There is a certain conceit common to intelligent people who were ostracized in high school. Now we are proud that the popular cliques never accepted us. You can't categorize us. We don't fit. We wave our status as "outsiders" like some subversive political banner, in hindsight. Now that we are secure enough to know that these social distinctions are petty and absurd. Or now that we are circumspect enough to conceal our insecurities more completely...we pretend we never cared a jot.

But I remember a time when I would have grovelled for acceptance.


Pleaded. Begged. Or smashed some poor kids' faces into the dirt trying to crawl up that shaky ladder.

I would have slid to the floor and licked the sneakers of those polished cheerleaders if it could have made me one of them. If it could have made me beautiful in their eyes.

I would never have succeeded. But God knows I made my small attempts.

I am not all that different than the people I despised. I was never any better than they were.

I can admit it though. This is important. Pull that part of you down that sits on the pedestal and you paradoxically become more heroic. Of course, this is its own conceit...