Potential

I had a dream I wrote a great song. A truly great song, the kind that went viral and had people sharing and covering it as people lauded and applauded. I remember hearing a friend sing my own song to me, eager to hear my opinions of his cover and I listened to him all the while deep in thought. "I don't even remember writing this… I may have even done it accidentally. It's really good… the lyrics are so insightful and inspiring. They're evocative but relatable. This is way too good for me to have written."

When I awoke, I still remembered part of the lyrics of the song. They were stupid and meaningless, something about people who brush their teeth too much trying to manipulate relationships, but I still remember that feeling I had at having written something good. Too good. I remember thinking that perhaps that's what real artistry is, when crossed with genius. Perhaps it's creating something that intimidates you, makes you feel inferior to it. Something that perhaps always was, but just needed your body to bring it to being. Once it is completed, it goes on and up beyond anything its creator could have dreamt or ever know.

Is there anything scarier than potential? Every one-hit-wonder and wunderkind has felt this, I'm sure. The prodigies are to be most pitied among men. They are always in competition with both their past accomplishments and their unknowable potential. Pulled in each direction to live up to their reputation and also exceed it. Who can bear such an existence? I always resented being blissfully average, wanting to dance among the stars and do something that would be always remembered but now I see the glory in the commonplace.

It's like my sister says, we were nearly all good at something "for our age" and there's that moment when our ages catch up to what is most likely mediocre talent and we find ourselves among the mere mortals once again.