Stereotypes: math and gym, nerd and jock, body and mind
I spend a lot of time in the past today. I had to do some self cleaning.
In movies and television programs, it is made clear that a high school student can not be good at both intellectual and physical activities. The jock is captain of the sport team and he sucks at anything that requires brain cells. The nerd is a library rat who spends his days in books and he sucks at sports.
In high school, I didn’t really fit in either of those stereotypes. I wasn’t captain of any sport team and not even of any chess club. I also didn’t spend my time in books. In fact, I remember that football, ping pong and foosball were a big part of my life back then.
In any particular classroom, I always divided my attention between the class itself, another class’s homework, getting bored or simply daydreaming. There was and there still is hardly ever only one thing in my mind.
In gym class, it was pretty much the same. I remember being the goal keeper when playing soccer and my attitude towards the ball was “Get this thing away from me”. It worked, because I remember my hands always hurting like hell for daring to stop the ball from entering the net. It would probably have hurt much less if I knew anything about tai chi back then.
Looking at my final grades, math and gym are the two things that stand out, because they happen to be my top 2 grades. The best part is that I didn’t really make any effort. Those are genuinely two things that I am good at. I suppose that is what’s called a well-balanced body and mind.
As I am writing these lines, I realize that the fact that I practice tai chi today makes a lot of sense.
Today… Until this little trip to the past, I’ve never thought of stereotypes. I don’t believe anybody in my entourage thinks about it either. We’re all different, we’ve all matured, more or less, and we either accept each other or we don’t.
We can all bring something into each other’s lives.
