Entry #12: Consolations d'une bonne-à-rien

Here is a confession: although I do like to think myself as a moderate, considerate, temperate and clever-enough person, the horde of my shortcomings skulk beneath the surface and often, like a sneaky fish, like to jump out of the water and slap me across the face. A great obstacle that I face every day is my total lack of knowledge and comprehension regarding any useful task. This is a problem I have encountered from a very young age, and I'm afraid it's anything but abated as I grow older.

I am always the last person to get a handle on menial jobs. Example: when I was five and had to master the mean feat of tying my shoelaces, the effort it demanded is, retrospectivey, quite incredible. If I remember correctly, it was not until my two older sisters threatened that I certainly wouldn't make any friends in kindergarten without knowing how to tie my shoes that I finally wrapped my head around it. Similarly, I could not blow bubblegum or snap my fingers until the fifth grade; to this day, I still can't ride a bicycle. Ergo, things that come naturally to most people tend to take a little more time to sink in with me.

Most days, I can get by without feeling too obstructed by my difficulties concerning doing laundry, banking and simple cooking. However, the place wherein it becomes the most noticeable is when I am starting at a new job. Oh my, does my ego swallow a severe beating then.
This is mostly what made me lose my job at the Delta: I simply could not get up to factory speed with making beds. I'd never (properly) made a bed in my life. The art of slipping the pillow cases over the very fat pillows eluded me completely, and consequently took me about 3x longer than it should have. Getting fired certainly didn't feel very nice, but I understood. I didn't possess the necessary talents.

My hotel job is going well- beautifully, even. But the other job does tend to bring to light my failures.

"Elise, what are you doing?" they ask, incredulous at my perceived stupidity. "You can't wipe a table like that."

Well excuuuuuuuse me.

For the first few days, everything went smoothly, but it didn't take too long before I began to bungle just about everything.

"How can you not know that cream tea is scone, jam, butter, clotted cream and tea?"

"This isn't how you clean a glass."

"How do you not remember? I showed you how to do this last week."

"Elise, you're doing this wrong."

It's no good explaining that it takes me a little time to catch on- not to mention that I've been in this country for only three weeks, that I don't know anything about the English culinary culture and that I still struggle to understand the British accent.

Anyway, luckily I'm not unarmed. When I get back to my flat, I can whip out my trusty handbook, The Consolations of Philosophy, which devotes a chapter on what Michel de Montaigne had to say about mental inadequacy.

De Montaigne is far and away one of my favorite philosophers. Born in 16th-century France, he lived a secluded life in a countryside castle whose library boasted over a thousand volumes. There, he wrote Essays on just about every subject, often in his very own shameless, derogatory style. Having been the recipient of a classical education at one of France's finest liberal arts schools, he was very critical of the way in which we distinguish cleverness. It is not about how much we know, he says, but how much what we know is useful and helpful in our own approach to life. For example, it is all very well for one to know how to solve a trigonometric problem, but one who lacks this knowledge but doesn't need it should not feel lesser than the former. Rather, we should trust ourselves in applying our own set of skills and talents in a way that propagates sustainability and happiness in our lives.

He says: "I have seen in my life hundreds of craftsmen and ploughmen wiser and happier than university rectors" (p.157). It's not about whether your particular cleverness is celebrated by society, but how you use them to live your own days in a way you deem good.

I know I have some knowledge. I'm a good academic. I'm good at fooling around with instruments. I'm good at picking flowers and cleaning bathrooms. There are things at which I'm less good, but I try not to let them overwhelm me, because my being  unable to throw a ball or properly finish anything does not devalue me. This is not to say that I live on a cloud of self-glorification- "If only talking to oneself did not look mad," de Montaigne muses, "no day would go by without my being heard growling to myself, against myself, 'You silly shit!'" (156). Best to accept ourselves as ridiculous, gross but occasionally heartwarming creatures.

So if you want to do something for me today, then take a moment to appreciate yourself as a perfectly good-enough conglomeration of strengths and shortcomings.

Book reference: De Botton, A. (2000). The Consolations of Philosophy. New York: Random House Publishings.