Today I write to you about myself. Keep in mind, regardless
of my last two blog postings I will never be someone who plans on telling you
how to think or live your life. Telling you about mine hopefully rings a better
tune in your ear and can still accomplish positive resonation.
I just had lunch with a really good
friend following one of our classes together. In this class I asked our
professor a question about our classroom. This was not a question that this
teacher took lightly because he assumed that in regards to my question I wasn’t
taking the environment or his authority seriously. Rest assured that although I
am remaining exceptionally vague out of respect for these people and this
encounter I did not ask what one would refer to as a “dumb question.” To echo
this sentiment I do have great respect for said professor and didn’t quite
understand his push back at me, especially so blatant and in front of the rest
of the class. Another professor asked me to stay after to discuss the issue.
This teacher apologized for some of the other teacher’s response to me then
asked me to question the reasoning behind my inquisitiveness.
Following this altercation my
friend informed me that the question I had asked was on her and other’s minds
as well. We began to discuss it. “That seems to be something that really
bothers you,” she says, “When people in authority that are hungry for power
aren’t willing to accept other’s views.” Apparently she can read me pretty
well. She goes on to tell me that I am always asking questions. I am completely
aware of this. This day in age people have a hard time understanding and
accepting that about me. This is exceptionally difficult to get a grasp on.
When I meet someone I want to immediately know them. I want to really know
them. If the world was mine and all of the people like me the word “really”
that I used in the previous sentence would not be necessary. To me, to know
someone is to understand them. Without an account of one’s past, present,
future wishes, beliefs, feelings, thoughts and opinions you are unable to
understand people. My definition of knowing someone is the closest one can get
to walking a day in their shoes.
Questions that I deem completely
appropriate on a first encounter basis are questions that scare people. I
notice that when I meet people I lean into them and take a genuine, intimate
(again, a word I don’t feel like I need to use but this world belongs to tons
of people that aren’t like me) interest in who they are, where they come from
and why they are the way they are. I observe many, if not 90 percent of these
people curl into themselves, become anxiety ridden and look for the nearest
exit. Sometimes I jokingly state that I am allergic to small talk. In fact,
there is nothing joking to this statement. A huge part of this is webbed into
my making. Having become a part of my persona I have accepted it as an aspect
of my nature that I have only found myself unsuccessful at taming.
I
remember feeling stifled as a child. There were things I wanted to know and
felt keen on asking that other children could not answer nor wished to know.
There were so many times that I would ask someone a question and my mother
would tell me that it wasn’t appropriate. I remember thinking, what is going
on? I love answering questions. I love when people ask me my opinion or what
has gone on in my past or why I do or say or think things. I love it when
people really want to know me. Why do they act as if I only wish to antagonize
them? I only wish to understand these people and treat them with such knowledge
in mind. As a child I knew that people did things in response to their life.
People did bad things not because they were bad but because something awful had
happened to them or they were left out or without a parent figure in their
life.
I wish
to know people because I wish more than anything, to know the world. I wish to
know other’s opinions and beliefs not because I am looking to challenge them
but in my search to know humanity. I come from Wytheville Virginia. The
diversity offered me throughout my formative years was few and far between. I
wish to not taste but binge and gorge myself on helpings of all kinds of people
of the world. I feel the need to know other’s views so that I can learn and
entertain them myself. This is not to
say that I won’t challenge other’s thoughts or beliefs, but to say that I only
hope to extend my knowledge. I also yearn to be challenged in my views. My
greatest hope is to be accepted in my difference of opinion while
simultaneously being questioned.
My
friend Sarah goes onto tell me, “I think that your questions come from a place
of genuine curiosity but it intimidates people.” I’ve heard this many times in
my life. Apparently I am intimidating. “You just bring so much out in people in
conversation and that scares some people,” she says. My only response to this
is that people should know who they are and own who they are. There is never
ANYTHING to be ashamed of from your past…. That’s why they call it your past.
It only created a new 2.0 version of you that is more capable, resilient and
evolved. Others may not see it that way, but I do.
I am an
English major. Here’s the thing about English majors; our professors expect us
to teach the class. We come into class, sit down, the professor briefs us on key
points of the reading and what was happening in the world during the time
period the literature was written, then he/she asks the most open ended
question you think you may have ever heard in your life. The next day, it never
fails; you realize that yesterday you were wrong. A few intellectual arms go up;
they briefly and articulately state their claim and opinion and the professor
looks at them with wonderment and goes into a spiel on why said student was
correct. I have been lucky enough to know the singular opinions of two of my
English professors. Les Harrison hails from Texas A & M via Miami University
(the UVA of Ohio), where he’s from and he may as well have an opinion on
angular versus linear plaid. This is his charm and the reasoning behind every
English student’s love or hate reaction to the mention of his name. Nick Sharp
is the most seasoned English professor at VCU and his passionate thoughts begin
with Shakespeare and end with stories of “Back in the day…”
Open minded meets open ended. These
are the people I have come to know and love in authority since leaving home to
become an adult. They don’t hope to or even consider imposing anything but the
notion that you can learn something from reading literature. They will inform
us of the history, personal points to know, hand us the baton, maybe shoot that
gun one more time, hop in the stands and yell for us to run! This is where
respect is established. To be a free thinker is to be able to ask questions, to
be able to share opinions and accept opinions.
I am fully aware that if I would
back down, even slightly from my belief in truly knowing others, or, if I were
to tone down my nature a few notches that life could possibly be easier for me.
By easier I mean a more constant, breezy, ebb and flow of circulating nods, yeses,
bits and pieces of appeasing, vapid compliments to outfits and tons of “friends.”
But I don’t want a quantity of “friends” to do lunch with at Chick-fil-A. Don’t
get me wrong, there are days that I can talk Mila and Ashton all day. However
this type of conversation needs to be limited to a half of the circumference of
a fully rounded conversation as oppose to the entirety of it. I want my 5 to 10
sincere, soul seeking, kindred spirited, down to earth, talk about anything and
everything all the time no matter how long it takes, friends. I don’t want to
be “liked.” I want to be loved, or unfortunately, hated for what people are immediately
told of me from me. This week in a class we were reading Blake’s “Proverbs of
Hell”… don’t be afraid. If you haven’t read it, it’s good stuff. Anyway, my
favorite line is “Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid
you.” A base man, I come to find is a bad, scummy person. In Blake’s time this
was a gypsy or a posing priest or a deviant criminal who felt compelled to
haggle the innocent. Moral of the story; if you make known your convictions
initially, they will not be questioned.
You shouldn’t be afraid of yourself
or what that means. You shouldn’t be afraid of others or what they bring to the
table. The quicker you are to embrace another, the quicker they are to embrace
you. Questions bring life to life. Allowing others to know you should never be
intimidating, but exciting. If they are hearing it from you then it must be the
most true source and content offered. Why not find excitement in this kind of
opportunity? Today is a day when you should refuse to allow the world to tell
you or anyone else who you are. So "Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." And
you can’t go wrong with Dr. Seuss.
