Saturday, June 2, 2018

On being {smart}

On Being {smart}:

When I was a little girl I learned that being {smart} was a good thing.  Smart in this piece will pertain to intelligence, not to the overall organization of a person as in the British sense of the word (which I love to use, by the way).  I was smart.  My sister was smart.  People who did {well} in life were smart (they got where they were because they were smart.) Smart might get you a scholarship.  Smart got you into all the good classes at our rural public schools.  Smart got you respect.  Smart got you friends above your class (big middle class in the 1980s with lots of nuance).  Smart got you babysitting jobs.  It earned you trust that you might not even deserve.  
At some point I realized that I thought about things a whole lot more than other people.  The things I thought about worried me.  I was probably 8 years old or so.  When I watched the news and saw people suffering, being greedy, being hypocrites, etc.  I worried.  When I learned about loving the planet, all they while depending upon plastic for basically everything, I worried.  I was definitely 8 years old.  I don't remember a time when the world's problems did not worry me at night.  This, I have read, was a common side effect of being {smart}.  It was a drawback.  Smart people worry.  Smart people let their ability to soak in information completely overwhelm them.  
In high school where my smarts got me through all academic work with relative ease, including helping other people pass AP exams when I tutored them, I started to realize some things.  I was working.  I was planning.  I was worrying.  I watched my parents work, plan, worry.  Then, I noticed a whole other subset of the population who didn't appear to worry about sh*t.  They would come into the video store where I worked and check out 15 horror movies on Friday night, return them on Sunday.  They would ride around in their clunker cars, stinky, buy a case of beer and go fishing all day from a pier.  They would cook that fish, choke on a bone, and go to the emergency room to get it taken out.  Did they have insurance on their camper?  Did they have medical insurance to pay for the E room visit? No.  Did they worry about drinking too much beer?  No.  They were not worried about sh*t.  They worked at K-mart all week.  Made enough money to buy some beer.  Bought it.  Drank it.  Repeat.  Kids...they had however many they had.  Did they worry about kids getting hurt, going to college, going to school, being smart?  Nope.  Not one bit.  They {appeared} to live day-by-day.  Happy as hell, or at least satisfied, and not worried.  I observed this at the beach, and I told my mama one time--"you know, it's almost a curse, what we {have}, being {smart}.  I won't live a day in my life without worrying, planning, working.  Those people seem to be just fine, and they don't appear to do any of those things.
Now that I am approaching middle age I wonder what good being smart even does a person.
If I thought, as a child, that being {smart} would lead to riches.  I know now, that is not true.  Some of the dumbest people I know are raking in money selling {whatthehellevers}.  Some of the smartest people I have known are broke as hell, or crazy, or have died from drug over doses.  You might say, "well they weren't too smart, if they were doing drugs."  Well I will ask you to refer to the part above where I talked about the worrying.  
To recent high school graduates I would say: "sell things young darling.  think of the seven deadly sins and sell something that pertains to any of those."  You want to be in the {helping profession}?   nope!  Don't do it!  Working in a helping profession will only lead you down the path to worry.  Society will ABSOLUTELY not value what you do enough to even pay you back what you will pay for college.  Nope.  Don't do it.  
Here are some anecdotal stories from my recent everyday life to drive this point home. Just some snapshots:
a couple weeks ago i drove my husband's 2001 Camry to the bakery to get some scones b/c friends were coming that weekend and we were gonna watch the royal wedding.  I was tired as hell and greasy after a long Friday at the Elementary School where I work.  I paid 30.00 for a box of baked treats.  As I was getting into my car, via opening the driver's side door from the back door b/c the door does not work, I noticed the bakery owner (who is a lovely person and a friend of mine) leaving work in her Porsche.  Let's see:  I help Autistic kids learn to communicate and was educated six years to learn this and I don't make enough to have a working car-door handle, and she sells flaky, buttery bread to people.... 
Last week another friend commented to me  that she was super nervous about the running of their new business selling ice cream along the river front in my town b/c in one day they only made 800.00.  She was comparing that, in her head, to the money she makes consulting.  I was comparing it to the 1/3 of my yearly salary they will make in a month.  So, she is selling fatty, sugary dairy food to the people in my town and running a consulting business (not sure what goes on there) and makes what i just said... and I help deaf preschoolers find the resources they need among our modest means to be communicators...and when we got back into the car after I left her ice cream shop one of my kids had to let my husband into the driver's side.
Those two ladies happen to be very smart.
Another acquaintance of our family and actually, other good friends, sells nabs for a living.  He literally drives a van around and fills up vending machines all over the Eastern part of the state satisfying our snacking needs with wholesale snacks.  Their family does not worry about money.  Ever.  
It almost feels like a betrayal that I would mention these people in this context, but I must.  These are the examples I have of how fucked up it is that I am smart, I have a wonderful profession, I work hard--but I will never have they financial stability and ability to buy a car/house/vacation etc. that these people have who, really, are just selling stuff.
What {does} a consultant to that is vital?
When I have told parents how much I charge for therapy in the summer, they scoff at the idea that they would pay for speech therapy.  That should be {free}.  
All of this frustrates me daily.
I have no desire to keep up with the Jones, but I would like to take a really nice vacation and go {somewhere} each year.  We cannot even {really} afford to go to Busch Gardens as a family.  We might do it, but we will be paying it off over the course of a year or so--bc we put the whole adventure on the credit card.  So there is an adventure with a side of guilt and worry on top.
The one thing that being smart has gotten me is that I learned another language.  Some part of me needs to believe that the only reason I am able to speak Spanish like I do is because of my smarts.  It is the ONE ACADEMIC accomplishment that gives me pride.  Degrees don't.  Naming my Alma Mater does not.  
I might also tell recent grads to sell insurance.  I sure missed a memo on that one!  It is unbelievable to me how much money those fuckers make!  Every insurance salesman I know appears to not worry about one damned thing (oh the irony)!  Why didn't someone fill me in on the good gig these folks have--selling us {guarantees} that if our worst nightmares come true--they will use the money we have already paid in, and {help} us out?  
So, let's see.  So far being {smart} has 1. caused me worry since childhood, 2. not benefitted me financially, and 3.  quite obviously caused me a bitterness that wells up very strong from time-to-time.   How was being smart good again?
Sometimes I vent about this among friends and every now and then one will try to reassure me by saying, "but look, susie, being smart has brought you three wonderfully {smart} children."  And to that I say, "go back to the beginning of this essay, and read it again."  
Maybe my children will be able to afford therapy so that they can tell a professional about this on a couch one day. 
I cannot afford one, so I will write.
Ay que vida!

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