When I was young, I loved being “the smartest kid in the class.” Not because I was noble— but because it was the simplest way to earn love.
Praise was the currency, and I learned to print it.
But growing up taught me something brutal: being the crane among chickens is exhausting. Not because the crane is special, but because everyone wants the crane to just “be normal.”
Chickens look at the ground. Cranes look at the sky. No one is wrong— but no one is seeing the same thing.
People love to talk about building “collective consciousness,” but forget one thing: seeds don’t fail— soil fails.
A brilliant seed in rotten soil doesn’t bloom. It rots. Or gets eaten alive.
So I stopped trying to shine in places that were never meant to hold my light.
It’s not rebellion. The ceiling was simply too low.
Crane stays a crane. But it chooses where to land.