We Lesser Beings… Thoughts On Physics And Grief

Shit has a funny way of creeping back up on you just when you think you’re done with it…  I thought I had accepted my failures. I thought I had gone crazy, recovered to a certain extent, mourned lost chances, and then moved on.

Silly me.

I made a new friend/enemy (frenemy?) lately. Her name is V. She is a computer sciences researcher, and all-round lover of science. Also, an absolute genius. (We’re talking 100% scores in university here.) She may be one of the most fascinating and yet most awful people I have ever met. Fascinating because, how could I not like someone who is witty, amusing, extremely intelligent, and interested in nearly everything from the Silmarillion to modern art? And awful, because she is (gifted-ness and general success in life apart) so very much like I once was. I couldn’t resent anyone the happiness that I know that a life of science brings. I couldn’t. But she makes me realize things about myself, and that brings me to intensely dislike her.

V. is tactless and carelessly arrogant to the point of rudeness. Not with malicious intent, no, plain and simply because she feels she is superior. Because she sees her achievements as the standard people should try to live up to. She believes in complete honesty, discipline over emotions, achieving no matter the circumstances, high productivity. No self-pity. No whining. No room for weakness. And it’s not that she has never suffered; she had a mental breakdown too one year… yet she simply completed her exams while crying, and her score was still among the highest of her university.

Her vastly superior intellect doesn’t make her a perfect person, and rationally I know this. She has some serious issues with trust, nudity, correctly interpreting communication, accepting that stuff isn’t always in her control, and well… not making an enemy out of every person she interacts with, really. She has flaws like every other human being. So why do her careless comments hurt me so much? She doesn’t mean them to be hurtful, after all. They’re just… what she thinks is true.  

And that’s it.

I am SO not over my failures. My failure at physics ruined my life. I’m not over it. Right now, I sincerely doubt I will ever be over it. I have zero sense of intrinsic self worth. I actually believe I am a lesser being for not being disciplined and gifted enough to be a scientist. I believe that people of low intelligence, like myself, are worth less per definition. Rationally I know this is bullshit. And the past years, I was told often enough that it’s bullshit to actually start believing it, a little bit. But V. has crushed my illusion, because she confirms every. single. thing. I think about myself as truth.

The funny thing is, V. actually likes me. She calls me a real friend, and since she’s so radically opposed to polite niceties, I do think she means it. She even says there are things about me she admires, namely how I am a “gentle, kind, and patient being.”

…

Yeah right.

I still haven’t figured out if she meant that as a covered insult, or if she simply has no idea about the kind of person I am. Because I don’t consider patience and kindness traits I truly possess, nor traits that are all that admirable. It’s a bit like saying “I admire how you resemble the Elephant Man.”, or “I love how you are so skilled at folding underwear.” Everything that is useful and worthy (intelligence, discipline, zeal, passion, creativity, insight, etc…) are things I do not possess in her eyes. In other words, she used a compliment to say I am a nitwit.

My exams have started, and I cry almost all the time. This is the worst time of the year to start making discoveries about my inner self, really. The stress was already giving me symptoms again before, but now I’m barely holding myself together. Right now, the only thing that’s stopping me from cutting every inch of skin I can cover in summer is the shame I feel for my own weakness. Great, huh? I had my first exam today, I even think I did fairly well, and yet I came out crying like a sissy because it made me feel like shit. That’s the state I’m in, at the moment. Too ashamed of myself even to die.

I want my fucking dignity back.