Sitting on the outside looking in. At a venue where I spent 10+ years of my young working life, now ~5 years removed, I am back at the scene of the crime. Where, in another life, or an alternate Universe, I am back, on Centre Court, Playing… Instead of just taking a fresh air smoke break from building the actual court. The realization of watching my childhood dreams die strikes me; Where, that same childhood which once taught me to dream big — And I did — has me now cursing the afternoon moon and the stars, as The Curse Of The Gifted Class¹ strikes again.
Dream Big, they encouraged. So I did! Using my wildly creative imagination to get lost in an exciting, fun future that was still far, far away. What they didn’t teach me was How To Turn Dreams Into Reality — Or just even, How To Turn Dreams Into A Dream — because being an Intellectually Gifted Kid, The Smart Ass From The Gifted Class if you will, I had a Multi-Potentiality, where they presumed I could do it all, all on my own. I could not. Because, well, I was a Kid. And Kids, Kids don’t really know shit.
Dreams, Destiny — Even an Entelechy¹, of being “A Player” was on the top of my young, long, imaginative list of Big Dreams. As I got slightly older, the other Big Dreams of Being An Actor, An Astronaut, An Author, A̶ ̶G̶a̶r̶b̶a̶g̶e̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶², A Streetcar Driver, or Several Other Career Opportunities I imagined about, from someone possessing a Multi-Potentiality, started to fall behind the title of Professional Athlete. That rose to the top of my list, the one I thought I would strive for. However, the opportunities never really lead me down that path, as I wondered why. Years later, breaking it all down, I think I now know why.
My unnaturally high abilities in the field of Hand-Eye Coordination, in addition to my sheer enjoyment of playing with those set of skills, among the several other advanced abilities that I possessed being an Intellectually Gifted Kid, was eventually left raw and undeveloped.
Why? Because “Playing Sports” wasn’t considered an “Intellectual Pursuit”, and not a stereotypical trait of a Gifted Kid. Which in retrospect, was ridiculous. All I really wanted to do as a Kid was play, and too much play, back in the day, was frowned upon. Even with exemplary grades, that I knew as a smart kid should have bought me freedom and leniency away from the books— too much play was not encouraged. Eventually, all this unchanneled energy I had, and wanted to play with but couldn’t, manifested itself into other ways. Like behavioral issues.
Behavioral issues that included copying a Master Key for my School, leading to skipping class, slipping into the gymnasium, and yes, playing. Aligning my class skipping to an open gymnasium, playing baseball, shooting the basketball, banging a volleyball around, and even WWF Wrestling. Where I, along with my mischievous schoolmates, would dangerously climb ledges and walls and jump 20+ Feet in the air onto Landing Mats reenacting our own WWF Pay Per Views. Yes, I know how crazy that all sounds. And it was. I mean, I told y’all I was creative, imaginative, and liked to play. But I think that side of the story is a story for another day.
Where was I? Ah yes, Intellectual Pursuits. The ones that were expected of a Gifted Kid. They were even expected by me, having ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶i̶n̶w̶a̶s̶h̶e̶d̶ bought into the concept of what a Gifted Kid should look like. So I had to at least try to do smart kid things. Like Playing The Piano… Where I felt I wasn’t really that good at, having difficulties grasping a comfortable concept of this pursuit¹. Or how about, reading up on Health and Medical Material… Except I felt queazy, having actually felt the things I was reading. The concepts of blood, broken bones or Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation became a bit much to bare, and that was the end of that pursuit. I came to realized that Intellectual Pursuits were just not as enjoyable as the simple concept of Playing.
Which leads me to the concept of Multi-Potentiality. Where Playing Sports started to become unrealistic, having spent years not playing competitively, thus losing the time to develop the raw talent, I could not choose a career path. A Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None I’ve become, and none of which really involved the passion of playing sports.
A Baseball Player I used to believe I would be. Or, in relation to my hand-eye coordination, a Badminton, Handball, Squash, or Volleyball Player I could have been. A Basketball, Football, or Hockey Player I would have liked to try. The creativity and intelligence and athleticism for me to have done it was there, the experience, focus and guidance was not.
So as I sit here today, in an environment where I’ve spent, or wasted, a lot of my life, I now realize the full circle that is the flame of my youth and its professional athletic dreams, burn out, watching it die, to move on to another lifetime. I can only now people watch in amazement, at these athletic specimens play out their career callings and dreams, representing their country in these 2015 Pan American Games.
I can now close the book on that Childhood Dream Endeavour. If only Sports was accepted as an Intellectual Pursuit, I wonder what my universe would have been. Alas, I guess now is the time to make clear cut decisions of what exactly I want to do with my life.
As a highly adaptable individual, with a multi-potentiality to do what I put my mind to — Characteristic curses of intelligence — I guess I’ll have to grow up and accept that 1 of my childhood dreams is over, and maybe even move on to the next realistic ones.
Well, if there is one thing I can still hang my baseball hat on, it’s that I can admit now that I have no distinctive, athletic, special talents. I am only, still very, passionately curious.
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