When I started writing this essay a few minutes ago, I realized that the words were coming slower than a leaky faucet dripping slower than one in a housing unit where the plumbing has gone from bad to worst. Some moments, like right now, I have something to say, if only to say what I just said. But I knew this was going to be a problem. I have to get to certain position of substance, albeit drips and drabs. If my essay doesn’t sound like one, at least it has to look like one. My method of writing comes from a tried-and-true technique that I like to call the “street method.” What it means simply is that if you hold up the article to someone walking across the street, they should be able to tell it’s an article simply by looking at it. As long as there are few thick paragraphs, I’m good. And so is my audience.
Not to mention a couple one liners to stop the reader or in this case, pedestrian, in their tracks.
I realized pretty quickly that I am not an intellectual, having never been an intellectual, and mostly considered by most critics that I am, most of all, a revolutionary figure, brought about to disrupt their cozy status as keepers of the gate.
What am I then, if not an intellectual?
Then I got it after leafing through my dictionary. I had a bet with a friend that “aunt” was spelled like the insect. My shame turned to pride when I saw a list of prefixes littering the page like the department of sanitation on a raw sewage power play.
I am an anti-intellectual. How did I not realize this before? It was right there, staring right in front of me, like a person right in front of me staring at me. I am not like anyone else or everyone else or no one else.
I started to research the history of famous people and what did I find, you ask? I didn’t find me. First, I looked at the list of Nobel Laureates. I wasn’t there. Then U.S. Presidents. I wasn’t anywhere to be found. I started to dig deeper. Lists of Oscar winners as well as champion fishermen. I kept not seeing my name, image, or likeness anywhere. Where was I? I pinched my arm to make sure I was still there, right here, sitting at my desk writing. I was, breathing a heavy sigh of relief knowing I was not a figment of my own runway imagination.
I am real. I am here. I am me.
They would say I'm dumb as a brick. I take that insult as a compliment. I like bricks and I talk to walls. And I appreciate straw and the men inside them.
Book after book. List after list. I didn’t see my name. For a second, I thought, maybe it’s because I changed my name. But that doesn’t make any sense. Mark Twain changed his name and he’s everywhere. Same with Michael Keaton. So that can’t be right.
No one ever wanted me at this or that table. Or the chair. Or in the den rearranging the furniture. They treated me like furniture. What they didn’t understand, what they mostly couldn’t possibly realize, was that like most anti-intellectuals I had never read from their “rule book.” I did my own thing and that’s that.
The thing, that is.
No comments:
Post a Comment