My Shot

In this song, Alexander Hamilton is talking about not blowing his shot. Hamilton says that he's got a lot of brains but no polish. Does the no polish stem from his upbringing? I think what Hamilton is saying is, he's really smart but doesn't know how to act in social settings. He also says he's a diamond in the rough, which I think means that people don't recognize his potential, so he gets passed up for opportunities that he would excel at, like fighting and calling "shots" in the revolution. In this song he also talks about wanting to fight for the rights of the people, and how he would do anything for the revolution. I wonder if this also has something to do with his upbringing? I think he felt like he didn't have any rights as an orphan, or as a person coming from the Caribbean Islands, so he felt he would know the best way to help people attain those rights, since he didn’t have any. I think that Hamilton thought highly of himself, and wanted to prove himself to the people who wrote him off before they even knew what he could do. I also think that Hamilton wanted to compensate for not having anyone on his side as a child, and wanted to win everyone over with his smarts and his ability to be powerful in the revolution, but ended up coming across as arrogant or conceited. In the end Hamilton did prove that he knew a lot about helping people gain footing when they had none, and helping to set up society after the revolution, but the way he went about it made people not like him, and thus not listen to him until after he was dead. Then they realized the potential he really did have and all the strides he had made while he was alive.