by Yehuda Harmor

Created on: November 06, 2008

High and mighty.

Once upon a time there was Sam. Sam grew up with his brothers and sisters in their corner of the world and his early childhood years were happy if unremarkable. He enjoyed playing with his friends and impressed his peers and even adults with his smart brain and sharp wit. People said he was gifted or something - he wondered what the something meant.

As he got older, Sam figured out a lot of stuff. He seemed to have the ability to connect all these things in interesting and novel ways that others hadn't thought of or at least didn't want to say. People said he was a genius. They said he should become a regular icosahedron.

Not many dust specs can be polyhedra, let alone a platonic solid with twenty sides and although Sam didn't know what people meant, he was very proud. His parents had great hopes for his future.

As time went on specks would come to Sam and ask him things about the universe just so they could be amazed by his answers. They said, ask Sam, he knows everything. Sam enjoyed all the kudos he was getting - he was becoming popular. He got so good that at parties that he could join in conversations about something he knew nothing about and sound like he was an expert.

It was about this time that the niggling voice in his head became more troubling. the nagging feeling that he might be more "something" than "gifted" after all. He started wondering if he might actually be a fraud and had that feeling that he was about to be caught out.

As far as others were concerned though, Sam was still a remarkable speck. Time passed without any humiliating exposure and Sam felt like maybe he did have the 'potential'. He had achieved hexagonality which is rare enough and maybe it was just a lack of ambition that kept him from attaining that third dimension. Despite doubts, Sam had daydreams where he became an octahedron even without ambition and the 'ambition explanation' started to grow on him.

Sam was now at an age where it was expected that some of one's potential would be realised. Sam wasn't quite there and besides, he felt that some of his 'party tricks' were getting a bit stale. He started using the ambition thing as an excuse. It worked on most specks and it became part of his repertoire.

There were many young specks on the scene. Some of them were said to have 'potential'. Some were already square and Sam's fears of exposure resurfaced. it's not that he was definitely not talented but he just wasn't sure. He was too used to the praise and wasn't sure

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