Wilbur: I didn’t know you could lay eggs.
Charlotte: Oh yes. I’m versatile.
Wilbur: Does versatile mean “full of eggs”?
Charlotte: [chuckling] Certainly not.
Versatile means I can turn with ease from one thing to another.
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
On any given day, practically every day, I’ll find myself subject to a plethora of environments. Each spot has the potential to be very different. And usually, the differences are quite distinct. Painfully so, it seems. No matter what I outfit I sport, I tend to carry a blazer. A emblem of professionalism, the blazer manages to leave me looking “put together”. Obviously, it’s not always appropriate and not always safe simply because it elevates. So, I combat its pretentiousness with a t-shirt or leggings, or both.
But is this versatility?
I first read Charlotte’s Web in the second grade. Miss Tsang took the time to emphasize White’s utilization of vocabulary to characterize Charlotte. Often, readers get caught up with Wilbur and overlook Charlotte. Pity cuz he baaaaaaaad. On the other hand, Charlotte exercises patience, educates, and beautifully maintains her strength as an individual. She is tiny and mighty. Yes, she saves Wilbur but all her efforts towards her cause exhaust her. Like any mortal, Charlotte falls to her fate: she dies. I remember getting to that chapter, curling into a ball, and crying.
The truth of versatility is that it requires not only an ability but an energy. The production of adaptation is one of the aesthetic: the appearance of flexibility. Versatility’s most marketable trait is its ease. This ease behaves as a prerequisite to an appearance, and thus, exemplifies into what I would deem as Charlotte’s grace. But thisease, this malleability, behaves as an oil might as an agent tries to adapt between structures and models. Think about a skeleton and a nervous system. Muscle binds them together but in order for the body to have optimal functionality as a unit, the body must exercise. That is to say, adaptation is possible but not effortless.
Functionality is not all that glamorous, so why is Charlotte’s versatility so much more?
TBH I think it’s cuz she has a cause. Suddenly, this attachment to purpose makes her agility an effort of nobility. It is that she is more than herself. It is that she gives herself.
This is the part where I mention that she doesn’t lose herself. And this is the part where I start talking about Imposter Syndrome(DUN DUN DUNNNNN).
How’s that for a transition?
If you’re unsure of what Imposter Syndrome is, it is exactly what is sounds like. I think of the Prince and the Pauper. Returning to the aesthetic, Imposter Syndrome results from the disconnect of the appearance of identity and the experience of identity, such that the imagination can conjure up a picture of the self and it be an ignorant depiction of reality.
Basically, it’s not true.
As pictures go, context matters. It is much easier, much simpler, to identify when one is contextually familiar, or grounded. So, when there are various scenarios, more energy and effort must be expended, thus resulting in (oh, I don’t know) tiredness. When unaddressed, this repercussion can escalate to fatigue. For the self to be fully present in the experience, full adaptation( including education) is required. And yo, it is A LOT.
A common skill( hahahhahahaha does it even count as a skill) that adapters have is CODE SWITCHING. And please, I am not going into this to be trendy cuz I ain’t about this life. Growing up, I learned multiple languages so, the application of living, translating, and expending thought in more than one language is a more literal form of codeswitching. But today, I am referring to social codeswitching. Growing up, I was also exposed to and integrated( sometimes, forcibly) into different cultures. This is not limited to cultures of ethnic groups but also extends religious culture(oyyy vey). Now, between the bajillion cultures I’ve navigated through, it’s an abolute miracle I haven’t drowned…
Especially when these communities seem to be monotonous and traditional.
But yo, I’ve been code-switching up the yin-yang since birth. And I’m tired. But, recognizing my cause, my purpose & calling, I realize and re-energize by knowing that it isn’t for me per se. It seems so far away but I am grounded in my identity through my faith and respect the impact that I hope I help make on the future.
Charlotte doesn’t fall to her fate; she rises to it.
/// Happy Birthday Buni. I miss you.
PS I’m not pre-med
collectif de cole 