unschooled

lately i've been thinking about institutions and experts.

some of the smartest people i know did not finish college. in fact, to imagine them sitting in a university classroom is to imagine smog teaching a field of lilies a thing or two about purity.

i want to be unschooled. i want my mind back. i want to be able to imagine without wondering if i'm right or wrong. i want to know who i would be if i could forget everything that i think i know.

everything is questionable, even questioning itself.

writing has become harder than ever. i question every word i put down, question my authority on any subject i write about. approaching a subject, picking up a pen, typing a paper has been institutionalized as an academic or personal affair. if hours have not been logged, certain formulas adhered to, it is usually garbage. in rare cases, when a text or work of art is so subversive, it can skip a few steps. but with that comes jail time.

i was in the grocery store and i thought about the movement of people in the room, in the world, doing ordinary things that seem strange when examined. anything unpredictable or off the rails of what's expected is immediately noticed. then there is a reaction. then there is a consequence. and the unpredictable action doesn't have to be harmful in order to be abhored. it only needs to be counter to what everyone else does, to the institutions in place. i put a bottle down on the bread shelf and garnered a filthy stare from an old lady carrying a basket. i felt a thrill of liberation. i thought, maybe i need to break some rules--maybe even some laws--to feel my own agency again. what are we all so afraid of? how far are we from being reined in? who benefits from this automatic programming? it is psychologically numbing.

being unique is a marketable commodity. as much as people tend to march in line and to avoid subversive behavior, they are also hungry for ways to differentiate. nonetheless...words are usually automatic, even if they're all your own. responses are rehearsed, reactions archived in memory, derived from soap operas. this is how i act when this happens...this is how i act when he says that. layer upon layer of learned behavior beginning with institutions that were in place before we got here.

the people who change the institutions are unpopular, at least in some circles and for some time. i thought today, how easy it is to go to jail. i thought, how much of what i do and think are not actually from me?

questioning institutions is the new black. the people who do it well, however, go to jail. or they make a lot of money.

just like the brilliant people whose imaginations are pristinely unschooled, those unbound by preexisting opinions (rules) break them. and in so doing, institutions are eroded. and the people who worked hard to build them are the same ones who have the authority to punish the ones who did not.

it's hard to write when your words just look like silly string on a straight line...what's the point? it's just another programmed behavior and not the primitive eruptions of an unpolluted mind. most of that is conditioning: thoughts about who "should" be writing and who should not. who are the experts, what makes a person praiseworthy, who the public trusts with prestigious titles.

you write to prove a point. you drive to get somewhere. you eat to have energy. you work to survive. you run to be healthy. you love to find meaning. all purposes like flashcards with a front and a back, a question and an answer. reasons for everything and still, nothing makes sense.

what is the value in forced compatibility? if you do not fit within a given framework, is it possible to break the frame and paint a new picture without getting caught?