And one for his mother
Hell, while I'm at it let's blame his mother for all of this (I'm on a bit of a roll this morning) which I can do since he was 32 years old before I met him...
Teeth gritted I concede from time to time that he's intelligent. Except that isn't quite true. He's hugely, vastly, immensely intelligent. Defectively so, but nevertheless man endowed with an IQ that's comfortably within MENSA bounds. If he were some dumb-arse the personality faults would be obscured. As it is the combination of high intelligence and low motivation/self-esteem allied to an propensity for procrastination and a habitual posture of ineffectitude* has driven everyone he's ever come into contact with to distraction.
He's the hugely intelligent only son of older parents, and in particular a very driven determined woman who burdened him with her hugely inflated expectations of him and cooked him in a succession of prep school/jesuit public (ie, private, fee-paying, boarding) school.
The sort of family/school environment where a fat kid in spectacles could only assert himself by failing, against all the odds; a habit he got into early and hasn't the self awareness to set himself to shrug off.
There are lots of ways in which we can control our lives and the environment around us. He found one early that worked and since he's never grown up he's never found a grown-up alternative.
* I may have made this word up. It belongs with ineffective, ineffectively, ineffectiveness, ineffectual, ineffectually and ineffectualness in the same way that decrepitude (a personal favourite) belongs with decrepit, but I have to admit that it isn't in any dictionary I have in the house.
Teeth gritted I concede from time to time that he's intelligent. Except that isn't quite true. He's hugely, vastly, immensely intelligent. Defectively so, but nevertheless man endowed with an IQ that's comfortably within MENSA bounds. If he were some dumb-arse the personality faults would be obscured. As it is the combination of high intelligence and low motivation/self-esteem allied to an propensity for procrastination and a habitual posture of ineffectitude* has driven everyone he's ever come into contact with to distraction.
He's the hugely intelligent only son of older parents, and in particular a very driven determined woman who burdened him with her hugely inflated expectations of him and cooked him in a succession of prep school/jesuit public (ie, private, fee-paying, boarding) school.
The sort of family/school environment where a fat kid in spectacles could only assert himself by failing, against all the odds; a habit he got into early and hasn't the self awareness to set himself to shrug off.
There are lots of ways in which we can control our lives and the environment around us. He found one early that worked and since he's never grown up he's never found a grown-up alternative.
* I may have made this word up. It belongs with ineffective, ineffectively, ineffectiveness, ineffectual, ineffectually and ineffectualness in the same way that decrepitude (a personal favourite) belongs with decrepit, but I have to admit that it isn't in any dictionary I have in the house.
posted by Enyo @ 11:48 am
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