Anything is possible?

The constraints of reality

You’ve come across those motivational posters before. The ones which say you just have to believe in yourself, and anything is possible.

In fact, I made one myself, in five minutes, with a stock image, on Word:

It’s the premise of the self-help book ‘The Secret’: if you just think of something you want enough, it will come true.

It has attraction because there’s a grain of truth contained within. I have had mild cerebral palsy since birth. Part of the reason I have achieved as much as I have is because my parents and my family never treated me as disabled. They almost always let me try.¹ No one told me that I couldn’t. I am really glad about this. I knew I found some things harder than other people, but I didn’t realise this was unusual. I’m good at some things, bad at others. Isn’t that true of everyone?

It’s also true that the mind is a remarkable thing. When I first underwent rehabilitation in 2019, the staff who treated me could not believe that I had not had much professional assistance before that point, simply because, when I grew up, it wasn’t really available. I showed staff the workarounds for various daily activities that I’d come up with. It had never occurred to me that other people did things differently. It was only when they tested me on various activities (eg, standing on one leg without any support) that I realised… okay, maybe I am limited in some ways. It became evident why I failed that karate yellow belt three times at university: if you can’t actually balance on one leg for an extended period of time, it’s hard to pass, but I did pretty well, considering.

On another level, though, I have always been aware that I am constrained by reality. I tried and tried to learn to ride a bike. My dad put days of effort into teaching me when I was a kid, such was my intense desire to learn to ride a bike. I still can’t get the movement of my legs right. They tried to teach me in rehabilitation and concluded that it’s probably not for me because of the way in which the pedals make my feet and lower leg muscles cramp and spasm. Similarly, karate was not for me, although I did give it a red hot go.

In some ways, being constrained by reality is a blessing in disguise. It means that I know that there are limits to both theory and thought. I can complain all I like, but no amount of positive thinking is going to change the fact that my Achilles’ tendons and calf muscles are very tight and short. The only things which have changed that reality are first, an operation when I was thirteen, and secondly, injections of Botox to relax the muscles and stop the spasms. I have to keep thinking that I’m lucky to be alive. That wasn’t what they predicted when I was born.

This is baby me, aged one month. I’m still in a humidicrib.

I wonder if that is why I am not particularly comfortable with grand theories. I’ve spent my whole life knowing what it is to have constraints. There’s a point where theory butts up against practice, and against reality.

More broadly, it’s also the premise of utopian societies and political movements: if everyone believes the right thing, and behaves in the right way, everything will be wonderful. If there’s a problem, the issue is not the system, it’s a problem with the people who don’t behave as they ought. And then, of course, the “problematic” people must be eliminated (as in both fascist and communist societies).

I know to my core that there’s a limit to what belief can achieve. It’s not true to say that, “If you believe in yourself, anything is possible.” You can’t escape reality entirely. Many things are possible, but self-belief can’t make your calf muscles and Achilles’ tendons magically loosen. Changing the words we use and calling me “differently abled” doesn’t change my reality. Only physical, medical intervention changed reality for me and allowed me to walk more easily. I’m never going to be a champion athlete, either (despite my twelve-year-old fantasy of swimming for Australia). And that’s okay.

It is for this reason that I have always been wary of utopian political philosophies. Perhaps, too, as someone who was badly teased as a child, I’m aware of the dark side of humanity, and how people can cloak bad behaviour in a veneer of “goodness”, to justify it to themselves. Those who adhere to a view that belief can change everything blame those who don’t live up to their expectations, rather than questioning the belief itself.

1. Apart from the demand to let me try tap dancing. The refusal to fund this was fair enough. If you can’t actually tap your foot, there’s no point.