We dropped out in the same year to pursue art though in different countries. But I was the only one who made it in the field. So in a way, I felt kind of guilty as a peer.
But, if his problem wasn’t too big to listen to someone else’s, maybe I would have told him that I dropped out the second college too, because I didn’t want to pay a few more semesters. I wasn’t not gonna tell someone who hasn’t forgiven himself a mistake that he made about something similar that I did. They would judge me the same way they judged themselves. Which is shame. And I was way over shame.
And in high school when he told he was in a gifted school, and I said nothing. That was because I was in a gifted junior high school. And I thought all my teammates sucked. So did the teachers. I didn’t think an advanced program was a reliable metric to tell someone’s intelligence and passion. And by high school, I wasn’t in gifted anymore so I didn’t think it was necessary to bring that up. But maybe without that knowledge, 10 years later he took it as a surprise that I followed through on what he didn’t with a lesser background.
Maybe he has a lot of problems. But so does everyone I know. Was I insensitive that one time and that made him not trust me to give him my opinions anymore? Of course I was. I say 100 things per day every day. Of course, some of them will be stupid. But if he so often says the right things. Often enough that other people can’t meet the standard for him to be safely genuine with them. Is it because his ratio is fantastic or is it because he lacks accountability?
