Intellectual Geneology

It disturbs me to see myself reading book after book of sociology, psychology, structuralism, and other theory and reaching conclusions only to find that they have been reached before me, and that I have spontaneously discovered only the most basic of intellectual strides. I think I've finally defied gravity only to find that I'm learning to WALK.

I have never pretended to be an original mind. I don't think divergently. I have a very common mind that always finds the obvious and is vividly aware that what it finds is always the obvious. I'm very suggestible with a rapacious memory, but I don't enjoy it. It mortifies me every time. I always tell the obvious joke. I do nothing unpredictable. I suppose I should be proud that my brain can move in directions that smarter brains have found and paved before me, but instead I mourn the loss of creativity.

These texts are training me to think in specific ways, and in important ways that my field requires and rewards (think Bourdieu), but somewhere in my psyche I have an emotional memory of being different, and the social and fiscal rejection that real creativity brings. In High School (relevance?) I was voted "Most Unique," and I suppose part of me thought it was real. I falsely assumed that my status as an outcast was because I was just a little more different than other people whose difference is celebrated.

I am very different because I am only a little different in very unusual ways. My mode of difference is just slightly off normal. Bourdieu says this is bad for my capital. I don't doubt it.

A smarter person broke down problems of fostering creativity institutionally. I didn't realize I'd have to choose between creativity and success. Or maybe I did; I just stuck my head in the sand. Either way, at this point it is no longer a choice.