Back to Zero

Back to zero - Kuhn's paradigm effect - an alcoholic's legacy. Back to zero conjures a lot of possiblity, as well as a great deal of angst. Imagine the ability to start over again: promising if you have made mistakes, threatening if you have built something over time.
I learned about the concept of back to zero the hard way. Living in an alcoholic, dysfunctional household, this was our mantra. No matter what happened the night before, we could not discuss it the next day. It had to be ignored. The broken chair, the baked potato smeared all over the kitchen wall, my bleeding lip, anything created in the melee of the previous evening was untouchable, verboten. Don't mistake this for forgiveness, for that is a process - this was just a mechanism to push a broken family through the next day, day after day.
But something about that distorted reality has stuck with me. I find myself willing to let things go very rapidly. I won't forget them, but if the dynamic ceases, I will let go of the negative feelings they engendered. Some of you who know me might pause here and protest, but I would reassert that if a transgression is not repeated, I will get over it. If it occurs over and over again, I will not ignore it. The past isn't the past until it is over. There are times when a certain context reminds me of old injury, and I will discuss it, but without the pain and bitterness of the original event. This has served me well, as I have had my share of battles, and have reconciled many of them to mutual benefit. I truly do not want an ongoing war with anyone. I don't have the energy.
The second connotation of the phrase back to zero is also very pertinent to me. Thomas Kuhn said that when a paradigm shifts, everyone goes back to zero, i.e., expertise, knowledge, power all disappear and everyone is on equal footing. Pretty easy to see why many people do not like change. I attended more than fifteen schools before I graduated from high school - back to zero was my way of life. I learned early on that I could attempt to reinvent myself, after all, no one knew me at these new schools. However, not having made any substantive changes, my true self always emerged, even on short stops. I did learn instead how to establish myself in new settings, a skill that has served me well in my consulting career.
Finally, back to zero taught me to develop enduring, flexible skills, not just a static knowledge set. The world has changed so dramatically around me - the list of technology developed in the past thirty years alone is staggering. I couldn't imagine putting up walls around myself or my intellect and trying to keep the world at bay. Subsequently, I have loved each age I have lived, and there have been many, and there will be many more. The world will keep changing, and I will change with it - One positive legacy of the alcoholic anomie of my youth.