Becoming an Educated and Intelligent Person.

I am ashamed . . . of my shame.

I am tough. I thrive on criticism, something I seek out and eagerly devour, licking my fingers and begging for more. It is nourishment. A reminder of my mother's bitter milk. It is easy. Compliments, are harder to digest. My skin is covered in steel all except for one bare patch of flesh. It is a wound of want and lust. And through this exposed underbelly a self conscious demon has burrowed it's way inside, getting fat off of my anxiety and intellectual insecurity.

What do I want? What do I lust after?

First, I want to become an Educated and Intelligent Person (TM).

The problem with school, a problem that I never have to deal with outside of school, is the close proximity in which I find myself with people who have achieved what I dream of. I idolize them in my own way, but when I do I see them as if I'm looking across the grand canyon. Or I see them and I see my inadequate reflection. Outside of school things are different. I am loved and appreciated, enjoyed, and feared. No one can bully me. Ever. And no one can bully anyone else when I'm around. No one can tell a random crazy story like I can. No one can make people laugh as much as I can. No one can beat me at Mario 3. No one can argue like I can. No one will eat fried worms and other disgusting things like I will. No one can be as drunk as I can be and still exercise such excellent judgment when it counts. No one can read as much as I can, and not as fast as I can. No one WANTS to read as much as I do. And losers let me cut in line (dummies, don't get so excited, it's just a push up bra not implants). But . . .

in school, when I come into contact with Real Intellectuals I feel . . .

at worst, a stupid child still stuck in the trailer park, and someone who should clothe her naked, shivering ambition.

At best, I feel like an awkward dork who ran into Billy Idol (yum!) at a club and couldn't close her mouth.

The second thing I want is to use writing and literature to raise students from poverty and oppression. Because to me, the greatest form of wealth is an education – a real understanding of the world – and someone who supports your limitless intellectual ambition. I want to reclaim art and literature for the masses and the marginalized. I want to eradicate the anti intellectualism that threatens to destroy the working class and poor. I want to smash the stereotypes of the working class and poor and infuse a community with a sense of intellectual pride and tradition. I want a new cultural identity for us. An identity that includes and embraces people of all sexual orientations, races, religions, and gender. I want “High Art” to include newer and traditionally disrespected voices. I want an INFORMED democracy.

I want “High Art” to be for people in low places.

So I am aware of my own sense of internalized inferiority and how this complicates my mission.

I must learn to either embrace my ungraceful awkward verbal diarrhea when I get nervous, or kill the cause of my nervousness.

I need to learn how to swallow compliments.

I need to expose my desire to the world and return to the unabashed nature of infancy.

I know I must cut out my infernal demon and fill the wound with molten steel so that I can become hard and whole. Impenetrable on the outside, and strong on the inside.

This psychic surgery must be embraced now before I let that parasite get the best of me.

Then, and only then, can I become who I want to be.

But in the meantime, I must have the courage and conviction to at least play the role, even if a part of me deviates from the script.




I am an atheist, but this song still makes my heart swell with hope.