on being awkward and more thoughts about excellence in mediocrity

I have been realizing more and more over the past few years just how awkward I am. In every possible sense of the word. Physically, not only I am pretty tall but my arms & legs are not really proportional to my torso. So I slouch and sit in weird positions in class, or just fall asleep. I'm pretty ADD and don't exercise enough, so I'm always fidgeting or scratching or whatever. I watched a video of myself interacting with friends and I was struck by just how much I looked like my autistic brother as I played with the buttons on my shirt. I have more bad habits of that sort than I can count.

I am socially and emotionally awkward, too, though this is not nearly as bad as it used to be. I talk too loudly, I don't pay attention to who is talking to me, I tell off-color jokes in inappropriate situations, and miss social cues. I'm almost better at interacting cross-culturally because there's a certain amount of awkwardness expected in such situations. I'm definitely better at formalized social situations like patient interactions at school because I know the rules for those and I have to think about how I'm acting. I can be really good at reading other people and sensing their emotional state, but only if I'm paying attention. Otherwise, ADD takes over and I just crack jokes.

I shudder to think what my class superlative will be this year. But my friends still seem to genuinely enjoy being around me, or at least they're polite enough to keep inviting me to hang out. So I'm okay with being awkward, especially when a certain someone has nicknamed me "twitch."

I'm a really terrible person. If you don't believe me, go find my xanga. I want people to look at me and think I'm good, and sadly that's often why I do the good things I want to do. But people are fickle and I'll always doubt their affirmation one way or another. I will spend the rest of my life with an urge to make myself matter in the world to overcome the fact that I know that inside I am broken and the only way that I know to do atone for that in my own soul is to help people. But I doubt I'll ever be able to make the balance swing in favor of doing more good than bad, and even if I do I don't think that would really satisfy me. Other people can't affirm me, and I think I would have to lie to myself a lot to affirm myself.

I want to do good in the world in a big way, like the sorts of ways that I kinda disparaged in my last blog post. If I could work hard so that ten of thousands of people who didn't have health care would get it like Paul Farmer has done (and then on top of that, inspire thousands of others to do the same work), I would be very pleased with myself. That would be greatness for me, or at least the way that I think about it. As it is, though, my blog has about 20 subscribers on RSS and I like playing computer games or recording mediocre music on my computer. I get mostly B's in school. These are not promising signs that I am destined for Farmer-esque greatness in the long term. If I want to be Paul Farmer, I should probably be starting a health awareness organization in my neighborhood or handing out clean needles or doing research at school. But I'm not doing those things now. Even when I'm older and I replace lame things like playing computer games with good things like playing outside with my kids and good things like recording music with better things like making more with my wife, I'll still be who I am and I suspect that I will be as happy with myself then as I am now.

If I spent my life trying to be Paul Farmer so that I could "make a difference in the world," I don't think I would be happy and neither would the people around me.

One time Freeman Hrabowski wrote me a recommendation letter (it was for the scholarship I won that got me in various papers and such, which is probably the closest I'll ever come to being famous and cool like Paul Farmer. It is probably very good for my soul that my fame peaked at age 20.) We had a meeting, and it was cool because Dr. Hrabowski is a genuinely nice guy, and clearly he works a lot harder than I ever will. He inspires a lot of people to do good and great things, and probably a lot of people to do things that they just ought to do. For example, he encouraged me to iron my shirt collar the next time I had a meeting with someone, which was a very important reminder that I appreciated. He also told me that I shouldn't be a doctor in clinical practice like I said that I was planning to, but that I should go into research and find a cure for AIDS or something like that. I politely told him that that was a good idea and that I would look into it. I was pretty much lying to him, because I hate research and I'm fairly certain that research hates me (or at least doesn't agree with me.) I don't think like a researcher, work like a researcher, or even enjoy it when my work in research produces something (which has only happened once in all the years I've been doing research.)

I told you that story so I could tell you this one: My little brother is autistic. Anyone who has met him knows that he can be very, very funny and very, very awkward and sometimes downright difficult to deal with. Somedays I wonder if I'm on the same spectrum as he is and just got lucky when I was 4 when I sounded out my first word correctly. Probably not, but still. His prospects for the future probably do not include multiple graduate degrees like mine.

The other day my brother said to me, "Matthew, when I grow up I want to be a janitor." And I said, "Phillip, if you would be happy being a janitor, I think that would be very good for you and for the rest of the world." The world needs janitors like Phillip who want to be janitors and would be happy doing that. I don't know if any janitors read this blog, but I hope none of them are offended or anything.

Each of us has our limitations and strengths, and we are always tempted by the seductive promise that if we just worked a little harder, donated more money, volunteered more, wrote more letters to our congressman, or joined this "cause" on Facebook (really?), we would suddenly change the world. Frankly, I think that is mostly pride motivating us to do things that our culture values as good to make ourselves feel better about what terrible people we are.

I think the way to be free is in Jesus, unsurprisingly. Jesus really was good through-and-through, and He did way more good than I ever could have done but he still had time to party and I think He might have played computer games with His friends if they had StarCraft back in His day (not as often as I do, but hey.) We do know that He drank and partied and had fun, but He did so in a way that was perfect. And then at the end of it all He died so that I could have all the good things that belonged to Him, and He suffered for all the evil things that I've done. And now, I don't have to be great because I am great in Him. And that leaves me free from the burden of having to affirm myself, so all the good that I do is good.

I will probably never be as cool or productive or save as many lives as Paul Farmer. What I would much rather do is find one place that needs a doctor and has never heard of Jesus before. And then I'll live there for a few decades and teach them about both until my job is irrelevant and they can live with better health and a relationship with God without me. And if I've got time, maybe I'll do it in another place for a while. To some, this might seem mediocre. And perhaps it is. But I think a lot of people today need to be happy with being excellent at being mediocre, and a lot more need to set their sights on at least being meaningful in mediocrity. And if we did that, I think we'd all be a lot happier and a lot more good would get done.

[cross-posted on facebook.]