The realization of positive possibility

I came across this girl named Claire Wang (link1; link2) who has accomplished so much. She’s 16, she got a 1600 at 13, she’s an intern at UCLA, a researcher at MIT, she took AP Calc BC in middle school, she took MV Calc in freshman year, she went to Ad Astra for middle school, she is going to Phillips Academy for high school, she has been a CEO since 13, she won the MSO speed reading competition, she got 3rd place at the US Memory Championship, she reads two books a week, she wrote a paper for DeepAI on elliptic curves… like, damn. And I’m not even exaggerating any of this!

(EDIT EDIT EDIT: two days later, i think this is a stupid article omg lol but im not gonna delete it)

Claire Wang has realized an ideal, namely that of drive and agency. She lives out this ideal. She is the epitome for this ideal.

And she is within proximity to me. Perhaps not in physical location, but we are the same age, we are both juniors, and we live at the same time. This similarity between us makes it more relatable and thus more tangible and real.

What has come into my view is a reification of an ideal. What was once, in effect, over-optimistic utopian fantastical hearsay has now become a tangible plausible way of life that is within grasp. This is the realization of possibility.

This has one of two effects.

The first is, this can make you feel terrible about yourself: ‘wow corbin thanks for comparing me to someone and making me feel more lazy and more stupid… i already knew i was lazy and stupid, thanks…’

The realization of positive possibility can make your negative traits stand out to you. The contrast can make you feel flawed and broken and wrong, perhaps just reinforcing the negative self-image that was already there. And I suppose this negative effect comes from the realization presenting you with power or potential that you are denying. You feel like you could be more than you are, yet you sit in a state of dysfunction and depression just looking upwards. (And I don’t mean to directly place any value judgement on that, at least, for now, except perhaps as an implied side effect — right now this is simply an outline, an enumeration of what happens.)

But on the contrary, I find it inspiring and empowering. (gosh buzzwords. it’s true though!)

This reification of positive possibility gives me a sense of control that I do accept. It reminds me of the power and potential that I do, in fact, possess, myself. It pulls me from the unhealthy depths I have dug myself into, and reminds me that I can live a good life, too.

Because we often forget about what we can do. We get into a “programmed,” so to speak, way of life. (gosh all these buzzword connotations ew. stick with me.) Our identities and thought processes get built around a previous way of life. That’s just how any kind of development necessarily works: you build on the past. And thus it becomes hard to integrate any new way of acting. Despite any negative side to our mode of activity, it continues indefinitely. We stick to it because of passive habit, but we even actively perpetuate it because it becomes us, in a way. That is, it becomes our identity. This develops through different means, but the result is, we feel we ought to act a certain way, because it is only us to do so. That is, it just feels like an inherent defining feature of us. It feels like something that we could not part with even if we tried, because it *is* us — and how can anything part with itself? (btw i swear i feel like im using em dashes incorrectly but bear with me.)

But this perceptual experience of Claire Wang has somehow broken this cycle (wow “broken this cycle” another buzzword) and deeply introduces a new perspective. Through what means it gets this done effectively, I don’t know yet. And my intended purpose of this text is not to rigorously elucidate the complete causal process, so I think I’m alright to admit this lack of knowledge for now. What is important, and what I want to share, is, somehow, this realization of positive possibility has somehow deeply affected me to influence my mode of activity. It has allowed me to have a say in how I live. It has risen my control from its dormancy.

I’ve realized that it’s not okay to waste my time procrastinating. It’s not okay to stay addicted to compulsively checking Instagram for quasi-social interaction. It’s not okay to lay in bed thinking about my own wretchedness, dissolving into despair and self-pity without doing anything about it. It’s not okay to stay at an unexamined unorganized unconscientious state in life.

I’m not promoting a disapproval of one’s self in the usual unnecessarily unhealthy sense, but, in a way, a disapproval of one’s self must necessarily exist to incite any positive change. This is more so a practical disapproval of one’s actions and current identity rather than disapproval of one as a being de facto and without any other context.

So I’ve gotten the urge to actually do things with my time. I’ve gotten the urge to actually be productive and make something of my time. More fundamentally, I have gotten the urge to align my actions with my deeper wants instead of submitting to a superficial mode of thinking.

I have somewhat of a direction and somewhat of a purpose with my time. Even if that purpose is imperfectly pieced together, it gives meaning to a life which would otherwise remain wretched and miserable.

She has just overall induced an urge to live well.

Another example is my pediatrician. I was in a semi-depressive state at the time, or, not exactly depression as a technical clinical term, but I was pretty stressed and sad and my default mental state was negative. I saw my pediatrician for a normal checkup, and like all pediatricians he asks me about school and how life has been. I tell him a little bit about me being stressed (just common stressors, nothing too deep) and I forgot how exactly he responded but I think it was more of his tone that had an effect. He seemed like a real-life manifestation of the generic smiling fulfilled happy guy you see in stock photos. I got the sense of, ‘oh I’m not supposed to really be negative. this is not healthy. this is not what i ought to feel like.’

Of course I already knew that intellectually — no one really consciously and actively desires to be stressed and sad. Yet it is within a lot of our self-identities to feel this way. We feel stressed and sad not only as a habitual or instinctual or natural reaction, but we also perpetuate and propagate this activity because it is part of our identity and our performative identity (perhaps two separate identities. idk. i’m just gonna separate them for now.) That is to say, we see ourselves as stressed. Further, that is to say, mostly unconsciously, we think it is only proper to be stressed; we think we ought to be sad.

But my pediatrician had given me a realization of positive possibility. He reified happiness for me, taking it from an abstract, out-of-reach ideal to something real within reach that I can and should pursue.

So back to this Claire Wang figure. She’s inspired me to make the most of my time — to wisely use it instead of stupidly putting it to waste. She has inspired me to live a good life.

Carpe diem. Ad astra. Momento mori.

These are three Latin aphorisms that I would like to live by. Three concepts that I think are so often hidden from us, either through ignorance or naivety.

Seize the day. To the stars. Remember you must die.

Claire Wang has inspired me — and, with this text, I hope to have inspired you. Maybe I can be the means through which you have your own positive realization of positive possibility. Perhaps this text isn’t equipped to profoundly directly change the course of your life towards complete fulfillment, but I hope to have touched you to influence one step in that direction.

:) corbin