. Perhaps my exact story is, but I don't think that it is unique whatsoever for people to lose out on opportunities that could have drastically improved their lives. I don't think it is unique for a stupid event to destroy someone's self worth. I don't think it is unique for early relationships to set someone up for a future of traumatic responses that takes them a tremendously long time to even be able to acknowledge. In fact, I think that it is more common than not. Especially when it comes to trauma.

And the trauma is the most befuddling one. Without hardships, we aren't given the tools to learn how to become better versions of ourselves. If we were to just live our lives in isolated echo chambers of people constantly telling us that we are great, or even if it is just not ever having to suffer consequences for our actions, then it is easy to believe we don't need to change anything about ourselves. So, why then, is it that some events leave us feeling so damaged that we don't continue on those paths?

Well, I know that teenage me felt like I was nowhere near smart enough to pursue the line of thinking I had within in the realm of physics. Really, I should have just acknowledged that I just hadn't done enough research, and had I done enough research then I could have push the understanding even further in whatever direction I would have chosen. Or at least worked within that field, but teenage ego is a strange thing. Thinking I knew everything, when I had barely scratched the surface of understanding even the basic concepts.

I was talking to friends just last night about taking risks. A couple of them are wanting to start a business, but they are terrified of doing so because of the state of the economy and all that. Justifiably so, but it made me realize that out of all the risks I have taken, all the opportunities I have taken, no matter how bad off I was afterwards, I have only ever become a better version of myself from it.

Had I not had that tumultuous teenage relationship then I would have never gained a deeper understanding of myself, and on the other side of that, had I not let me ego be so devastated by reading General Relativity by Einstein then I would have likely taken more chances in that direction. Had I not moved all over the country then I would have never discovered my ability to make things work despite so many odds being stacked against me. Had I not taken risks within so many of the relationships I have pursued, I wouldn't know myself nearly as well as I do now - for every failure is a learning experience, and nothing has the ability to teach you more about yourself than a failed relationship (if you allow yourself the time to truly go through the emotions of it). You may even discover so much more about other people in doing so, as well, which can lead to so much deeper of an understanding of others.

I suppose I could go on about how I wish so much of my life would have played out differently, but I really don't. That isn't to say that if I went back in time and had a redo knowing what I know now that I would do it all the same, because I assuredly wouldn't, but it is because of the way things played out that allowed me to become who I am now. Without those events I would have never become me.

Now, the socio-economic status of the current period in time really means that I would not take any of the major risks I had taken so many times previously in my life; otherwise, I sure as fuck wouldn't be living in Oklahoma, but that is an entirely different subject matter.

Until next time, punch Nazis and fight fascism in whatever way you can.

-Dustin S. Stover