jungleinthefrunk wrote:
watched the whole thing. cant wait to see what hes like when he grows lol!
I know. My knee jerk reaction to his situation was "Wow, I'm jealous as hell!" but then it sank in just how public his life is gonna be. To be studied and watched is a weird thing, especially in one's developmental stages when you're trying to figure out who you are and how you fit in the world. He's gonna bear out a lot of conflicting messages from many different groups before he's twenty-one. I hope, for his sake, that his parents remain strong and balanced and take a step back from his life to let him be who he needs to be. And I wish for him loving, authentic friends.
To be a child prodigy of any kind is a strange road. If you're a little bit better than your peers, you're still one of the group. If you're a lot better, they tend to either suck up to you or try to make you their leader. If you are light years ahead of them, you're labeled a freak and shunned, usually out of fear. You've got two choices at that point: either go ahead and shine or suppress who you are in order to fit in. If you shine, you discover in the end that the only ones really clapping for you were the adults, who had their own ego motivations for getting behind you, wanting little pieces of your fame to bolster their self-esteem. If you go the suppression route, you regret every second of it and the social acceptance you mortgaged your skills for usually isn't that great. But it's often a survival mechanism that buys you some time until you've got the space and freedom to exist fully. If it sounds like I know what I'm talking about, you're a good reader.
Baby Herc