Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema: Self-Help (c. 1885)

"When I could no longer believe in who I might become …"

Besides laying open the myth that I could return home for Christmas, my Exile also displaced my inherited faith in the great American Self-Determination Myth. Most Americans of my generation were taught that we could accomplish anything we put our minds to and that any of us could grow up to become President. This might have been an odd offshoot of Jefferson's assertion that all men are created equal, a helpful fiction not necessarily intended to have been interpreted literally. Anyway, like almost everybody, I came of age believing my lot in life, if not at that moment improving, was definitely, if invisibly, trending better. Sure, my current trajectory might seem unpromising, but the magic of Self-Determinism would shortly muster a miracle. I just needed to contribute faith, patience, and persistence.

The thing about belief was always that it conveniently becomes self-sealing. Whatever I'm believing, if it hasn't entirely manifested yet, might yet manifest given the sincere application of just a little more faith, patience, and persistence. Faith might remain indistinguishable from simply waiting, except it's waiting with bells on. Few sensations match those provided by a fervent belief in anything. The object of such belief never matters. Those cock-sure optimists who mythically settled the Wild West were each infused with fervid belief. Whether budding monopolist or Mormon, each moved through the world as if they'd already inherited their fortune. There's true power in that position, whether truth or, at root, fiction. I won't pretend to understand how or why, only that the effectiveness of such fiction seems unquestionable. The future seems to belong solely to those who fervently believe in it.

I was more poorly endowed with such faith in myself. Oh, I could muster enough bluster to propel myself into a middle-management position. Still, I knew I wasn't interested or necessarily capable of moving up through the ranks to become the head of any operation. I satisfied myself with a position well within the ranks, a leader after a fashion but nobody's headline mention. Later, I stumbled into running my own company, though I still prominently never unquestionably believed in myself. The Muse and I managed to make names enough for ourselves. I even stumbled into publishing a minor best-seller, which I dedicated to The Muse and my lack of belief in myself, a backward dedication to an upside-down sort of Self-Determination. Then came The Exile.

Being Exiled reinforced my sense that Self-Determination had always been a myth, though my lack of fervent belief might have caused me to experience this effect. I fully acknowledge that, but even with that said, Self-Determination was always of limited scope. One might influence some parts of one's existence without necessarily ever manifesting absolute dominion over every part. One might profoundly influence the creation of their minor best seller but prove powerless to very deeply influence the actual selling. Others seem supremely capable when influencing others but lack the internal discipline to very meaningly influence their own behavior. Getting Exiled reminded me that my mastery of my fate had been a limited superpower, revokable without much advance notice. I was almost instantly transported back to GO without receiving the traditional two hundred dollars and might have been destined to never advance beyond the dreaded Mediterranean Avenue again. There, between GO and JUST VISITING, my Self-Determination might have finally held dominion.

I finally realized that my inheritance had always been limited. It would be up to me to pick my poison. My beliefs, such as they were, could be diluted by too broadly extending them. I might have grown up to become President, but only if I could have more tightly focused my attention. I found ample distractions upon which to expend my limited energies, thereby distancing me from an eventual Presidency. It seemed I could be anything, but not everything, and pursuing any end disqualified almost every other possibility. Those of us who never knew what we wanted to be when we grew up or who focused on becoming a famous folk singer rather than something more practical like the President might shut ourselves out of meaningful Self-Determination if only through persistent indecision. Perhaps one must believe in something specific for fervent belief to work.

Exile eventually taught me to focus on what I might meaningfully influence. Sure, I frittered plenty of my irreplaceable time away, pining after elements my Exile had rendered uninfluencable, regardless of how fervent my belief was. I was rather rudely cast out of the center of my universe, and I seemed destined, at least for then, to live on the acknowledged periphery. I could hold distant dreams of returning without focusing a necessarily dangerously depleting amount of my belief on achieving what was then clearly impossible. I could believe in what I already had without overextending my faith into compromising territory. I could simply be a writer and acknowledge what I'd already become, whether by belief or simple practice. I could write to my heart's content without caring whether some distant, out-of-context editor ever cared to publish the result. I could inhabit a world where at least something seemed possible, where looking backward, I might insist that even my Self-Determination ultimately paid off.

Exile taught me to believe in what I have rather than what I might become. It insisted that I accept my own self-sufficiency, however begrudgingly, and thereby believe in myself as I am rather than doubling down on whomever I might believe I might become. In this way, Exile helped me discover who I was instead of always focusing on believing in who I wanted to become. When I could no longer believe in who I might become, I became sufficient, and some sense of self-sufficiency supplanted my dogged inherited belief in Self-Determination.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz