Whatever a Man or Woman Was Able to Accomplish Before, You Can Accomplish, Too
A play over milkshakes
Marco Giancotti,
Marco Giancotti,
Cover image:
Photo by Tomas Jasovsky, Unsplash
Act 1 - Hair
INT. CROWDED CAFE - MORNING
A crowded midtown cafe with large drawings of coffee plants and beans on the walls. All seats are filled, and a lively chatter pervades the place, punctuated by the shrill voice of a barista.
Two young men, well dressed, sit at a table with coffee mugs in their hands. One, with abundant ruffled hair, is wearing his winter coat while seated. The other has his coat folded on the back of his chair and his shirt's sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He has very short hair and a tidy, full beard.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Anyway, what was it you wanted to sell me?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
(perplexed)
Sell you?
TIDY BEARD MAN
You said you had something you wanted to illuminate me with. Usually, that means you want to sell me some weird philosophical idea that you've come up with in the shower, or something.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Oh, yeah. I'm not selling anything, though, ideas or else. I just thought you might like this maxim I came up with. I put a lot of thought into it.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Let's hear it.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
So, it's like this: whatever a man or woman was able to accomplish before, you can accomplish, too.
TIDY BEARD MAN
There you go. I knew it would be something out there like that.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
You know me.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Yes, I know how annoying you are.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
C'mon, don't you agree? Whatever a man or woman was able to accomplish before, you can accomplish too. It makes sense.
TIDY BEARD MAN
We'll see about that. You need to explain yourself first. It does not make any sense to me now.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Which part doesn't make sense?
TIDY BEARD MAN
Well, it sounds like you're saying that everyone has equal capacities and potential. I don't agree with that.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Potential, yes, but not capacities. I don't mean to say that everything is equally easy for everyone.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Go on.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
People have different strengths and weaknesses, physiological and psychological barriers, things that come easily and others that require great struggle. Put two random people to any given task, and one of them is going to do better than the other. Train them, coach them to mastery on the task, put them through the same hard exercise routine, and they'll both improve, but they'll improve at different rates.
You may even find that one of them plateaus at a mediocre performance level, while the other goes on improving steadily for a much longer time. She might reach levels of mastery that leave the other astonished and dejected. Everyone is different.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Now that's more reasonable. So what's the deal with your maxim? It seems to contradict what you've just said.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
There is no contradiction. See, I used the word "can" there, "you can accomplish". It simply means that the laws of physics do not prevent you from doing X. That isn't really saying very much, but I do think it is useful to keep in mind.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Well, you're not making a convincing argument yet. The fact that the laws of physics don't prevent me from flying towards Mars right now and reaching it in a couple of hours by moving near the speed of light doesn't give me much hope of achieving that.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
True, but no one has done that before, especially in the middle of a conversation in a cafe, so it's outside the scope of my maxim.
The maxim is about human potential: it takes you from the knowledge that someone actually accomplished something, and infers the fact that it must be physically possible for you to do the same.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Alright. The way you're putting it, it doesn't sound like it's saying much at all. What's the point, then?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
The point is that we all tend to forget it from time to time. People give up on things that they know others succeeded at before, and to give up they use excuses along the lines of "I was not cut for that" or "it turned out that it was impossible for me". My maxim is a reminder that we shouldn't use those absolute and fatalistic words.
TIDY BEARD MAN
What words should we use then?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
For example, we could talk about sacrifices.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Sacrifices.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Yes. We humans are sentient beings, so we work by making plans all the time. We simulate in our heads how the external world will play out and create a mental series of intermediate steps that are likely to lead to the achievement of our goals. Our plans are never exact, of course. We account for the many uncertainties in our mental simulations by making them branch out. We use conditionals: if this thing happens, then I'll use this "branch" of my plan, and if that other thing happens, I'll use that other "branch". All alternative branches are designed to lead back to the same goal.
(Sips at his coffee)
Now, when we make a plan like that—and we do this hundreds of times every day—we implicitly make value judgments on whether the plan is worth executing or not. If something seems physically impossible, for instance, we will give up before expending a single precious calorie of our energy.
For example, I could physically pass an architecture qualification exam next month, without knowing anything about architecture right now, but I give up on that thought immediately. I'm not going to do it. Why? Not because I wouldn't like having an architect's license, but because it would cost me too much in terms of effort, studying the subject like crazy from now until next month. I would have to come up with some really creative ways to learn those things quickly, pay people a lot of money to teach me every day, and probably lose a lot of sleep. But I have other things I want to do more, so I won't do any of that.
In other words, I renounce following a plan when I think its achievement would not be worth the cost of doing it for me. All of this is happening in my own head, in the mental simulation of how I think the process of getting to the goal would have to work.
TIDY BEARD MAN
So your point is that, if I ask you why you're not aiming for an architect's license next month, you should answer that you don't because it's your choice, not because it's impossible.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Right.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Okay, but it's not a very representative case, is it? When people say, "I wasn't cut out for that," they usually mean things that they actually tried doing and failed after some struggle. They don't say it for things that they're not even sure they want to attempt in the first place.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
You'd think so, but I've seen so many cases in which people give up without even trying properly. They decide that math, or dancing, or winning a competition is out of the question for them and justify those decisions with their own "nature" of being "bad" or having no "talent" at those things. Sure, they might say that they did in fact try hard at math or dancing in, say, high school, and were left thoroughly embarrassed by how bad they "turned out" to be.
In my experience, when people say that, they're usually talking about the lowest beginner levels of expertise. So what they're implying is that there is some hard physical limit that prevents them from doing the thing even mildly well. They're saying that trying any harder, in any way or context conceivable, is futile because it's just against their nature. That's saying a lot, because, by definition, there are a large number of people who are above the low beginner level. Otherwise, we wouldn't call it beginner level.
So, before saying "I just can't," you need to know for a fact that none of the many methods and conditions that people have surely used to achieve that initial breakthrough can possibly work for you. If you...
TIDY BEARD MAN
Okay, okay, sorry to interrupt you, but I get where you're going. This feels a bit like a strawman argument, to be honest. Sure, people who refuse to think hard about derivatives and integrals with a lazy "I'm bad at math" are probably just making an implicit value judgment that it's too unpleasant or tiring or something, and they don't see the point in trying harder or trying many other approaches, but they still say it's "impossible".
And I guess you also want to say that they frame it as impossible as a way to get off the hook, so to speak, to avoid feeling the social pressure of achieving something that they feel they're socially required to achieve, right?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
You're very astute! It's almost as if you read my mind.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Yeah, but it's strawmanny. Your initial statement is sweeping, saying that whatever someone has done you can do too. The striking part of it is that you imply that very difficult things, even historical feats, can be achieved by literally any random human being. But now you're criticizing those who give up on the simpler things. It's not apples to apples.
The man with the ruffled hair looks thoughtfully out of the large window to his left for a few seconds.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Yes, what you say makes sense, but to be fair I wasn't finished. Also, I don't criticize people who give up, even on the things we might generally consider to be easy. Saying that you can accomplish something does not automatically mean that you ought to attempt it. Actually, often you really ought not to do it: my sweeping maxim also applies to all the horrible things people have done. If Stalin has done it, so can you, but I'm not for a second suggesting you should! The only thing I'm wishing people would do more is to frame their choices not as impossibilities but as free choices.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Well, let's get to the main point, then. What do you say to those who spend years of full-time, highly informed efforts and trial and error, only to end up anything less than the best in history?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
(smiling sagaciously)
Okay then, let's go there now. It has to do with context. Context is a huge aspect of people achieving stuff, but for whatever reason, it's constantly forgotten. There is this deep-rooted belief that everything people can do comes from within them, so that our genes, phenotype, and, at best, their current situation. That is just false.
Let's take this from two angles, with two thought experiments. First, the teleporting-Einstein experiment.
TIDY BEARD MAN
(eye-rolling)
Oh boy.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
(unfazed)
If, in ca 1903, Albert Einstein had been instantly transported to the surface of Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons, by an evil time traveler, he would have frozen to death and/or suffocated to death within seconds, and he wouldn't have published his seminal paper on special relativity in 1905. He would have remained forever obscure.
I don't think anyone would argue with that. It's not saying much, but it highlights the importance of the place you're in at the most basic level.
TIDY BEARD MAN
I guess...
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
I know, it's extreme, but you can tune this to be less extreme. What if Einstein was transported to the bottom of the ocean?
TIDY BEARD MAN
No dice.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Right. Still no relativity, most likely.
But what about the top of Mt. Everest? Probably no luck there, either. The most likely outcome is that he would have died of cold very quickly. But in this case, it's not a 100% certainty anymore. There is a slight chance he could be rescued by a passing expedition. If that happened, he might have made it safely back home and finished his initial work on the theory of relativity.
But here we start to get a bit more nuance. His astonishing teleportation to the Himalayas and his miraculous survival might have stirred quite a news sensation around the world. This yet-unknown, modest clerk working in a patent office in Bern might have become famous overnight, interviewed by droves of reporters, studied by renowned physicians. His characteristic wit and brilliance might have impressed some important people, and he might have made new friends and connections. His life would be changed in one way or another. Would he still have found the time, interest, and opportunity to work on his new theory? Maybe, maybe not.
What if Albert had been transported somewhere else at a much younger age? What if he had gone to different schools, or been raised by different parents, foster parents? Would his theory have come to life? It's conceivable that it wouldn't, and even that he might not have produced any other major theory in his lifetime, had the context been different in certain ways. He might have pursued a career in music, another passion of his, and become a brilliant musician. I don't think that many people would argue that he was destined, no matter what, to gift general relativity and the first seeds of quantum mechanics to the world, because of some kind of "physics-breakthrough genes".
TIDY BEARD MAN
Of course, I'm not going to argue that the places and experiences that Einstein lived through had no impact on his achievements. So what? Do you mean to say that I would have achieved the same if only I had lived the same life he did?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
No, no, that's not what I mean at all. As I said, no two people are the same. It's the unique combination of the person and the environment that leads to whatever happens. Genes, gene expression, and memories on one side, and places, people, information sources, and tools on the other side, all form ephemeral systems that produce unique outcomes. Of course, the timing of things, the circumstances in which all those things align and interact at any moment are critical, too.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Then I still fail to see your point.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Here is the point: in the alternative scenarios, the musician Albert Einstein wouldn't have been called the "genius of the century" and those other hyperbolic appellations given to him in reality. Would he, then, still count as a "genius"? No doubt everyone around him would praise how intelligent he was, but whether he achieved world-changing feats was not written in his genes. It was in his actions, and his actions were always a function also of his circumstances and history, like everyone else. Being intelligent, or generally talented, is not a goal but a means, and possessing it only matters in retrospect, if you manage to achieve something with it.
This is the relativity of talent, you could say.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Let me see if I'm following your reasoning. When you look at the distribution of great achievements in some area, you usually see a strong skew in favor of one subset of people or another. For example, scientific achievements were dominated by western white males over the past couple of centuries. This is not because western white males are somehow innately better at science, but because some historical conditions were in place, often unjustly, that allowed them to apply their skills at higher levels than other groups.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Of course. So, for example, among the billions of very poor people in Africa and elsewhere there must be, conservatively, millions of individuals alive at any given time who are just as "talented" as those luckier high-achievers, or more. But they never get to use that talent—not on great feats, at least. Similarly, among the 4 billion women on Earth, hundreds of millions of them are super intelligent, statistically speaking. Yet, sadly, there are not many women, and even fewer ultra-poor that achieve famously difficult goals, at least historically.
The two young men remain silent for a while.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
By the way, I used examples involving intelligence, but difficult deeds can also be physical, and all the same logic applies. Each sport seems to have a different skew, with different countries and cultures dominating to some extent over most others.
It's not that, for example, Italians have "soccer" genes and lack "baseball" genes, and so that's what they get respectively good and bad at. It's that the historical circumstances have led to soccer being popular and easier to learn than baseball in that specific country. Almost everywhere across the Italian landscape you'll find soccer courts, for instance, but baseball courts are nonexistent. I checked. The opportunities to get good at each of them are uneven from the start.
So we almost certainly have children with Einstein-level brains being born in African slums and never even learning how to read; children with Olympic-gold-worthy bodies who never have the opportunity to step on a court. How do you recognize those kids? I think they would look like normal kids, each with their unique tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses, just never getting to the point of being significantly noticed by the broader society. Because they are normal kids.
TIDY BEARD MAN
I agree with all that but... it's not exactly new information.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Fair enough. These may be old arguments, but we don't seem to have internalized them as a society, yet. I'm not done, bear with me.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Okay...
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Okay. How does one know, then, when they fail at achieving something, if the cause of failure is a physical or biological impossibility or just the wrong combination of person and environment? Does it even make sense to talk about having a "gift" or a "talent" without mentioning the surrounding conditions?
A natural gift isn't a gift if it never helps you. Imagine having an incredible gift for understanding and manipulating highly abstract mathematics. Except you're born in an uncontacted Amazonian tribe. Will anyone ever notice? Chances are, you'll live and die without anyone even dreaming that you have a gift.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Hmm, I don't think there are such selective talents, that make you only good at one thing and nothing else.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Even assuming that your mental prowess spills over to other areas, like better hunting strategies, it will at best make you and your tribe marginally better-fed and thriving. It might be noticed over the years, but it can't make a huge, lasting difference in that cultural and natural setting. The upside is tiny.
Another way to put it is that the definition of what counts as a "great deed" is largely a cultural artifact. Five hundred years ago, being exceptionally good at slaying adversaries in sword-fight might have been enough to earn you the "genius" label. Today, if you cut someone up as competently as Miyamoto Musashi, you're only going to jail.
All that to say that, for all we know, every human being is a potential "genius" at something, but most find themselves in circumstances that are incompatible with their specific talents, and are unable to unlock their most efficient mental and muscular functions because of a lack of external affordances.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Finally we get to a kicker. Everyone is a latent genius. Do you really believe that?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
If you ask it like that: no. I mean, I stand by what I said, but I think the wording is upside down. As I said, the word "genius" is the problem because it makes it sound like someone has a special innate aura of predestination inside them. That's wrong. It's a matter of compatibility of any given skill set with any given set of circumstances. Instead of talking about "latent geniuses," we should be talking about optimal conditions for a given person and goal.
Here's the second thought experiment I promised you. Imagine a great "genius" again. Let's take Alan Turing this time. Turing, among other things, discovered the concept of computation and artificial intelligence, and is considered to be the father of computer science. Imagine that, instead of publishing his seminal papers, he turned his results into a teaching curriculum for an elementary-school child. Maybe it's because he's shy and doesn't like the attention, whatever. He doesn't tell any adult about his ideas, but picks a child who is struggling with elementary-school math and gives his best to teach her everything he knows.
The man with a tidy beard laughs out loud, but lets the other continue.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Every day, Turing teaches the child—let's call her Hannah—he teaches her all the theoretical basics needed to eventually get to his results. He goes slowly, using trial and error to find the most effective ways to make his abstract ideas comprehensible by Hannah. He studies from other good teachers the methods to make the learning process more engaging and fun. Whenever a teaching method or environment falls short, he switches to a different one. He devotes all of his time and infinite patience to this teaching job, spending years just focusing on Hannah's learning. For her part, Hannah (with the blessing of her open-minded parents) places Alan's lessons at the top of her list of things to do, replacing all other school subjects. It's an obsession for both.
Now, tell me. Can you imagine that Hannah would actually understand, with time, what Alan is teaching her, and that she would eventually get to be only the second person in the world to fully grasp those concepts, and at an incredibly young age?
TIDY BEARD MAN
(draining the last drop of coffee from his cup)
It's probable that she would succeed, with enough expense of effort on both sides, yes. But it might take much longer than with another more gifted child.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Right. The speed of learning will also depend on the child's brain, but that's beside the point. Children have a knack for learning, and the main obstacle they face is how much effort they can expend on a single topic.
Anyway, let's just say that Hannah, representative of the average child, would be able to grasp computer science with a few years of Turing's tutoring.
If she then went on and wrote a paper on computer science, she would be the first to do so, because in our thought experiment Turing has refrained from telling anyone else about his discoveries. Her paper would become a seminal work, and it would be her words that spark the whole new realms of mathematics, engineering, and philosophy, tidal waves rippling into the distant future. Although Turing would deserve all the credit for actually figuring out the math, Hannah, with her new understanding and her courage to publish, would still be achieving a "great deed", a grand performance that would astonish everyone and leave a mark in history. You can even imagine that, perhaps, Hannah would be able to come up with some additions here and there to Turing's theory, thanks to her inevitably different perspective and thinking patterns.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
TIDY BEARD MAN
Sure. You want to show that, even without uniquely developed innate capacities, anyone can do great things if the circumstances are tuned just so.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
(nodding)
You truly are acute. I should make you my apprentice. But I see from your face that you're not pleased yet.
TIDY BEARD MAN
The thing is, most people can't devote years of intense learning (tutored by a great scientist or not) that is tailored exactly the way they need to achieve a given high goal. There are limits in the available circumstances as well.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Here you're using the wrong words! Yes, Turing's pupil was an extreme example, on purpose. I'm willing to bet that, given enough money, anyone could hire a great scientist to tutor them like crazy. And, given enough effort—possibly doing very illegal and immoral things—anyone can get enough money for that. Here we finally return to the thread about mental simulations and value judgments.
People never discover that a certain task, although possible for someone else, is impossible for them. What one might discover is that it would take many more environmental changes and painful exertions, and even more risks compared to that other person who did it before them. And, instinctively, we may not be willing to do all those things to achieve that goal. The effort cost comes with the package, and we might reject the package.
Some achievements can take a lot of time, and you may have to give up on a lot of other things that you would like. Life isn't long enough to achieve all the things you can dream of. You have to pick and choose carefully, and often one big goal isn't worth the sacrifice of ten smaller ones. And so we give up.
...have I lost you?
TIDY BEARD MAN
(looking at his watch)
No, I get it. You may have a point, but I'm struggling to see what the final message of your maxim is, in practice. Has this whole conversation been only a philosophical exploration of the meaning of the word "possible"?
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
Okay, let's be practical. To repeat, the maxim is: whatever a man or woman was able to accomplish before, you can accomplish too.
Internalizing this idea allows you to shift your focus to what's really important. Instead of creating bucket lists of all the things you wish will happen to you, you can weigh what kind of circumstances and environmental changes you could create yourself that are likely to make those goals actually feasible.
Sometimes you'll find that the necessary changes would take a huge effort, and the sacrifice of several other goals you have set for yourself. After seeing all that, you'll be able to better judge if you really want to work towards goal X or, after all, it's not as inviting a prospect as you had initially thought.
We do this kind of judgment anyway, deep in our guts. But the effort of doing it consciously, and of being very frank to ourselves, liberates us from the torment and regrets that having too many fuzzy wishes inevitably leads us to. It liberates us from feeling inherently inadequate. If you're not explicit about these things, they will seem to shut themselves out of your reach all of a sudden, while you're struggling to achieve them, and you will probably want to blame the environment as a way to not blame yourself for the failure. I don't want people to do that. If the necessary effort is too much in your assessment, that doesn't make you a failure!
The man with the tidy beard picks up his coat and puts it on.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
(checking his watch in turn)
Oh, it's time to go.
TIDY BEARD MAN
Yep. We don't want to keep Elisa waiting.
The two stand up and return the mug cups, then walk towards the door.
RUFFLED HAIR MAN
(keeping the cafe's exit door open for the other man)
So, saying "I would need to work harder than I'd like for it, so I choose not to," is how you turn down a possibility with undamaged self-esteem.
TIDY BEARD MAN
(passing through the door)
You really should stop using me as a guinea pig for your theories, Alf.
They both stroll away on the sunlit sidewalk.
Act 2 - Milkshakes
INT. CROWDED CAFE - MORNING
The same crowded midtown cafe, seconds after the two young men left. At the table next to the one just vacated by the two men sit a young girl of ten or eleven, and a white-haired man in his seventies. The girl has braids in her hair and is keeping a book open in front of her, with a large cocoa milkshake at her side. The elderly man is drinking an identical milkshake and appears to be just sitting contentedly there, doing nothing in particular. They have both been quiet for a long time.
When the two young men disappear out of the door, the elderly man looks at the girl with a grin on his face. The girl looks up at him.
GIRL
What?
ELDERLY MAN
You haven't turned a page in twenty minutes.
GIRL
(with a crossed expression)
That's not true.
ELDERLY MAN
(still smiling)
You were listening to those two folks at the next table, weren't you?
The girl hesitates for a moment, then smiles and closes her book and puts it in front of her on the table. It is titled "What I Believe".
GIRL
I tried to read, but they were so distracting!
ELDERLY MAN
That's alright. They were saying some interesting things, weren't they?
GIRL
Not interesting. Annoying.
ELDERLY MAN
(raising his eyebrows)
How so?
GIRL
I mean, that guy with the coat was so full of himself, but he was wrong.
ELDERLY MAN
Hmm-mm.
GIRL
I mean, he was obviously wrong, wasn't he?
ELDERLY MAN
Are you saying that everything he said was wrong, Bettie?
GIRL
(screwing up her face)
Well, of course not everything, but the maxim he was saying over and over. That's obviously wrong.
(pauses briefly)
In my opinion.
The elderly man straightens up in his chair and leans forward, putting his elbows on the table and his chin on his knuckles.
ELDERLY MAN
Very well, then. The boy's maxim was, I believe, "anything that has been done before can be done again by you." Why do you think it's wrong?
GIRL
(with a gentle but resigned expression)
No, it was "whatever a man or woman was able to accomplish before, you can accomplish too." But you got close enough, Grampa.
First of all, what about trying something for the first time? Should I give up, because there is no proof that it is physically possible?
ELDERLY MAN
I see. I'm not that boy, but maybe he would answer your question by saying that his maxim simply doesn't apply to those cases. Advice on how to lose weight is still useful even if skinny people exist. As long as it is useful to someone, it might be worth listening to.
The elderly man winks knowingly at the girl.
GIRL
(shaking her head)
I'm not falling for your tricks, Grampa! That's not what I'm talking about.
Where do you draw the line between "has been done before" and not? "Becoming the president of Finland" has been done before, but what about "becoming the president of Finland as an underfed Cambodian orphan child"?
The elderly man nods with understanding.
Does the maxim apply to that child who dreams to be the next Finnish head of state, or not? Is being underfed and not born in Finland just an obstacle to work around? Or can we get him off the hook because it's probably "physically impossible" in his particular case?
ELDERLY MAN
You're asking some very good questions, Bettie.
GIRL
It's not just that. Even if you take someone who seems to fall squarely in the "done before" category, the maxim doesn't work. That guy with the funny hair said it himself, different people have different obstacles, and some have more than others. So let's take a Finn as an example, an average Finn born in Finland instead of a Cambodian child. Can they become the president of their own country? What if they're very poor, and also have learning deficiencies, and also they're older than you, Grampa, and they have only worked as a toilet cleaner for the past fifty years?
ELDERLY MAN
(with an outraged look)
Older than me? Impossible.
GIRL
(giggling)
Come on, Grampa. I'm being serious. How many obstacles are too many? When does possibility become impossibility, exactly?
The girl taps the palm of her hand on the book as she says those last words.
ELDERLY MAN
I suspect we have no good way to tell, darling. I think there might be people who have just an obstacle too many.
GIRL
And the line between possible and impossible is different for everyone and can't be measured. That maxim is useless.
ELDERLY MAN
It seems like the boy got himself into a problem there.
GIRL
He should retract it!
ELDERLY MAN
Why didn't you tell him so?
GIRL
(looking down, drinking her milkshake through a straw)
I don't know.
ELDERLY MAN
That's it then, you've solved it, Bettie. We should scrap that notion. We are doomed to accept that some things are impossible for some people, and we're allowed to blame factors outside of our control when we fail at something. Maybe it's for the better, after all.
There is a long pause. The girl carefully studies the face of her grandfather as she takes more sips from her milkshake's straw. Then the girl says something in a feeble voice, but it gets drowned out by the barista yelling that the take-away coffee of someone called Sunny is ready.
ELDERLY MAN
What's that again? Your Grampa has bad ears, you know.
GIRL
I said that it's not all wrong, what he was saying.
ELDERLY MAN
Oh?
GIRL
I mean, he's terribly wrong with his big and mighty maxim. But it's true that people sometimes say that a thing is impossible when it's not so impossible. Mom always says she is sick and tired of the squeaky door in the kitchen, but when I ask her, "Why don't you fix it?" she says that she can't because it requires some special tools. It's so annoying, both her and the door.
Also, she always says, "I can't possibly buy you another book until next month!" but I know she has enough money in her wallet.
ELDERLY MAN
How can you possibly know that?
GIRL
I checked when she was sleeping.
ELDERLY MAN
Maybe she owed the money that was in her wallet to someone else, and couldn't spend it as she wished.
GIRL
No, no, I... took the money once, to buy a book, and nothing bad happened. She never even noticed it!
ELDERLY MAN
(laughing)
You little...! Don't do that again, Bettie.
GIRL
It's okay. It was just an experiment.
Anyway, maybe it's true that people say "I can't" because it relieves them of the responsibility to follow through.
ELDERLY MAN
Hmm-mm. Let's see. For example, I remember being very impressed when I saw the live broadcast of the first men who walked on the Moon. I thought, "Oh boy, that's something I will never be able to do!" Was I wrong?
GIRL
Yes! I mean, no, because you didn't do it in the end, right? But you were selling yourself short. It's not like those people who made the trip to the Moon possible had Moon-genes. Also, it's not like they were just very lucky. Maybe a little, with their education and so on. But it was very daunting even for them, I think, before they actually did it.
(her face lighting up and her speech getting faster)
Also, if people were able to form peaceful democracies, or to draw their deepest emotions with paint, or to discover the structure of matter, it was because each person involved found paths in and around their environmental and innate obstacles, not because those things were no-brainers to them. They were very big yes-brainers for them, too, I think.
ELDERLY MAN
Ah ah ah, Bettie, you really are something!
GIRL
(confidently)
So I think that guy was right when he said that people shouldn't feel pressured to do things even if they are possible for them. There are just too many possible things. If someone is not willing to do the work to achieve something, that doesn't make them any less worthy as a person.
ELDERLY MAN
Hmm-mm. We're intelligent and adaptable creatures for a reason. Going back to the drawing board is one of our privileges, not a sin.
The girl nods emphatically.
Then you can't blame your mother for not oiling the kitchen's door, either.
The girl stops nodding.
GIRL
Wait... Yes I can. It's like that guy was saying. People don't admit that they can do something but they just don't want to do it, and instead complain about things.
ELDERLY MAN
Do you think your mother is being insincere?
GIRL
No... I think she really believes it when she says she can't.
That's the point of that guy, I think. If we get into the mindset of "impossible things," then we create walls in front of us that don't really exist. It's an opportunity cost.
ELDERLY MAN
An opportunity cost. That's an interesting way to put it! So what will you do, when you get back home this afternoon?
GIRL
Hmmm. I'll tell Mom, "Don't be at war with the world. Make bargains with it. And stop complaining."
ELDERLY MAN
I don't think that's the right thing to do, if you ask me.
GIRL
Why?
ELDERLY MAN
Well, for starters, I've heard you complain about your mother only a minute ago.
The girl pauses to think, then gives a gentle slap on her grandfather's forearm.
GIRL
Grampa. Stop turning things against me!
ELDERLY MAN
(leaning forward)
Didn't you?
GIRL
Alright, I complained. I guess... I guess we complain when we hope that someone else will do something in our place. And...
ELDERLY MAN
I'm all ears.
GIRL
And it's not fair. I could do something about the kitchen door myself. I could help Mom with it. But instead, I just complain about her complaining. I'm just like her.
ELDERLY MAN
And she is a wonderful woman. But you know what I think? I think that complaining is usually unfair, like you said, but sometimes it can be a good idea. That's why babies cry, after all. And I can tell you, when you were a baby, no one blamed you for crying.
GIRL
Ah. You're right. But I'm still being unfair now to Mom, because I didn't complain out of necessity, only out of laziness.
ELDERLY MAN
How about we go and buy another book, Bettie?
The girl finishes her milkshake in one big slurp and stands up.
GIRL
No complaining about the bookstore's stairs! ●
Cover image:
Photo by Tomas Jasovsky, Unsplash