In the Age of Alpha
my story
goes a little bit like this
in the sixth grade i received a 15 on 20
in my first math test now
i was okay with this until
i turned over my shoulder to see my
friend
crying endless tears and as i traced a
teardrop down to her paper
i noticed an old head scribbling
a 16 on fight in the seventh cave
i became aware of my daughter
i didn’t mind my necks crony limbs
petite waste
and acne scars until the point from my
class
chose to point it out and they came
clear in the eighth grade
i started to hate speaking in class my
legs would shake
and my tongue would fumble out words
that made
absolutely no sense
my whole being yearned for a perfect
little world
to fall right into my arms and in crazy
newton’s third law of motion states that
for every action
there is an equal and opposite reaction
and when you try to bend the unhealing
universe to your own will
you will inevitably break
two years later i look back wanting to
desperately comfort my numbers
but with questions still longing in my
head
why do we all seek to define and strive
for perfection
in a world that is inherently impossible
why do we never feel like we’re enough
why do we tear ourselves down for not
being able to beat
insane statistical logs like being at
the top one percent of our class or
in the states leading varsity
well maybe the answer lies in one of the
greatest academic theories
of all time masterclass hierarchy of
means
that put self-actualization at the very
top
of the pill this is to say
it is within our innate psychology that
once we have satisfied our basic
physiological needs
our brain only seems to do more and more
to become more and more and at first
glance it’s
pretty amazing that we can do this i
mean crocodiles don’t have the ability
or the desire to perhaps create art and
neither do monkeys care about earning
the highest possible salary
only us humans have managed to climb up
the ladder of revolution
to a point where we can self-actualize
but what we often fail to recognize
is a paradoxical outcome of this very
situation
the closer that we get to
self-rationalization
the more skills we acquire and the
higher our sleep becomes
yet the higher our season becomes
the further away we actually are from
being self-actualized
this leads us into a self-sabotage cycle
that seems to go on forever a cycle
that we seem to translate into every
aspect of life
after all society invented superman not
average man and no one wants to be the
ladder
but eventually we come to realize
that even the best of the best out there
those who
put up the skyscrapers write the best at
us perform
on international stages may in fact
be the suffering whereas
those individuals who without agony
can bear in ordinary rights the
so-called contented mediocrities
may in fact be the emotional superstars
the aristocrats of the spirit and the
captains
of the heart so how do we radically
change our beliefs
that are otherwise set in stone
while somewhere along our childhood we
tend to deny the impression
that we must be extraordinary in order
to deserve
a comfortable place on earth however
this is simply not the case
we have to start embracing the ordinary
and realizing the huge potential
in the little moments of life we can’t
all be shakespeare’s attracting picassos
at painting
and michael jordan the basketball
and eventually once we are beyond the
expectations of others
we may encounter your lives that life’s
true luxuries
may comprise nothing more than
simplicity
little kids waving to you at the grocery
store
crunching autumn needs below your feet
painting a masterpiece without an
audience
loving without too much hopefulness
there
hot baths cool wind and perhaps the bowl
of sliced apples with some peanut butter
and a little bite of dark chocolate
thanks
[Applause]
you