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Sanctity of Life - a b5 contradiction
- Thread starter Granite
- Start date
deaded
Regular
Actually, to get serious here for just a second. As a child I was always at the top of my class in school (as far as grades), and have always been told that I was very smart and could do anything that I wanted. I never felt smart at all. In fact I always felt stupid. Every test I ever took in my life I was afraid I was going to fail. I feel/felt like I got lucky a lot by getting the right answer or saying the right thing. Not because I actually knew what was right but because I seem to make lots of lucky guesses. From high school on I pretty much lived in fear of someone one day figuring out that I'm not as smart as they think I am. I made it through medical school and residency and then one day I was watching some late night talk show and this guy was saying EXACTLY what I had been afraid of for years; that it's common to have the feeling that you are faking it and are some day going to be found out. I always thought it was just me so I never told anyone!
It made me feel a little better... for a few minutes. But now I'm back to hiding my stupidity and keeping my fingers crossed.
I dunno, this seems like a pretty intelligent forum and I'm impressed with the depth of thought that many of you express. I guess I was wondering if anyone else felt like that, or maybe it was just me and the dork on TV.
uh... ok. This thread really did lead me here. I'm not on medication or anything. Really.
So we're not even going to get into Terri Schiavo here, right?
It made me feel a little better... for a few minutes. But now I'm back to hiding my stupidity and keeping my fingers crossed.
I dunno, this seems like a pretty intelligent forum and I'm impressed with the depth of thought that many of you express. I guess I was wondering if anyone else felt like that, or maybe it was just me and the dork on TV.
uh... ok. This thread really did lead me here. I'm not on medication or anything. Really.
So we're not even going to get into Terri Schiavo here, right?
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Not if we don't want to get thread closed and moved to the political forum, we aren't.
As for your feelings of being dumb and always being on the verge of getting caught:
Gordon R. Dickson wrote a novel called The R-Master about a future near-utopia hiding some very nasty secrets. One of the plot points is the existance of a drug called R-47, an accidental discovery that slightly increases human intelligence - usually. In extremely rare case it pretty much wipes out the higher brain functions. And in even rarer cases it produces a super-genius, a Master. There are only a dozen or so alive. They don't wield political power, but they live exactly as they want to live at state expense in return for solving problems that the government puts to them when asked. They mostly live in isolation, and rarely socialize, even with other masters.
Naturally the protaginist of the story, a man named Etter Ho, takes R-47 and becomes an R-Master. Not long afterwards he finagles a meeting with one of the only Master who will still take time to meet with the newbies. This is from memory, but I'm confident it is very close to the original dialogue:
Etter: "But I don't feel any smarter."
Master: "Of course you don't. You don't 'feel' intelligence. You didn't before you took the drug and you don't now. Look, before you took R-47 you knew there were people smarter than you and dumber than you. Did you 'feel' smart then?"
Etter: "No."
Master: "Exactly! The only way you knew you had any brains is when people around you started to demonstrate that they didn't."
I'm sure you find yourself in situtaions all the time where the people around you are puzzled by something and you look at it and the answer is so obvioius that you can't believe they don't see that. That's when you know you're smart, not because you "feel" smart or even think of youself as smart. And plenty of people are nervous before tests, some because they genuinely freeze up and can't remember information they know when they're taking the test. Most actors are nervous before they step on stage or before the camera, no matter how many times they've done it before.
We're talking human nature here. Why does everyone think their nature is unique in this respect?
Regards,
Joe
2aMageing
Regular
You're responfing to your own post "has inspired her". I respond to it.
I'd say you were describing me. But to my knowledge, we have never yet met. I don't know about the "faking it" internal identification of self, but I can cop to the constant fear of failure and not reacing a potential that I had identified for myself, as there was a limited capacity in my family for others to identify such. They have been caught in their own mental cobwebs, though I hope I have at least managed to help my mother to help herself break out.
I would hypothesize though, that when my father told me that the school was suggesting to him that I skip a grade 3rd, 4th, 5th, I don't recall now, too long, too far under the bridge, that if he hadn't let me make the choice, if I hadn't selected to stay put, I might have been held up to hightened expectations and most likely developed the "fakin it" model in my mind, asa it worked out, I stayed put in my excluded, heavily picked on existance in grade school and ended up with more of a "classic underachiever" model for myself instead.
But I can say with confidence ( and I rarely bestow confidence on conclusions or information, or often, even people ) with confidence that you are not alone. It is the price paid by those who don't just live, but ARE (by their "nature" ) out on the edge, with no one to cling to as a common community, and no one to follow into the "undiscovered countries" of understanding, learning, and life.
At some point, I learned to chuck it all and just assume I am THAT, and can do IT, and if I am faking it, then so is EVERYONE and so, who is to say Boo?
My unhappiness is that, after concluding that helping others in REAL, long term ways, is the only value in living, I have not seen a path to do so. I keep seeing shortcomings in fields of work "5 miles down the road" and bail rather than dedicate. I desire to become the "arrow that has sprung forth from the bow" but, alas, I am begining to suspect that is not an option in this reality. At least you are in medicine, Deaded. I would have chosen education if I had been in a decent position to pursue it when the opportunity was present.
I'd say you were describing me. But to my knowledge, we have never yet met. I don't know about the "faking it" internal identification of self, but I can cop to the constant fear of failure and not reacing a potential that I had identified for myself, as there was a limited capacity in my family for others to identify such. They have been caught in their own mental cobwebs, though I hope I have at least managed to help my mother to help herself break out.
I would hypothesize though, that when my father told me that the school was suggesting to him that I skip a grade 3rd, 4th, 5th, I don't recall now, too long, too far under the bridge, that if he hadn't let me make the choice, if I hadn't selected to stay put, I might have been held up to hightened expectations and most likely developed the "fakin it" model in my mind, asa it worked out, I stayed put in my excluded, heavily picked on existance in grade school and ended up with more of a "classic underachiever" model for myself instead.
But I can say with confidence ( and I rarely bestow confidence on conclusions or information, or often, even people ) with confidence that you are not alone. It is the price paid by those who don't just live, but ARE (by their "nature" ) out on the edge, with no one to cling to as a common community, and no one to follow into the "undiscovered countries" of understanding, learning, and life.
At some point, I learned to chuck it all and just assume I am THAT, and can do IT, and if I am faking it, then so is EVERYONE and so, who is to say Boo?
My unhappiness is that, after concluding that helping others in REAL, long term ways, is the only value in living, I have not seen a path to do so. I keep seeing shortcomings in fields of work "5 miles down the road" and bail rather than dedicate. I desire to become the "arrow that has sprung forth from the bow" but, alas, I am begining to suspect that is not an option in this reality. At least you are in medicine, Deaded. I would have chosen education if I had been in a decent position to pursue it when the opportunity was present.
Don't cut yourself short too much. Sometimes the biggest ways we make a difference are the most subtle.
Using a b5 example, take ep 3x14 "Rumors, Bargins, and Lies"
Sheridan has Marcus take the whitestars out, "shoot a bunch of rocks" and come home. At first it appears that Sheridan's gone crazy, but later it helps a great deal in his purposes for good.
The smallest things - a word, a gesture, can influence far more than you can possibly imagine. What was it that Elric the technomage said?...
Using a b5 example, take ep 3x14 "Rumors, Bargins, and Lies"
Sheridan has Marcus take the whitestars out, "shoot a bunch of rocks" and come home. At first it appears that Sheridan's gone crazy, but later it helps a great deal in his purposes for good.
The smallest things - a word, a gesture, can influence far more than you can possibly imagine. What was it that Elric the technomage said?...
sleepy_shadow
Regular
But as someone called Vir Cotto said... not everything is easy to recognize... or possible to evaluate into a conclusive answer.
2aMageing
Regular
I believe you are probably right. I recall the lesson from season 5 about the significance of a ranger being sent to the top of a mountain to obtain a simple flower. Affect is often never fully, sometimes barely, known.
I just keep beating myself for a meaning to wrap myself in in the mean time. It seems so easy for others to find a place, though I know we all struggle with these things in our own unique ways.
I feel.........underutilized. And I tend to blame myself for that. I need to heed the lesson.........for a person content within themseves, the world shall come to them. I don't know if I buy it, but I take it on faith. I need to practice it.
I guess.......I do what I can. I remain.
I just keep beating myself for a meaning to wrap myself in in the mean time. It seems so easy for others to find a place, though I know we all struggle with these things in our own unique ways.
I feel.........underutilized. And I tend to blame myself for that. I need to heed the lesson.........for a person content within themseves, the world shall come to them. I don't know if I buy it, but I take it on faith. I need to practice it.
I guess.......I do what I can. I remain.
deaded
Regular
Ooo! Good one!
Sorry for revealing a bit too much of myself there. A glass of wine will do that to me. Fascinating insights though, Joe and 2aMageing. One of the things that always blows me away is that when I think of how complicated and intertwined my life is with what's going on around me, and then I think that there are 4 BILLION other people who have lives just as complicated and just as intertwined... I dunno. It trips me out. My wife believes that everything happens for a reason. Apparently I'm obsessive and compulsive for a reason (oh yeah, and she also believes that she’s smarter than me). Perhaps I think too much for a reason. It might be that the reason does not benefit me, but it may benefit the universe if there is such thing as a grand plan. It's probably the reason that I went into medicine, for now I have a chance to save lives and at least get a brief glimpse of what maybe I was put here for; even if I don’t understand it. My neurosis is also probably the reason that I find Galen and the technomages so fascinating. They don't really understand their power but they do understand how to channel it. I admire how they don't seem to care where it comes from.
I don't know. Personally I don't feel that we really owe the universe anything. Maybe we are just here to be happy. Everyone can't be an olympic gold medal winner and, to paraphrase Garabaldi's words, if you are able to carve out a little piece of happiness for yourself then, well, maybe that's what it's all about?
2aMageing
Regular
Ah well, I would agree that we don't "owe" anyone or anything. Keeping score is a very HUMAN concept, I think........
But I figure on doing the most with what has been presented, and while more than a little idealistic, I believe in everyones capacity to do ANYTHING, save for limitiations of the physical kind. But it requires a proper balance of creative and logic based thinking, combined. And a mental discipline for removing personal prejudices, fears, basically the part of the humanity that desires. You need to let the capability come, nd get out of it's way. However, I may just be whistling dixie too.........
Edit: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mea Culpa. I just got through watching a movie. It put me in the more serious Frame of Mind. The Big victories won't be had in the activities, but rather internally. There are too many "groups" out there, market share on doing things for Humanity as a whole is pretty dang small right now. Growth through internal development may be the best we can do with the life provided, I suppose.
Which was more important, Sheridan creating the alliance, or his evolution into what ever he became when he did his "return to the end of the beginning"?
The smaller battles are certainly important, people are being denied rights, slavery, murder, starvation, these are happening in rediculous amounts. But if humanity does not get together on survival as a whole, upon this planet, then all the little Social games we are playing will not mean much. The 3rd law of thermodynamics will have Humanity for lunch. And there won't be anything around afterwards that will care to lament the loss of the "Greatest Species of the last Yadda Yadda Yadda".
Anyway. I'm off the change the world kick. A reckless and presumptive intent anyway. Too many individuals and organized intents. Divided and too busy working 9 to 5, putting food on the table, and watching The Ball Game on Sunday mornings, to care about coming together for the greater good.
I'm movin on now, to working the "shortest path between two points is a stright line, in the opposite direction" angle. Anybody want an education in how to find and access water suppliess? Cheap?
But I figure on doing the most with what has been presented, and while more than a little idealistic, I believe in everyones capacity to do ANYTHING, save for limitiations of the physical kind. But it requires a proper balance of creative and logic based thinking, combined. And a mental discipline for removing personal prejudices, fears, basically the part of the humanity that desires. You need to let the capability come, nd get out of it's way. However, I may just be whistling dixie too.........
Edit: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mea Culpa. I just got through watching a movie. It put me in the more serious Frame of Mind. The Big victories won't be had in the activities, but rather internally. There are too many "groups" out there, market share on doing things for Humanity as a whole is pretty dang small right now. Growth through internal development may be the best we can do with the life provided, I suppose.
Which was more important, Sheridan creating the alliance, or his evolution into what ever he became when he did his "return to the end of the beginning"?
The smaller battles are certainly important, people are being denied rights, slavery, murder, starvation, these are happening in rediculous amounts. But if humanity does not get together on survival as a whole, upon this planet, then all the little Social games we are playing will not mean much. The 3rd law of thermodynamics will have Humanity for lunch. And there won't be anything around afterwards that will care to lament the loss of the "Greatest Species of the last Yadda Yadda Yadda".
Anyway. I'm off the change the world kick. A reckless and presumptive intent anyway. Too many individuals and organized intents. Divided and too busy working 9 to 5, putting food on the table, and watching The Ball Game on Sunday mornings, to care about coming together for the greater good.
I'm movin on now, to working the "shortest path between two points is a stright line, in the opposite direction" angle. Anybody want an education in how to find and access water suppliess? Cheap?
