I wonder what it's like to know you're special.

[burntcopper]

Most people aren't special. By virtue of existence, a few stand out from the herd and a few are somewhere in the gutter. Most of us are part of the herd, the big seething mass that gets stuff done and just lives our lives, who'll never make the news or get an obituary in the paper. I fully admit, and always have known, that I was always herd. Unless I do something really fucking amazing, I'm never going to be special. I've got knacks for some things - I know I used to be decent at photography, and I'm decent at writing and sewing, but I always knew that the level of talent I have at these skills was never going to make me stand out. A good example would be my college photography class. Nearly everyone had a knack for something, and we were all quite good, but we all knew exactly who stood out. Their work stuck up on a white wall in the weekly progress meetings made people stop and stare.

I'm not talking about those whose ego is utterly massive, or became famous for being famous. i'm talking about people who by virtue of their talent in one field or another, stand out as special.

Comments

[cidercupcakes.livejournal.com]

See...I think there might be a bit of a cultural difference at work here, as well, maybe, because -- there's a line in Fight Club, something about how we [presumably middle-class Americans] all think we can be rock stars when we grow up. And I'm coming from sort of the opposite place, where I was told over and over again that I was ~special~, and at the time, in most of my twelve years of public school, I was the big fish in a small pond...then I got to the real world and realized that oh, I really wasn't that special after all. And in some ways it's been utterly crippling, to go "wait, okay, I'm going to have to be a NORMAL PERSON?" and in some ways it's such a relief.

SO TL;DR I guess the short answer is I don't know, but now I'm curious too.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

it's not so much 'special snowflake' - a sense of self-worth (which the british look at and go '...right.'), but wondering what it's like to be top of your chosen field.

[littlerhymes]

Hmm. Interesting post! I feel pretty much the same way, for whatever that's worth. :)

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's not a question of self-worth, it's just curiosity to know what it would feel like to be top of your field/peer group.