What did other people mean when they told you "to be realistic"? (let's turn the question around this time)
In what context did that happen/does that happen?
It happened when I was a child, after they (parents, teachers, administrators, counselors) decided I was in possession of this thing called potential. They all had ideas of who or what I could be, but they all forgot and ignored who and what I actually was.
They told me I would go on to do great things, no matter what I ended up doing...except it very much mattered what I chose to do, and where that choice would lead. They had a list of things I could do, of things I could be. Things I would do, things I would be.
And if I dared to say what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be, I might hear “be realistic!”
More often it would be “don’t be foolish,” or “that would be a waste of your potential.”
So I murdered my own feelings and dreams so I wouldn’t say foolish things, and so the painful feelings would go away.
When they would share their plans, I would nod and say “yeah, okay!” and try to sound chipper. But the world turned grey.
A few years later, I didn’t really have a good sense of who I was any longer. I only existed for other people.
And I didn’t understand why you would beat, and concuss, and yell at, and deny food to, and lock someone with so much potential in a closet.
The pain of constantly being invalidated and abused was too much, and I needed an escape. So I tried to kill myself.
Didn’t work, and no one found out, so it didn’t matter, and it didn’t mean anything.
But then my resentment grew. And because I was not my own person, because I felt more like I was a thing...
I said to myself “I will destroy their creation.” That’s actually how I thought of myself. I was a thing they had created.
Although I was not a person, I could destroy myself. I could spoil and destroy all their hopes and plans.
And it didn’t matter because I didn’t exist. That’s how it felt. I actually got excited about destroying myself because I would be free.
I wouldn’t be something I was not, and I would escape pain and reality through oblivion and self-destruction.
At some point they gave up on me, or maybe better to say their hopes and dreams. But they didn’t tell me. And I wouldn’t have heard them if they did.
The manic energy and emotions that come out of thoughts of destroying yourself are electric, because of the mix of joy in finally being free, the little bit of fear and sadness, and the nothingness, the void that is nihilism. So schizo, to care so much that you no longer care.
So I didn’t exactly know (or now remember) when it started, but at some point began a little over 10 years of no contact. I would find my way as I could, and to them, it would be as if I died. And I suppose I did.
I burned their potential to the ground. They said I would go on to do great things. I proved them wrong. They didn’t know me. They never asked.
Now if you think, in reading this post, that I got triggered or something, you’d be exactly right.
Because I hate the words “be realistic.” No, fuck you. And I hate the word potential. There’s no such thing, it doesn’t actually exist. Potential is a psychological projection onto someone or something with selfish intent. Potential. Fuck potential.
No, follow your dreams. Dream big. Be true to yourself, even if someone doesn’t think it’s realistic. What do they know about your reality? It’s your life, you have to live it for you. Don’t be anything other than what you want to be.
Never tell anyone to be realistic, especially not a child. Saying that is so cruel, to say their hopes and dreams aren’t right, and so by extension, they aren’t right. That they dream wrong because they are wrong. How unloving that is to do to a human being.
Be realistic? No. Be yourself. You can’t be anything else anyway.
Encourage, don’t Disparage,
Ian