Tell it like it is

Is it really enough just to think you have something worth saying? I had a Western Civilization teacher my sophmore year of boarding school who loved to rant. Some said he like to drink a lot too, but I don't know. Anyway, he loved to get all fired up at the class and yell about how the classics in literature are all about sex and passion and war, and that's what made them great. That and the fact that they were all written by a bunch of perverts. His favorite thing to tell the class, aside from repeating his fool-proof recipe for a paper ("tell them what you are going to tell them. tell them. tell them what you told them."), was that the thoughts in our heads don't exist, unless we can put them into words, or better yet, onto paper. That use to make me so mad. I also had a recent encounter with conservative right-wing radio...again. Just tuning in to hear what all the fuss is about. I thought to myself, "Lord, if these people are talking, and think they've got something worth listening to, I better start talking! Who cares if I have anything worth listening to? It's gotta be better than this!"

Then I wonder if it's really enough just to change names and a few details, so as to discuss the important people and events that make their way through my life? I remember a supposed fiction author, spending time on our family ranch one summer. They wrote a best selling novel, inspired by the lives of people who had or did live on the ranch. According to Mom, they didn't do such a great job separating fact from fiction. Mom was pissed about that publication for a while. Mom is good at being angry. I'm not so bad at it myself some days.

All in all, I figure what the hell. Who cares what's being said, just get it out there. There's a quote, I think it's Thoreau, maybe not. Something along the lines of: What ever it is, just start, go, do. There is genious in it, and boldness in moving toward it. What ever you love, find a way to begin it now...something like that anyway.

I'm reading a book "Born to Run". I love it. It talks about not doing the things we do, specifically running, for reasons other than loving what we are doing. I am so fucking tired of buying into this notion of competition. Spending so much energy to climb over others heads and hold all the secrets to staying on top. Honest to God, I do not care. Not that I don't love the charge of going all out for something. Give me that anyday. But I want to do it with people, not alone or against others. And I want to do it because I love what I am doing, not because some fool told me this is the only way to play the game.

My Dad got after me the other day, saying I have a knee jerk reaction to "the system". I laughed and told him he was one to talk. I think we need a serious shift in the way we look at education, at careers, at "the system". I think a lot of things. I think maybe I should write some of them down.