The Cleverest Man I Knew

Why? Because I'm not a genius. That may sound like the end of story, a conclusion. It is not. Like so many things this piece of work is hindered by the harsh realities of life. It is neither a start nor an end, just a snapshot of my life. A brief glimpse into the mind of a person, who is not a genius.

You see we all define ourselves with something, if were lucky that thing will be positive, I am a dancer or I am a Painter, an actor even the one many of us want, a good person. However, there are those people who are destined to live in the shadow, not of another person but of themselves. They think of there potential, whether real or imagined, and think that is what i could have been. There are thousands of them, just think back, do you remember that English teacher who always suggested things for your creative writing or poem. That guy you knew who always had another joke and who would stand up, gesticulate and laugh so that you did too. Those people who always languished in the throws of mediocrity. Maybe that's harsh, maybe the English teacher was good at writing and that mate you knew, he was fucking hilarious. Maybe. That's my point though, they knew what they wanted and for one reason or another they didn't get it. They will always, always be mediocre to themselves. They will always seem a poor shadow of what they could be. Saint Thomas Aquinas once said that everything moved from being something of potential to some thing actual, for example, an acorn is potentially an Oak Tree. He used this to attempt to prove the existence of a God. What happens though when you thought you had an acorn and instead of a tree you get a shrub. That's when you look at those people and stop, you to are a negative definition.

You get that phone call, letter or email. That job, university or college don't want you, they have decided that you are not good enough. Then you have to think why and the answer comes. At first you think, well I didn't work hard enough, I wasn't focused enough and I didn't take it seriously. Then you remember that you knew all that when you went for it. You still thought you'd get it. You thought you where a shoe in. For god sake you are a bloody...

We are all proud of something. Maybe too proud, but we all know that we are good, bloody good at at least one thing, even the most depressed of us. The moments most devastating though are the ones when that thing is taken away from you, when some says there is always someone better and in this case there are twenty. Fucking twenty. More than that in fact.

Yeah but if'd you'd tried

But this is me, I could try no harder

I shouldn't have had to try, but I did need to and I didn't and that lead to one question

Why?

Because I'm not a genius.