Frustrations…

No matter how hard I try, or how much I study, I always find someone smarter than myself, someone more capable of achieving my dreams more efficiently and with greater skill. It’s a personal angst of mine to better myself; I spend hours every day poring over literary classics, mathematical works of geniuses, philosophical masterpieces, etc… and I still find that I am like an insect among giants. It’s so incredibly frustrating!

Sometimes, blaming others is a helpful way to cope, though not a morally justifiable one. I often blame my family for raising me “horribly”. They never saw the need, nor had the capability, to educate me when I was younger in things other than the simplest aspects of English and Math. I was able to read when I was 4 from Sesame Street. I learned my multiplication tables when I was 7. But that’s all. … That’s all. They wasted my time on teaching me useless things like the Armenian language and Armenian history. For some weird reason they bought the entire Encyclopedia Britannica since I think they realized I like to learn – I have to ask them why they did that. I memorized everything related to Astronomy in them. I knew various planetary densities, atmospheric compositions, surface gravitational accelerations before I hit the 5th grade. I saw how cosmic rays decayed in the upper atmosphere and knew about tests for special relativity before hitting High School. But these are just facts that anyone could have picked up.

I know I cannot blame them for my lack of creativity, I have to ultimately take responsibility for myself and my own lack of action; my parents did the best they could with what they knew. I wish I was more motivated as a kid to learn and study more. I hear stories of kids in crappy situations with nothing but an Algebra book nearby and they end up reconstructing half of modern Number Theory. I hear of people who are taught Calculus by the age of 12 and go on to become Math Olympiads. People my age have solved some of the toughest mathematical problems ever posed (see Hilbert’s Problems).

What am I doing with the time allotted to me? Fiddling with a Goddamn MATLAB bug. For months, now. I have been running around in circles. For. No. Reason.

If we look at all of the above from the eyes of ancient Roman Catholics, perhaps my damning sin is Envy – at least, as I see it. So-called childhood friends of mine who wouldn’t take the time to get to know me would say that Pride is my sin; I have never heard that from anyone else since. Maybe there is an element of pride in what I say. I find myself envious of the greats of mathematics, philosophy, science, etc… They did so much more than myself with less. I had every opportunity to be better, but I squandered it over video games and stupid childish things like that. I didn’t need to play all those games, I knew it, too.

And here is another point of frustration: there is no personal lesson here. I cannot go back and fix things. The only thing I can do is look forward and ignore my shortcomings, strive all that much more harder.