I was told I was smart for my whole life. As a teenager I loved it, as there was some quality about me that made me better than everyone else! I was Smart™. They ran tests on me in school and considered me gifted. I was barely gifted but I was in the club. Having an IQ in the 130s didn't mean anything, it's just a number, but to everyone else it meant I got to play with the cool toys in the cool class. I was never able to excel though, which was strange to my mom. If I was so smart, why did I continue to muddle along as a barely C-student?
I never got good grades in school. I was able to program better than my computer science teacher so he passed me with a good grade. I was doing college level stuff for fun in math class because parables were boring, so they gave me a good grade. I was never in a band, but I could play the entire Siamese Dream album from memory, including the solos, so I got a good grade. Everything I did I would pass because I was too good to fail, but I never put effort into anything. Why would I? Something they don't tell you is that to master things you had to work hard and, occasionally,
You had to fail.
I would try something, and if I didn't immediately master it, I put it away. I came up with some excuse.
"I would have mastered it had I tried."
"I would have been better, but I was more interested in this other thing."
Not only in high school but in the military. I scored in the 97th percentile of aptitude. The Master Corporal giving me the test said I was the smartest applicant she had ever seen. I never studied, showed up to the test hung over, and slept walk through my trades' qualifications. I still have the book signed by the senior instructor on my bookshelf, which I've never read. Nothing was hard, and for the things that were hard I would have a reason for why I wasn't doing them.
And then I ran into Dale. He was a salt-haired, salty soul of a supervisor. A bastard who smoked like it was the 1960s and cancer was a liberal conspiracy. I did the same thing I always did because anything more got in the way of my identity. I was Smart™ which mattered more to me than the job, than my performance and my growth. I will never forget what he said to me, sitting there doing some menially complex task while self-assured that my Smart™ would be more valuable here than it would be scrubbing the toilets. I would bedazzle him with some witty plan to make something better for everyone, and:
"Look, I'm sure you're very smart, with your degrees, and the letters of recommendation. But right now I'm still your boss, now go scrub the god damned toilets — Ordinary Seaman!" the pregnant pause and reminder of my place stung worse than the cleaning chemicals.
He didn't care, the disdain raining through the air when he addressed me by rank said more than the words could by themselves. Not only did he not care but Smart™ didn't matter. There was a hierarchy. I was in it. I was not at the top. Those at my rank scrubbed toilets, period. The job had to get done but it didn't need be done perfectly. Just done well enough. I should thank that man, even though at the time I was seething about it. This was the first time that someone didn't tell me I was special. Sure, in basic training they tell you that you are dog meat, but that was a game and it didn't count. This was the first time someone really didn't care how smart I was, and there was nothing I could do about it.
It forced me to stop seeing myself as an identity, or a narcissistic fantasy that others had to conform to. I was just like any other man on board: a disposable, toilet-scrubbing Ordinary Seaman. It was a hard lesson to learn. I was not ready to learn it. I did the same thing with Mike when we were picking up women on the weekends, in between port visits, and occasionally on the Thursday before a big test or exercise. Mike had his own version of a script.
Mike was shameless. He went through his same script every time. Get a girl to fall for him as hard as possible. Get her to the point where she wanted to actually date him, and then drop her. He used this cycle constantly. The one time he found a girl who truly didn't want him to be the boyfriend he broke down into tears and would not speak to me for a good year over the embarrassment. It wasn't that he wasn't the best guy in the world; she was a bitch. I told myself that even though he was picking up girls at twice the rate I was, I was a better person. The only thing that mattered at the time was consistently being able to take girls home, yet I would make up new criteria for the game to turn my loss into a win. He was doing the same thing; I just didn't see it.
None of it mattered, and I didn't become better at game by clinging to Calvinball rules. I got better at soothing my ego when I got beat. It took Sara and two unmemorable adventures with her to learn that there was no point in keeping up soothing narratives. If I wanted to win, I did what I had to do. If I didn't win, that was OK. The new mental model was this:
You ain't shit, and that's OK.
Intelligence, talent, skill, stoicism, virtue. All container words. Empty shells I would fill with good feelings then throw at the feet of everyone else. I used all those tools to feel better about myself. The women in my life assured me that I was good enough. My mom told me I was brilliant when I was growing up and that I would do great. It took a salty Petty Officer to teach me how stupid an idea that was. Man has no intrinsic value. The only reason others have him around is because he is useful. If I couldn't apply myself to a goal then I was functionally sterile. Talent is of no use if it couldn't create an outcome. The only way to create an outcome is to turn my brain off and solve a problem, sans ego.
Once I stopped creating and protecting self-identities, I stopped looking to avoid difficult things in order to protect that identity. I started working towards goals. Work became more fulfilling. I was working hard and playing hard. Women became more
