Thank you. It reminds me of something I once read in Malky Feig’s book, Mirrors and Windows. She compared each of us living our own lives among private family units to exams in high school. The director in charge will make sure that all grades and classes are interspersed in this great big auditorium. The seats are quite spaced apart, but even if you could see your neighbour’s exam, it wouldn’t help you because while you’re taking your grade 11 math exam, anyone in your immediate circle is taking a grade 9 chumash exam or grade 12 chemistry, or grade 10 English literature. So there’s no help, even emotionally knowing your classmates are nearby. In real life, we tend to compare ourselves to other mothers. But they’re taking a different life exam than we are. While we have the same outside trappings of house, marriage, children, jobs, we don’t have the same background, childhood, temperament, strengths or weaknesses. We don’t have the same parents, siblings, or income. So comparing ourselves to anyone is futile because it’s comparing algebra to Edgar Allan Poe, or chumash to home economics. I thought that was quite revealing.
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thank you for sharing!
Thank you. It reminds me of something I once read in Malky Feig’s book, Mirrors and Windows. She compared each of us living our own lives among private family units to exams in high school. The director in charge will make sure that all grades and classes are interspersed in this great big auditorium. The seats are quite spaced apart, but even if you could see your neighbour’s exam, it wouldn’t help you because while you’re taking your grade 11 math exam, anyone in your immediate circle is taking a grade 9 chumash exam or grade 12 chemistry, or grade 10 English literature. So there’s no help, even emotionally knowing your classmates are nearby. In real life, we tend to compare ourselves to other mothers. But they’re taking a different life exam than we are. While we have the same outside trappings of house, marriage, children, jobs, we don’t have the same background, childhood, temperament, strengths or weaknesses. We don’t have the same parents, siblings, or income. So comparing ourselves to anyone is futile because it’s comparing algebra to Edgar Allan Poe, or chumash to home economics. I thought that was quite revealing.
wow, that is great!! I will try to remember that!