After yesterday’s post, I tried to calm myself down. I get really worked up thinking about it, because it’s like I’ve committed the unpardonable sin. “For God hath laid higher education on the hearts of men, and woe to he who listeneth not, for the fires of ignorance shan’t be quenched and there shalt be the gnashing of time clocks for all eternity and a day.”
Nevermind that Gates guy, or that Jobs yahoo. And don’t you dare stop using the guy who sweeps your floor or picks up your trash as a warning!
…
Okay, I just got back from gripping my head in my hands until my face hurt. I’m better now. I didn’t want to rant today. I wanted to try to explain something. See, I’m not just making this decision to be difficult. I’ve thought about it. I asked advice from people.
Let me explain. I went to what I might as well call a boarding school for bright people. I’m not going to lie. I got a perfect score on my SAT, and I wasn’t the only one. But I couldn’t stand half the people at my school. They were always going on about how they were going to change the world–and by change, I mean make the world in their obviously superior image.
I had a few people who kept me sane. I lived with two of them. Friends of my family, they own this ginormous house and they run it as a bed and breakfast. They’re an elderly couple, but I always thought their way of looking at the world made sense. The world didn’t shake and tremble with every change. My friends spoke of knowledge like it’s this piercing light that burns your eyes out of your sockets if you look too directly, and they were convinced that if they could just fry their corneas like eggs, they’d really see. But this couple, the Xayyachacks, it was like knowlege lit up a stain glass window. You didn’t want to stare at the light, you wanted to stare at the picture it illuminated. They’re very religious folks, but not fanatical, not at all. Strange, but strange like staring at the clouds and trying to understand how water can be art.
It’s like this, then. I told Dr. Xayyachack that I didn’t think I wanted to go to school. I told him why. I just kept talking for fifteen or twenty minutes, repeating myself. I was almost scared to admit to someone that I didn’t want to go. (This was back when I was a junior.) I won’t bother telling you what I said. That’s done with.
Finally he stopped me. He told me that he thought it a good thing to go to school. (Did I mention he’s a college professor? He teaches part-time nowadays.) But he also said I needed to follow God’s path for me, and not the world’s. (He’s one of those guys who could talk like that and not sound like he was trying to be a goody-two-shoes. Really, everyone should meet someone like Dr. Xay sometime.)
Is it arrogant of me to say this is where I’m supposed to be? No, honestly, I don’t know that. But I know that I’m not supposed to be at school. I hate the idea of it, and sometimes I begin to hate everyone who looks at college as a sort of savior. Been there, tried that. Still a mess.
That’s the problem. Still a mess. And nowhere to go.