arrogance and insecurity

I was recently reminded that when I moved to Sunhole I demurred at the potential for dating here for several reasons, perhaps chiefly my fear of being some girl's "ticket out". I was reminded of this recently and take some pride in having achieved enough perspective to see the astounding arrogance of the thought. I think I recognized the arrogance at the time--I felt a bit sheepish saying it--but I felt the sentiment nonetheless.

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I've been thinking about the importance of teaching students how to deal with failure. A lot of the problems I see, especially in disempowered communities have to do with the ways that people deal with prolonged disappointment.

We all grow up with images suggesting what our future may look like and while a white boy has a variety of images and, depending on his class, these may even be over-inflated, a black male's images are largely negative and extraordinarily daunting in comparison with the images that dominate the media landscape (which are those of the wealthy and privileged few who can afford to make such image-creation economically viable).

You know this, but most of the responses to this situation that I see focus on inflating the sense of possibility in the disenfranchised. This could be a great strategy in a socialized system but in a tenaciously capitalist system most people are not going to be number one most of the time and popular images will always portray number one because that's what everyone wants to be, even if we're told (by our life circumstances or media images) that we can't ever be number one.

It strikes me that a more effective strategy would be to teach methods for dealing with disappointment, rather than inflating egos. This is as true for the over-privileged white kids I teach, whose parents let them quit when they're disappointed with the size of their roles (a thankfully rare, but sadly real situation) as it is for underprivileged children and...you know...me. This is not to suggest that we should teach people to be satisfied with not being number one, but rather we need to help people to find ways not to discount themselves before making an attempt. There's a fine balance there in that we also need to teach people risk assessment, not to throw themselves off the cliff. The trick is in determining what's a cliff and what's just the blinding light of possibility.

I hadn't fully appreciated how personal this problem is until my sister pointed out that she doesn't think about her chances for success, only whether or not she wants to do something. With that attitude she's been quite successful--not consistently, but sufficiently and certainly more often than not. At the moment I can't conceive of what that life must be like, but knowing it exists, and exists for someone with whom I identify makes it very real.

This is part of why I haven't become an actor.
Big project. Good to be able to articulate it, especially in the context of hearing my line about being some girl's ticket out of town with new ears.

Arrogance and insecurity. It's a hit to the self-esteem to say it but they're two sides of a coin I've been holding tightly for a long time.