Memory Lane: Modest Dreams of an Ordinary Life

What were your dreams, when you were a kid? What did you want to become, when you grew up? Did you have dreams about adulthood, or did you simply go with the flow — or family pressure/tradition — as "required" by your culture?

I think it disappointed my parents that I never had any grand aspirations to charge forth and "make my mark on the world." I just wanted a quiet decent life that afforded a quiet basic measure of comfort, along with nice friends and that was about it.

And that would probably have been OK if I had been born to typically Danish parents who had grown up in - and accepted - the looming shadow of the "Jante Law" that was socially prevalent in 1960s and 1970s Scandinavia.

But I wasn't. Both my parents had lived in the US for a decade or so before returning to Denmark to start their family closer to the grandparents... hence their insistence on striving and accomplishments. Which definitely did not align with my own very modest internal view of existence.

There is an old truism that some people get to play the music, while others get to be the listeners. Which can also be interpreted as life not making much sense if we are all the musicians and there is no audience.

Similarly, life makes no sense if we are all trying to be "the leaders" of everything. At least, it never made sense to me, even though "leadership" is often held up as something close to godliness, as a social value. And I also didn't have much interest in the level of both accountability and visibility that seemed to go hand-in-hand with leadership... even though the 'rents insisted that I become "special."

One might be given to wonder why my reluctance. Well, it had nothing to do with success/non-success, and a lot more to do with rejecting a system that placed more emphasis on valuing a person for their accomplishments rather than their character.

Not to suggest that accomplishments are irrelevant, but there are lots of people who accomplish a lot, but who are also really awful people of very dubious character. Something about that just rubbed me the wrong way, even when I was maybe 12 years old.

Somehow, that instilled in me the sense that it was preferable to be a middling good person than a highly successful asshole.

Of course, life seldom turns out like we envision. I suppose I did end up living a rather "ordinary" life, in many ways. Can't say that I really have any regrets about that. I still think the world overrates "exceptionalism." But hey, people need to do what people need to do.

It will be my birthday, on Tuesday. 63 years on this planet. And so, I find myself in a bit of a reflective mood... hence this slightly odd post.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your weekend!

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Created at 2023-08-26 18:35 PDT
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