After Corbu

Birthdays = existential angst, and so I spent a not inconsiderable portion of the weekend unsure what I want or what I’m doing.  Watching Rocket Science didn’t really help (unsatisfying ending!) and mostly made me feel nostalgic.  I never thought I’d be able to miss high school — and I don’t — but I do miss this idealized version of it I wish I had experienced.  Partially captured — and here I’m referring to the grade schemes thwarted and star-crossed crushes, not the awkward teenage sexuality — that version is pleasing but painful.  I’m unsure how I feel about it.

More on point, the movie reminded me of my year debating with a (highly functioning) autistic partner who stuttered almost as bad as the main character.  We dropped so many arguments.  I picked them back up in so many abusive rebuttals.  And I didn’t really care.  When the other team cried foul, I would stare at them contemptuously — how dare they try to take advantage of my partner?!  Knowing we were going to lose every round on the merits, we let the inner sophist fly: constant advocacy shifts, performative kritiks, deontological ’solvency’, obscure topicality theory…it was great fun.  We still mostly lost, but you really can’t put a price on earning a speaker award while going 1-5.

It saddens me no end that I’ve past the time when being a debater made me a productive, involved person.  On the plus side, I do get to argue with architects everyday about the laws of physics.  Maybe if my boss gave me a trophy…