Time flies when you are having fun
Or have a lot to do.
Well, it has been a bit of both over the last seven years in pretty much every thing we have faced as a family, with challenges that almost destroyed us in every way in the first years of Smallsteps' life, work impacts for my wife and I, health issues for all of us and just life in general. But, here we are.
A chapter ended yesterday and a new one begins after the summer, as Smallsteps is officially no longer in preschool and is now a school student. She is a bit sad at the ending, as I suspect many of us were, because there is a security that comes with knowing what we know and a fear that comes with contemplating what is to come - the unknown. For Smallsteps, without the experience of knowing what to expect, she is once again, staring into the fog of uncertainty.
I don't really know when and how that little chunky baby turned into this little girl, but she is getting more awesome as the days go on and damn she is funny. Not silly funny. Dry funny. Sarcastic, witty, ironic - but never mean. She is going to have a hard life ahead of her in many respects, but it will give her a mass of material to use and enjoy.
Content is everywhere.
Smallsteps is very much an observer, which likely comes from me, but also she is good at reading people, which likely comes from her mother. These skills will hopefully serve her well in life, as while more people rely on tools in order to get their jobs done, she may be able to use the tools to actually shift behavior, which is the goal of activity really.
For instance, a marketer is trying to influence the consumer to buy something that they might not have considered buying earlier, or, to pull the trigger and make the purchase on what they want, but felt they couldn't have. A game developer is trying to get a player to spend their time playing their game, even if it doesn't bring value to the person in other areas of their life. A psychologist is trying to help a person make a shift in their habits in order to improve their results. And a hair dresser is trying to make a person feel like they look better, are a bit more confident, have a little more self-worth.
We don't think about changing feelings as a behavioral aspect of life, because it isn't seen as a physical act, or even for some, a conscious act - yet it is part of the ecosystem of who we are and as such, it is impossible to tease it out of our total experience. We can observe them as individual components, but they really aren't - our thoughts, feelings and actions are all part of who we are, the sum of me.
The sum of you.
We go to school on average for about twelve years of our life, yet we aren't actually taught much about ourselves and how we work. Instead, we are left to discover this through trial and error and the lens of our experience, which can be fundamentally different from student to student. There are all of the differences in the playground that affect experience with others, plus all the differences that are identified between each other too. And then, all the variation in who we are from a genetic standpoint, and our lives in the home. It doesn't matter if all are given the same class lesson, experience will never be equal.
Nor should it be.
A lot of people seem to want to have their cake and eat it too, where they identify as unique individuals, but want the same outcome for all. Those that want equality are generally those who see themselves as disadvantaged, which is natural, but I wonder if they were in an advantaged group - would they still want the same?
As a parent, I don't want Smallsteps to have the same result as others, because that would mean that there is nothing unique, no reason to be an individual at all, just a replicating virus. We like to compare ourselves to the average though, without realizing that averages aren't the best of anything, they are the middle of the road. Being of average weight for example doesn't make you a healthy weight, especially these days, where the average person in the US for example is overweight - with 70% over and 42% percent considered obese.
Does being average feel good?
Yet, we are social animals and we are geared to "fit in" with others, which means that if we are an outlier, we can actually feel uncomfortable, even if we are a positive outlier. And society as an average tends to punish outliers, even if positive. Smart people are belittled for being smart, stupid people are too. Fat people are punished for being the way they are, fit people are too. They talk about "body positivity" but that only seems to go one way, with those who want to be healthy, treated as if they have something wrong with them and those who move from the heavy end to the lighter end, considered sellouts and poor role models.
The irony.
And I do hope that Smallsteps will see the conflict in this world and negotiate this life as an individual, realizing that in general, the average is wrong. Something isn't right because the majority of people are doing it, it is right when it is the right thing to do, the right way to be, the right thing to say and the right way to feel. What that means is up to the individual, but if "right" is tied to the group average, everyone is going to consistently be chasing an increasingly worsening average - a race to the bottom, rather than a progression toward higher wellbeing.
A school doesn't teach this, nor should they. A school doesn't teach much of use, but it does give the opportunity to observe different kinds of behaviors in action, coming from a range of individuals who will all be outliers in something, and likely all want to fit in with the group in some way. It is a Petrie dish of observational possibility and the material that can build the content of our lives. As always and for everything - for better and worse.
I have a lot of fears for Smallsteps and this is the position of every parent. But, it isn't my job to instill my fears into my daughter, it is to help her overcome hers so she can be the best she can be - whatever that means for her.
Time is eternal and therefore meaningless - but we are by nature, limited.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
