How To Be Ordinary

In a world that wants you to be special.

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve wanted to be a special person. No, strike that. Ever since I was a teenager, I believed I was a special person.

On the outside I might have appeared to be a coarse, unattractive youth with little in the way of education, charm, resources or money. But inside I knew that I was different. You just wait, I would silently tell everyone who doubted my specialness - ‘everyone’ meaning people who thought I was not really worthy of thier love respect or attention. I’ll show you.

It is not an uncommon fantasy for young people to believe in their own remarkability, and it is a fantasy nowadays supported by a whole marketing industry. The messages come thick and fast - you are a uniquely talented individual with a dazzling destiny, all you have to do is believe, and to seize that destiny.

This is a modern myth, and one with enormous appeal for all those who - like me - felt ‘less than’ when we were young. Of course the truth is, most of us are ordinary. We have to be,otherwise there would be no meaning to being special.