David wakes up, gets ready to go for a run and it hits him. The dream that was always at the centre of his mind, the dream he was chasing all of his life while just staring at it. His fear of being stupid is holding him. He’s got insomnia because instead of sleeping, he searches the different paths he could walk through just so he could reach his dreams, but that has been going on for years and years. And David is still an insomniac.
Marian wakes up, gets ready to go for a run and it hits her. She is late, she’s got the interview of her dreams, and she hasn’t slept all night. She was awake preparing the script, she was sure she could earn it. She made it to the office on time, she sat there in the waiting room rethinking all her life choices, is this what she really wants? Is she good enough for this job? Was that dream ever hers?
Do you think you’re stupid?
Too many questions right before the moment she was waiting for, for years. Marian goes inside and looks at the directors in their eyes almost as if she is scared they might notice, noticing her fear and how insecure she is. And their first question was, Marian, do you think you’re stupid?
David and Marian are more relatable than we think they are, they are a representation of two human being with different paths and dream longing for one single word, stability. They doubt themselves every day thinking they’re too stupid for their dreams, thinking they don’t deserve to dream but do they?
Smart People Are Stupid?
Usually, really smart people think they’re stupid just because they didn’t ace an exam, how smart or how dumb you are is not defined by a piece of paper. If today I want to drink water, I could buy a bottle, I could ask for a cup of water and I could go refill mine instead. Lots of ways for just one simple task.
Stupid with Effort!
That’s exactly how dreams are, I can reach where I want to be, with multiple and different paths and I could still be smart. School exams, college exams or even job interviews, don’t depend on your brain as a human, they depend on how far you’re willing to put effort. You could be the dumbest and still succeed and you could be the smartest but still fail.
How do I reach there?
David has a dream and he wastes all of his time trying to find a way to reach that dream, but never actually starts with it. Marian has a dream, she reached almost half the path, but held herself back because she thinks she is not good enough for this dream. When the question was asked, she stood there in shock, because she asks herself that question almost every day. She sat there and told them.
“I do think I am smart until I reach a point where I have to show that off, when I start speaking my brain suddenly gives me visions of every time I ruined things, spoiled interviews or failed exams, it reminds me that being here is just luck and I am just as stupid as I always were.”
The director then told her, ” Marian, your fear of being stupid isn’t who you really are, you’re too scared to fail to the point where you walk the failure path by yourself each time you let it control you, if you take a deep breathe and start being proud of your achievements today, you’ll ace this interview.” And she did ace the interview.
While David is still there hanging to his demons reminding himself every day that he might fail, how could he fail when he hasn’t even started? You could be David or Marian. You could choose to try and fail, or never try at all hoping you’ll never fail. But really who are you? David or Marian?