Six Months Ago...
Posted by parhad on July 05, 2001 at 09:18:57:
I began writing on these forums. I've been deleted, run out, banned, censored, words and sentences removed from posts, re-instated with a warning, I've caused one
forum to hire a prissy schoolmarm to keep an eye on me, the same forum tried a password system just to keep me out and everyone has generally behaved as if I
had typhoid fever or worse. And what exactly was my crime? I asked questions and had a different perspective than what was allowed, what people were used to.
It wasn't as if I disrupted a "winning formula" for anything. In all fairness it has to be said that many people responded favorably and a few calls to "vote" me off
failed.
I had the distinction of being suspended from High School for "thinking". In my senior year I lost all interest in "academics"..that's what they called it. I took whatever
book I wanted to school and sat through any class I found boring, reading Khalil Gibran among other books of poetry, plays and novels. My trigonometry teacher I
reduced to tears one day as she implored me to "just try" or else I wouldn't get into college. I said college was probably high school with long pants on and I wasn't
interested anymore. I was viewed as a real subversive, someone who said "no thank you" to the American Nightmare, which owning a fancy car is supposed to be
the cure for.
I had what they called "homeroom" or study period an hour each day. You were supposed to finish up homework...I only did the kind I found interesting, and since
litle of it was I read my own book during that time. One lovely spring day I sat there looking out the window at the gorgeous clouds flying by. I'd just finished reading
"The Broken Wings" by Gibran. The mood was perfect. Everyone was bent over homework and it was quiet and still. The "teacher" noticed I was "idle" and
motioned for me to approach his desk.
"Why aren't you doing your homework?" he said, cocking one eye up at me as if I were radioactive.
"I don't do homework", says I.
"What do you mean 'you don't do homework'"? He says in a mocking tone as if I'd said the most ludicrous thing he could've imagined.
"I mean I don't DO homework".
"Well you can't sit in here and do nothing".
"I'm not doing nothing, I'm just not doing homework."
" You'll flunk your senior year and never get to college if you do that." He said, as if he'd just discovered that all by himself.
"I'm not so sure I want to go to college. I'm trying to figure that out."
"How, by not doing anything, just sitting there?" He was getting a little angry and others were listenning in.
"Sort of, I suppose", I replied.
He fumbled in his desk drawer and pulled out a book. Handing it to me he said..."well read this then, you can't sit there and do nothing."
I was caught up in Gibran just then, but didn't want to make any trouble over it, he'd already ruined my mood, so I went back to my seat and opened the book. It
was a Nancy Drew mystery...the kind in which a budding pubescent girl has all sorts of tame adventures while you root for some guy to shag her so she'll stop
poking her nose into everybody's
business. I read the first line, something like..."It was a sunny day at
she'd felt Tom's hand stealing up her...well I might have read further if Tom had done such a thing, but he didn't...instead they were going to play tennis that morning
at Dr. Henry Jones' new court and on and on. I closed the book, set it on my desk and tried to catch another cloud. A loud tapping came from the teachers fingernail
on the desk top and I was back there before you could say "Nancy Drew sucks"...you WISH!
"Why aren't you reading"? He asked, all ready to annoy me some more.
"Maybe you like that kind of book but it bores me" I replied.
" That's it, go to the Deans office this minute and don't come back till you learn to behave".
I spent the next three days sitting in the Dean's office during study hall, reading what I pleased, being entertained by my schoolmates who drifted by on various
errands. I would have been happy to remain there, but it was supposed to be a big humiliation and so when the Dean had a talk with me about repect and obeying
rules and going to college, I was ready to ship out of there as well. He sent me back and after handing my permission slip to the teacher I resumed my seat and
stared right back out the same window.
The astute reader might want to ask why I just didn't read another book or go along to get along. I don't know, it never ocurred to me.
No sooner had my fanny hit the seat than I heard the fingernail on the desktop and was called back up. "Have you learned how to behave? You know you just can't
come back in here as if nothing happened. I have to know what you plan on doing."
"Same thing I didn't do before".
"Well you just march right back to the Dean." When he saw me back in his office ten minutes after I'd left he suspended me for three days and I sat home reading
and staring up at the sky all I wanted.
Nothing has been achieved by banning me from all those forums, nothing. The people who were interested then are still reading, if they can find us. I still "talk" to
them by dragging them over to our site and having my way with them. Even the moderators and dungeon masters who were so hot to have me gone come over to
read. I am still of the universe, my thoughts and ideas are still there to be dealt with or ignored. All that has happened is that those people who want to safely keep
their heads buried have been allowed to do so without the fear that I'll kick their arses as I walk by. Doesn't seem so much of an achievement after all.
It would have been far better if we could have thrashed it out, foul language and all. This way foul deeds won the day.