...Here’s to the kids who are different,
The kids with the mischievous streak,
For when they have grown, as history’s shown,
It’s their difference that makes them unique.
— Digby Wolfe, “Kids Who are Different”
When I was in the second grade, my parents inadvertently delivered (what I now see as) a home run on one of the most instrumental lessons they could ever teach me about life: seek and celebrate the non-linear. Ironic as it may be, that it was through a conversation with my Math teacher. That lesson continues to be fundamental in how I often (try to) explore experiences as they unfold, and reflect them, particularly through my photography.
To preface, this is my Mama's account of this incident. It was the annual parent teacher meeting and my parents had made the rounds. As they sat down for their final meeting, my teacher proceeded with the standard small talk: "Everything is going great, except I have one concern, a complaint about you, really- when I give your daughter a problem, she often gives me too many different ways of solving the same problem. I fear this might cause confusion for her in the future when she compares herself with her peers. I just need her to stick to what we learned in class. So, I request that at home, from now on, you don't go beyond the curriculum covered in the way we cover it. Either I teach her or you do." My Pop smiled, "I don't see the problem. I refuse to raise my daughter to think in only linear ways, even in how she approaches mathematics." When my parents came home, they sat me down and asked me to continue to explore these channels of thinking at every opportunity possible, no matter what. To them, this was the only way I could arrive at a place where I stood more confident and with a perspective that was reserved by me only. They continued to remind me of this at every opportunity they could, till this very moment.
I have come to realize that one of the hardest parts of the creative process, at least for me, is that even in seeking the most deserted and unexplored roads, it is important to never lose sight that through it all, I am the driver. Yes, there are inevitable compromises that I will need to make. Nature will call. The car might break down or my shoes will ware out. I may go on a detour or be thrown off course. I will at some point need to seek the guidance of an external compass or have to accept and embrace the necessity of company from the short-term hitchhikers to the long-term loved ones. But, in the end, all of this is part and parcel of the exhaustive process of living fully- of the being in human being. That said, only I can see/make the journey what it is and what it could be. Even if I run into similar roadblocks that someone else may have inevitably faced, it won't be with the same trajectory. My A to B was never meant be the same as anyone else's and it can't be, no matter how much I try. There are no 'wrong' paths because 'failures' are just life's way of rerouting us. What makes sense is the beaten path, but what if there are possibilities out there that haven't been sensed or explored? What if tracing someone else's blueprint gives me less every time rather than the deluge it did for the first person who charted it? What if value isn't always derived from taking the shortest and most direct routes alone? What if it isn't in passing (only) through the markers that make me somehow more certain that I am checking off the right milestones or that I am part of some predetermined "norm"?
After all, the likes, followers, accolades and re-posts are (ironically) nothing but someone else's hashtag. They can (and don't have to) be (at most) the cherry on top. And as much as 'we' all, on some level, would love (maybe even need) that validation and to have that affirmative nod, it doesn't have to be the goal, but rather just a fraction of a much bigger picture....
Perhaps at the end of this journey, it could all add up to a story that isn't prescribed, pretty or popular... just personal.
Now, Leibniz... where are my keys?!