"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." -Eleanor Roosevelt.
When I first came across this quote, the first thing I thought was "shit".Because, let's be honest, outside of my school work, I never discuss ideas. And unless my sister drags me into reading a news article (she's obsessed with current events) or I have NPR on, I don't read/listen to, much less discuss, events. So what does that leave me with? People. That's right, the very beings I abhor are the object of my conversation nine times out of ten.
Fucking fabulous.
Now I'm pissed. Seriously, dammit. Generally, I adore ER's assertions, and usually I concur with her wonderful insight. But now, now I feel like a lobotamized flatworm.
In layman's terms, I feel fucking idiotic.
I mean, I don't want to be a psychologist, or have any professional career that remotely involves me interacting with people who need my help, I'll stick to the chemicals and beeping machines thank-you very much, so why do I give a flying rat's ass about analyzing them? No clue, I just find people fascinating, and I analyze EVERYTHING. I mean, to the extent of over-analysis ten times over. It drives people crazy, and when it comes to people, usually I'm wrong. Myth: When I discuss people, I have unique and valuable insight. Fact: I fail at basic human interactions. So where does that leave the size of my mind? Nanoscopic?!?!? Shit, fuck me.
I suppose the real reason this quote bothers me so much is that it preys on my two greatest fears- failure and lacking intelligence (granted, the dark and death are the other two...). I want to go into research, and I want to be good enough to win a Noble prize, but right now, I have terrifying, heart racing, stomach clenching, fire and ice singeing your veins doubts that I'll even get into my school's graduate program. Basically, I feel like a fuck-up and on top of that, have no self-confidence in my ability to be successful in the path I've chosen.I look at all my friends, and all I can think about is how their brain waves are off the charts, about how incredibly brilliant they are and how they don't even know it. I feel like David standing against the insurmountable intellectual Goliath. Except, knowing me, the story ends up with a dead David. Awesome. And to top it off, I have always had an incredibly hard time focusing on anything. Yeah, I'll admit that I have a pretty damned good short-term memory when I actually apply myself, but hell, I can't even remember offhand anything I learned in orgo (MY FAVORITE SUBJECT) this past year. Needless to say, long-term memory is nonexistent. Literally. I have no memories of my childhood past when I was in high school, and even those memories are blurry. And I day-dream 24/7. No joke. Even right now, the larger part of my consious is off in lala land. Brilliant. Great. And you wonder why I'm such a cynic. I feel like one of those fudge-packing-donut-holers in a Claratin commerical before the foggy film is pulled back. A lot of the times I wonder if it is because I have erratic sleeping habits, but I don't really remember a time in my life when I haven't been this way- waiting for life to take me where I'm suppose to be instead of just getting off my lazy ass and finding it for myself. Basically, it fucking sucks, and I'm sorry my communication skills are so basic that you probably have no idea what I'm trying to convey. Piss party's over- back to denial.
Eleanor Roosevelt- you're wrong. Because, you see the thing is, when you discuss people, you discuss much more than "OMG, did you see what Stacey was wearing?!". If you're really discussing people, you're discussing much greater phenomenon. You're discussing what makes the heart beat, what drives a person to do something so horrific as to make headlines. You're asking why we fuck up and how we pick ourselves back up and how we come to build relationships with people that seem totally wrong. You're asking the universal and unanswerable question of why. Maybe you aren't doing any of it directly, maybe you aren't aware, but it's the act of doing that actually matters. When you discuss the human, you discuss ideas, you discuss events, you discuss everything.
"In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." --Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
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