Insecurity

Insecurity is an interesting thing. I think it's part of our ingrained biological survival instinct. Anything that makes us feel that we aren't good enough, or that "things" aren't good enough: unhappiness, imposter syndrome, these make us question ourselves and our place in the world. Isn't that put there, do you suppose, to make us want to change it? 

Why would we have such terrible baggage if we didn't need it? But if it's there because we need it, then it must be part of the mechanisms that help us to evolve and change. Not being happy with ourselves or sure of ourselves, may be part of a thing meant to motivate us to make changes, to spur forward evolution. Sadly, I think these mechanisms have broken down over time and for many they do more harm than good.

I was reading "There and Hack Again" again last night, (I really like this RPG.) and I was considering submitting my review to RPG.net. To that end, I read my review and realized how unprofessional it was. I talk about not liking D&D and place T&HA within that context. I spend a paragraph talking about how I think the game's name might keep it from appealing to what should be its target audience. Only about half of what I wrote is actually about the game. I will need to rewrite the review if I want to submit it to RPG.net. That is something I am considering, but it set my mind down a rather negative road. 

I'm not really a writer. I have made this vow to post something here on my blog every day in the hope that this may help me to hone my skills as a writer. Insecurity is that thing that has me asking "Is this a waste of time?" 

Does this mean I should be doing something different? Is this insecurity, an impetus to shift my course in a new more positive direction, or is it destructive, as I theorize above, an impulse that may have originally been something meant to help our species evolve but now mainly serves as something harmful?

I dropped out of highschool and obtained a GED. I tried attending community college and dropped out there too. I have a complicated relationship with public education. I have cerebral palsy. This affliction is restricted almost exclusively to my lower extremities. I have undergone a handful of surgical procedures to correct the worst of the effects so that I can walk. 

I am thankful that I can walk, but I do walk a bit "funny." This is something that others who see me notice. Less mature people, without proper filters tended to notice this loudly. In public schools it's these same loud people who get the most recognition. 

Herd mentality, our need to gather in groups and behave together is another one of those survival instincts that we are all born with. It's needed for the survival of our species. In my experience it meant that children who should have been my peers, fell in line behind that loudest voice to become my bullies. 

I hated school. I didn't try to do well academically. Why should I have? School was my enemy. My refusal to engage academically, also put me on the wrong side of many of my teachers. This in turn got me in trouble at home. At the worst of times "home" was an alcoholic step-father who could never be said to have been in a sympathetic mood.

I hated school, and I hated home. I only went to school because I had to. It's what was expected of me. It's where my free lunch was. If I wanted to eat before dinner, I needed to go to school. So, I went. Which ultimately proved to be a good thing. One teacher, my science teacher in my freshman year of high school, saw something others didn't. (Paul Lock, if you are still out there somewhere, thank you.) Mr. Lock invited me to join an after school science club. It changed the course of my life. I'll talk about that more tomorrow. 

Today, I explain my relationship to school to justify my lack of education. That's where the insecurity comes from. I'm sitting here writing as though I know what I'm doing. But, it's all just a disorganized uneducated stream of consciousness babble. That's what my insecurity tells me. Is that a self preservation instinct telling me to pivot, to find a pursuit that is better suited to my skill set? 

Life is good. I have a beautiful wife, and a daughter who just got home from college for the summer. I just got my haircut. I should feel great. I shouldn't be feeling insecure. Still, despite these feelings, I am still compelled to write, maybe that's the survival instinct pushing me forward to evolve.

Join my Facebook Group to discuss this post and anything related to RPG's and geekdom!