I
have noticed a trend in my life and in my artistic pursuits—be they
aesthetic, philosophical, literary or what have you—that the criticism
of "you are underwhelming" always seems to derive from the most
loathsome and boring people you could imagine. When you are in school,
it comes from the teacher with the stick up his or her ass—what would
such a person as that know of art? The only art that most of our
“educators” in this country are proficient at is the art of diminishing
the human spirit and sapping the life and creativity out of children.
Where, in our schools, is the class where children are taught to think
for themselves and to question everything? Where is the class where
they are taught to introspect, to carefully examine the content of
their own character and to reflect upon the nature of the reality that
they occupy? Math and science are important, but without a sense of the
worth of themselves and the world, math and science are useless to a
human being. Teaching a child with no identity to solve algebra
problems is like giving a man a gun and no training and telling him
that he’s a soldier.
Schools
exist to stifle independent thought. This is self-evident to any
independent thinker who has ever attended public school. Children are
perceived as drones that are designed to perform designated tasks and
are under no circumstances viewed as human beings. Freedom of thought
and of feeling is to be harshly discouraged at all times.
And as
an adult, these conformity enforcers still hound us. Bosses, parents,
police, rivals, even so-called friends—any of these can be a source of
disparagement. If you dare to raise your voice to the world, there will
be someone there to shush you. They will tell you that what you say
doesn’t matter, that it is futile, that no one cares, that no one is
listening and nothing changes. If you are so irrelevant, then why do
those who so hate their own humanity go to such lengths to dishearten
you? Why do they obsessively and reflexively throw derision upon your
every outspoken thought? Why do they tell you that your painting sucks
and your song is cliché and your poem is contrived and you’re not an
artist and you’re not an entertainer? If this was the truth, they would
say it once and encourage you to improve. When they hound you about it
and their only goal is to destroy your will to persevere than be
assured, boys and girls, that they speak, unwittingly, for a higher
power; a higher power that will cease at nothing to destroy everything
special and sacred within you and demolish the richness of your spirit.
The name of this power is banality—those who are not special banding
together to control and restrain those who are through sheer force of
numbers, but we’ll speak of them another time.