Wash it down the drain

As I think of how unprepared I feel to do most of the jobs I find on the job hunt, and how scary everything seems, and how hard and how much work, I often think I’m trying and failing to do something I have no business doing.  I know that my life has been a never ending cycle of me thinking I don’t have the competence to do something, and then doing it well.  And I know I earned my degree, and I did well in my fieldwork, and I’m doing at least well enough not to get fired with my current position, but none of that makes me feel prepared or capable of doing 99% of the library jobs I see.

As I sat (alone.  In the dark.  If you must know) tonight, dwelling on that very issue, I couldn’t help thinking about how I’ve set myself up for failure by trying to do something I’m just not good enough to do, and then I thought: “All because it was so fucking important for people to think I’m smart.”

I mentioned before why I chose to be a librarian, and all of that was true, but it’s also true that my motivation for a lot of things in life stems from wanting to show that I’m smart (and in my previous explanation, that was indeed my reason for getting into reading before I found that book that really made me into reading).

I know “Librarian” doesn’t say “genius” the way a medical degree or something would, but I’m not smart enough for a medical degree.  But I am (or thought I would be) smart enough to be a librarian.  And hey, librarians are considered smart.

The only problem is, now that I’m trying to get that job I really don’t think I’m smart enough at all.  I mean, I’m smart at a few things.  Reading, of course.  Logic, of the “if X, then Y” variety.  And I was a good student because of that, being able to see patterns easily.  I still remember one example.  Elementary school, some guest speaker was talking to us all, grades 1-6.  I was probably somewhere in grades 1-3, can’t say where for sure.  He had a long rectangular box with doors on both sides, and he put a ball in one side and asked where it was.  Someone pointed to the side he put the ball in.  He tilted the box so the ball rolled to the other side, then opened the door the kid pointed at to reveal it wasn’t there, and asked again where the ball was.  Another kid points to the side the ball rolled to, and he tilted the box the other way… etc.  This went on for several rounds, and I was /dying/ for him to call on me.  I couldn’t believe that no one else had figured it out.  Simple, point to where the ball isn’t and he’ll tilt it and that’s where the ball will be.  Simple pattern recognition, right?  He was calling on all the older kids, and none of them got it.  I’m sure I was one of the few who did.  He even made a comment at some point, along the lines of “you’d think they’d figure it out by now” before giving up completely.

And in the post I linked to above, you see that my kindergarten teacher didn't think it was even possible for someone to read fluently at the age of 5 until I was her student.

So where does all this insecurity come from?  This driving need for people to see me as intelligent?  Easy.  I had another trait as a small child: I liked making people laugh.  So I tried to do that at every chance I got, getting myself a bit of a "class clown" reputation.  I didn't know it at first, but apparently the stereotype is that class clowns are dumb.  That's just the stereotype: the kid seeks attention because he's not good at anything else.  I eventually realized that the other students weren't aware of the smarts I had, they were only aware of the clown persona, and applied all the usual stereotypes to it.  Everyone was treating me like an idiot, and it was the worst feeling in the world.  I never got over that.  to this day nothing gets under my skin quite like someone insulting my intelligence.

Therefore, it was important to me all my life that people see me as smart.  Therefore, reading and higher education.  Therefore, librarian.  When I dig further back into my past than the post linked above, I see it was my insecurity that took me here and drove me right off the cliff of failure.

The thing is, even though I was actually a pretty sharp little kid, none of that potential I had amounted to anything.  I think I was an exceptional child who, through sheer lack of motivation, became an average adult.

I spoke before about a song lyric that applies to my life, or more specifically, the part of my life I describe in this blog.  There’s another song lyric, much less optimistic, that also applies.  From a song called Farewell Mona Lisa:

“Don’t you ever try to be more than you were destined for, or anything worth fighting for.”

That one hits me every time.  I feel like that’s exactly what I did.  I bit off more than I could chew, tried to become something more than I was worth.  And now this is my life: struggling and fighting to do something that I don’t honestly believe I can do, and the thought of doing it scares me senseless.  Fail or succeed, I feel like neither option can end well for me.

All those employers I’ve sent resumes to have been right not to put their trust in me.

A Matter of Chance

I mentioned before how I followed the path of least resistance and more or less stumbled ass-first into this career path.  But that still doesn’t explain exactly why librarian was my last-minute desperation choice.  There has to be some reason that was on the top of the pile when I reached into my hat and grabbed one.  There is.

I blame Vladimir Nabokov.

Allow me to back up.  I’ve always been a good reader.  In fact, I was unusually good.  In kindergarten the teacher tested us on our reading level by pulling us into the hall individually and asking us to read.  She gave me the book and I read it.  Really read it.  Not sounding out words, and not pointing to the picture of the tiger and saying “kitty!,” I read it fluently.  She thought I must have had that book at home and knew it by heart, so she gave me another.  And another.  And another.  Then she finally realized that I was actually reading those books.  She was shocked; she had never seen that before from someone my age.

I would go on to take the ACTs and score in the 99^th percentile for reading and 97^th or 98^th for grammar.

Don’t get me wrong, I suck enough at math and science to balance that out so I don’t consider myself a genius by any means.  I’m not bragging, just giving you background.

The point is, I was good at reading right from the start.  And I loved reading.  I loved it right up to the age of 13 or 14, when I let that hobby slide in favor of other hobbies (not all of which involved my genitalia).  It wasn’t until the Summer before college that I began to read for pleasure again.  Although, it wasn’t really pleasure I was doing it for, to be honest.  It was simply because I wanted to be viewed as intelligent, and intelligent people should be able to list well-known books they’d read, or be ready at any moment to talk about what they were reading at the time.  So I began reading some of those books that intelligent people “should” have under their belt.  Catcher in the Rye, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Moby Dick.  You know, those kinds of books.  I didn’t dislike them, but I can’t say I loved them.  Then I read A Clockwork Orange, and that sparked something in me.  I actually enjoyed reading it; I found it fun.  For once since I was 13, reading really was pleasurable and not just something I “should” be doing.  But when I returned the book to the library, I still felt the same as always.  I still merely felt proud that I had another well-known book under my belt.

The next book I checked out was Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

There is no hyperbole in stating that this book changed my life.  It was beautiful, so so beautiful.  The language, the flowery prose, it was art.  It wasn’t entertainment or an idea or a conversation piece, it was, simply, art, in all its raging beauty.  When I finished and went to put it in the library return drop, I didn’t feel a trace of that pride from having “another one under my belt.”  That didn’t matter anymore.  All I felt was sadness for the fact that it was over, that I couldn’t immerse myself in it forever.  It was hard from me to open up my fingers and let the book drop.  It actually took a few seconds to bring myself to let it go.

It’s almost scary to think that, as much as Lolita changed my life, it’s not even my favorite novel by Nabokov.  I’ve read 7 of them, and almost every single one of his short stories.  My favorite, Pale Fire, is one of the few books I actually own, and I have read it almost countless times now.

Vladimir Nabokov is why I have a passion for the printed word.  He’s why I hold books sacred.  He’s why the library, and what it represents, is special to me.  And if not for that, the library wouldn’t have been the place I settled on when forced to decide where I wanted to spend my life.  Where would the path of least resistance have taken me if not for that?  I have no idea.

For a long time, Nabokov was the reason I was happy.  He changed my life in more ways than what I just discussed.  He made me happy.  No, not happy.  Content.  Reading his short stories inspired something in me, made me feel like I could feel “at peace,” and satisfied, whatever was going on.  That as long as I could find and appreciate the beauty around me, it would be enough.

As you can see, this did not last.  Now that the real world had ground me down, and now that I don’t have time to read Nabokov’s works anymore anyway, and now that I’ve become the failure I am, the glow of that contentment has faded.  Nabokov made me serenely happy, and then in time he made me a depressed, miserable wreck.   

So I guess you can say I know what it’s like to have been in love.