Sometimes I sit in my room and try to move things. I stare as hard as I can at say, a tissue box and think, "MOVE!" Crinkling up my forehead, scrunching my eyes, I will with all might that the tissue box will levitate. So far, nothing has ever moved. But I am still hoping to develop extra-sensory powers.
I guess what I fear most is being ordinary. Well, let me qualify that. I fear nuclear holocaust, monsters under my bead, big furry tarantulas, and the theft of my dear teddy bear, Buddy Love, just as much or more. But I don't want to be ordinary. Ordinary is boring; ordinary is pointless; ordinary is so very ordinary. Anyone can be ordinary. But I don't want to be just anyone.
Reading Crime and Punishment made me think about being ordinary. Raskolnikov, the main character, wants to prove that he is extraordinary, that he is a superman. To do this, he kills a woman pawnbroker. Now I don't need to kill anyone; I"m a tad more laid back than Raskolnikov. But I, too, want to do something. I have a predilection of living in a garret, eating ketchup soup and saltine, writing The Great American Novel. Or like Larry Darrell in The Razor's Edge, I could travel the world in search of truth, doing good "for the love of a god he doesn't believe in." I want to travel the world; I want to sacrifice for a worthy cause; I want to change the world; I want to make the difference.
Now, they tell me that I"m a pretty smart cookie. I have the credentials: good grades, honor roll, and a pretty high GPA. As cookies go I"m near the top of the jar. But am I a boring, bland, sugar-cookie or an ordinary, carbon copy, buy-at-the-supermarket cookie? Or am I a super-duper, slightly eccentric, rough but delicious, homemade, one-of-a-kind oatmeal raisin cookies? I refuse to be just another ordinary cookie in the crowd. Eventually I will win the Nobel Prize for literature, or I"ll discover the cure for cancer.
