Part of my contemplation of this topic was the realization that I have, maybe always, lived with a lot of pressure on this topic, and a constant feeling that I was not living up to my potential and therefore to my obligations to the world.
I know that, as a late-20th Century American person, I grew up with a steady stream of biographies of successful geniuses. You don't hear someone interviewed by Terry Gross or Marc Maron if they haven't worked hard throughout their life, with focus, and achieved something extraordinary in their field. I remember as a very young person, enjoying the tremendous treat that was staying up late to watch the Johnny Carson show, that as I wanted his interviews with the accomplished and famous, I was constantly preparing for my own interview, what I would wear, what I would say.
How did I, at the age of 8 or 9, develop the expectation of myself that I would of course eventually be interviewed by Johnny Carson? Was that just me, or is it an oldest child type of thing, or is it an American child type of thing?
Only recently have I viewed this expectation as an unreasonable pressure on myself. And only in adulthood, where you are performing for a judgement or grade far less than you are performing as a way of communicating with others or enjoying community, have I realized that this expectation reflects all the wrong reasons for performing.
On a recent international trip, I had another revelation, based on a jet-laggy moment of confusion. I used to travel across seas frequently, one of the longest journeys possible in the world, the flight between the West Coast of the US (either LAX or SFO airports), to Sydney in Australia. Over the years, I developed all kinds of skills that helped me survive the long trip. I used to describe it as similar to a lizard in the freezer - I could slow all my metabolic processes way down, so that the flight didn't seem long at all. This is a skill that has been very useful in many tedious circumstances in my life.
So last month, after not travelling over a sea since something like 2013, I learned that I would travel from Wisconsin to Gothenburg, in Sweden. As I packed for the trip, I could feel all those skills kicking in. I knew to pack light socks to change into on the plane so the flight attendants didn't run into my feet with their carts while the lights were dimmed for sleeping. I knew to buy a big bottle of water after going through Security, to take on the plane with me. I knew to bring a neck pillow, and a fleece jacket with pockets for easily finding tissues and lip balm in the dark.
It turns out my skills served me well. The flight between the US and Europe is less than half the time of the LAX-SYD flight, so it was over before I got the least bit uncomfortable. It turns out I missed a connection at Heathrow, so I used my skills surviving the six hours of ghosting around the terminal and staying awake until my rescheduled connection (that time now, looking back, seems like it was quite short).
Once I finally got to Gothenburg, I had a day to explore and get my bearings. I found a train station across the street from the hotel, which went to our company's office in only one stop - pretty idiot-proof. I decided to travel that way on Monday, when my first meeting was at 9:00 am.
On that Monday, walking down into the station to the platform, there was a powerfully reminiscent smell of electric urban train that met me. I used to commute every day by train in Sydney, it must have been for about three years, so I had done my time building experience with this form of transportation (and I know it wasn't obvious how it worked from the start, because I remember some difficult and vertiginous experiences on my first few rides, where I didn't know how to buy a ticket, or couldn't find the right platform, or missed a stop, or didn't know that you're supposed to get off the train before the new passengers come on and got caught up in the current).
And my jet-laggy brain thought to myself, what are you doing with this expertise in the knowledge of this train smell?
I had a vivid sense of it as something I had spent time and practiced over the years of my life, and somehow it got conflated with the years of practice that, say, a professional violinist does, building up to virtuosic expertise later in life.
I did notice the absurdity of this thought, and later it occurred to me that my jet-laggy brain was conflating knowing how - the knowledge of a trade or practice or artistic ability - with knowing that - that is, acquaintance, familiarity. There are two different words for these two types of knowing in Spanish, and if I remember correctly in Latin too, but in English they can be mixed up.
At home I told this story, and someone praised me for my hard-won knowledge of how to navigate an urban train, and I do feel proud of that, but the knowing of my confused experience was the knowing of the smell. That's just an acquaintance, nonetheless developed over long time from lots of practice. But I don't know that I can do anything useful with the acquaintance with that smell.
I realize that I also don't feel pressure to use the gift of the knowledge of that smell to serve the world or reach my full potential. It's just something I have, from being, and from walking the particular path through the world that I have walked.
Liseberg Station from Wikipedia
