Posted by azngeek at August 19th, 2007
I must be the single most emotionally inept person in the entire multiverse.
I don’t understand things. I can’t accept things. I’m an emotional tree losing my leaves to the cold winter named sanity.
I juggle between uni, life, and a job as a tutor. I would say I’m clinically depressed; but then I’ve never been diagnosed. I’d love to one day shoot myself up with Prozac, and feel a temporary high, maybe feel safe for once. To feel like I don’t need to care, that I don’t need to hold onto so tightly to the railings of those stairs as I climb up clumsily to the peak of what I may become.
I have a student. And after yesterdays lesson. My heart just sank. We had a talk. And to be brutally honest, I’m a selfish fuck. I wouldn’t have wanted to know. I didn’t want to know. But I somehow dove right into it. I somehow let myself be vulnerable. Well. He has Polyfibrous dysplasia. My student is wanting to pursue his A Levels. He’s currently working towards his O-Levels. He’s only been to school for 4 years of his life under the fucked up cards that god dealt him. And in adversity, he’s lived a life with nothing short but admirable courage. And when push comes to shove, he’s been keeping at it. But, yesterday. I was let in.
I can’t imagine the shit he’s been through. Constantly hospitalized from the age of 4. Been moving around from country to country. Seeking medical treatment. From Korea, to the States, to New Zealand. I can’t even begin to relate. To what his parents would have been put through.
The first time I went to his apartment for a tutoring session, his mother opened the door, with that warm welcoming smile etched across her face, I can never forget - how could she not hate Him? How dare He? What gave her the strength to smile? To be thankful?
After yesterdays session. His mother had headed out. And well, I decided to stay. To just talk.
I’ve only been to school for 4 years of my life. That’s pretty screwed up isn’t it?And what right. What fucking right did I have to comfort him. My words to him?
Well. Sometimes. There’s a reason why. You are different. I understand. But different isn’t so bad. You’ve never had the dogma of an institutionalization. That’s why you think so different. You have a different take and perspective on things. That’s why you are special. And I know it’s no consolation. But school wasn’t a walk in the park for me either. I’ve never been very Tharound people. I was never alone. But always lonely. If that makes any sense. I was never really accepted. I was a geeky misfit. They made fun of me, they would hit me just because, steal my things. But at the end of the day. I could retreat to my books. And I always had something to show on report cards. That kept me going. I hated school.
Then he asked me how did I know he thought differently?
I told him. Because he’s never been to school. He’s never been put through the herd mentality, and at this age, he’s become an individual. His mind hasn’t been put through the quashing of a shepherd. He’s been the black sheep who lived in the hills. The king of the hills.
And then. The conversation shifted.
I’ve been suffering all this while. The pain I’ve been through. Sometimes. I wished I were just dead.
What could I say to that?
I told him, it was much easier to die. Than to live. But, think about his parents, think about himself. Where would HIS legacy be. I told him he had much more to live for than to die.
He told me, when he walked, he could feel that people always looked down on him. Their cold eyes, penetrating his heart. Icicles from hell.
I told him, Einstein was different. I idolized Einstein growing up. I still do. I’ve never shared stories of him with anyone. But I told him. How different he was. How he was a German Jewish boy who left for Zurich to escape the norms of Germany. The military. The opression. How Einstein, the brilliant physics theorist that he may have been, had everyone hating him. His teachers, his lecturers told him he’d amount to nothing. He couldn’t even get an academic job for many many years. Mentally endowed, but he was a loner. Because he did not care about what people thought, he was a genius. The written in stone principia 216 of Newton meant nothing to him as he wrote a flurry of his 4 papers which included the Nobel prize winning quanta paper or even the most famous physics paper in history involving relativity in his miracle year. Silly details such as absolute time, or the ether, widely accepted concepts meant nothing to him. And that’s why he was a genius. He was eccentric. He was different. He made himself different. And the funny thing was. These groundbreaking papers, the maths involved could be understood by a high school student in their senior years. He was a brilliant theorist, in a different manner. Einstein in his earlier years was a gifted maths student, but hated the rigidity of maths.
And he somehow could relate. I had no idea. I was just babbling on. Because the silence. Was killing me. I’m selfish. I’m wrong.
Then he smiled. And said “I hate maths too. And I think differently like him as well”
I can’t say that I’m the only one. But sometimes when things get to much. You want to end it all. But here he is. A boy. A man. Who’s been through things. And how can we be so selfish. How can we not smile and laugh for him and live life to the fullest.
Here it is. To a new friend, to an admirable friend of that.
