My life is astronomically unlikely.
Decades before my conception events occured that brought Great Britain into a ruinously expensive war in continental Europe, a war that put Britain on the road to financial descent and, eventually, towards decolonisation. The election of a monotesticled man in Germany was the point of no return, and from there, it became inevitable that Britain would have to go grant India its independence, as neither the troops, nor the monies, nor the will-power existed to keep it anymore. And so my mother's family, understandably unenthusiastic about being governed by those that they had been complicit in oppressing for the past century, decided to quit India. Minute fluctuations within the realm of International Politics had magnified to the point where my Grandmother had to traverse the thousands of kilometres from Andhra Pradesh to Yorkshire.
Whilst on the paternal side, my dad was ridiculously lucky. As the second youngest of five children, he survived whilst his two eldest brothers were killed in near-identical accidents. His twin sister went blind in her teenage years and succumbed to depression and morbid obesity. Whilst his younger brother squandered his natural intelligence on distructive substance abuse and familial discord. My dad, despite his dyslexia, managed to make his way through mandatory education, force his way through an Open University degree, pull and eventually marry one of the most popular Mod Chicks in Leeds and move out of a slummish inner-city area into one of the snootiest suburbs of the Greater Birmingham area...
Somewhere in that story of ridiculously unlikely events, the two component parts of my genetic make-up were splashed together.
I grew up in Solihull, and went to school there (where me gerr-gus Yerkshuh accent wers bulli'd aut'a mi - something I still resent to this day). But, strangest of all, it was somehow decided in that time that I was intelligent. How that happened I'm still not really sure, but happened it did, and that affected the way the education system treated me from then onwards.
Fast forward to when I was eleven years old. My mother decided that I should take the entrance exam for the King Edward grammar schools. I was strongly against this decision, but, being eleven, I had little ability to oppose the decision. In an act of bizarre pre-pubescent rebellion I decided to guess the answer to every question in the entrance exam. I let my pen hover over the multiple choice answers and I just let fate decide where it should fall. This is really the point of divergence in my twisted tale - literally anything could have come of this...
The results came back. I didn't get in. 'Well that's that,' thought I. A couple of weeks later, a change of plans: I did get in. Some kid, somewhere, decided not to take advantage of the grammar school education, and I got to take their place. I've occassionally wondered what the person was like, and how, perhaps, my attendence at the school came at the expense of the kid who could have grown up to cure cancer...
So yeah, then I went to school. And it was the worst time of my life. I didn't really have any friends and more often than not I cried myself to sleep - before that point I thought 'cry yourself to sleep' was just a turn of phrase, but no!, it is actually possible. I'm not a fan of diagnosing emotional problems as if they were fully-fledged medical illnesses - but I suppose that at that time I was "suffering from Depression".
Things got better though, I didn't get any smarter. I floated through my education. Admittedly, I didn't try as hard as I possibly could all the time - rather, I tried as hard as I felt any given task deserved to be tried, which, seeing as I'm an arrogant little sod, wasn't that hard.
I came to my GCSEs, and I barely scraped a good enough score to stay in school. I came to my A-levels and got a set of results that were actually terrible. Way lower than even I expected, and way lower than what any university was offering - and yet I was still accepted. At this point I started thinking along these kind of lines... Everything was just seeming unrationally unlikely. I came to two possible conclusions: The first, that there was some kind of grand conspiracy amongst The Establishment to see that I, personally, succeed.
Or, I'm just ridiculously lucky. I'm some kind of Statistical Surfer, surfing at the front of an increasingly collapsing wavefront of probability.
The wavefront is either going to remain stable and carry me to torturously-metaphorical shore of success - or, it'll collapse, and I'll come crashing down. When I look back over my years of good-fortune and incomprehensible success its often hard for me to believe that any of it is due to my own actions. I mean, most people have a wide catalogue of empirical evidence to support the theory that hard work breeds success - whereas when I look back on my life, due to what is probably just pure coincidence, I actually see the exact opposite corrolation: the times in my life when I remember working the hardest usually end up in miserable failure, whereas the times where I try the least often end up accumulating into extraordinary success.
This confuses the fuck out of me, because, really, according to all logic, it shouldn't be the case. So either I am just experiencing a life-long streak of heads-up coin-tosses - or I have a destiny. I'm... probably more inclined to believe the former.
In which case, I'll just hang-ten, enjoy the ride, and wait to see if my whipe-out ever comes.
Saiyonara dudes.
Monday, 10 December 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I really like how similar our school experiences were. :)
I got bullied for my accent at infant school (it was posh apparently) and had it stamped out of me.
It was decided that I was a 'gifted' child.
I didn't want to take the 11+ but I had to.
I didn't get into Camp Hill but then someone else gave up their place so it was given to me.
Secondary school was the loneliest, nastiest, shittiest experience of my life so far.
Perhaps we both came from the same tree! :D
Your dad's story is bizarre, to say the least.
I had a twin. :) But I gobbled it up because it was taking up my precious womb space. :( *regrets*
I have a similar story too.
I over-achieved my entire life, went to a comprehensive school and worked hard for every success granted to me.
Also, Meg, where has your blog gone?
Also, Meg, how many names do you have now?
mhmm
Similar how I got into five ways 'cause someone else left, my time at bourneville was the hardest ever. Being the only yr7 kid wearing a blazer, that was a good first day...
BOOP.
i second joel's thoughts to meg.
i also have the not trying thing down...
although i have never really tried. i sometimes wonder what it would be like if i really put my all into something... but i probably never will.
i think that i put quite a lot into things accidentally actually. like i don't realise i'm doing it...
that was a damn good blog tom, awesome. Xx
Post a Comment