Thought of the Day

I was just sitting here drinking some hot tea and Hennessey (try it) and listening to College Dropout and something came to my head that i wanted to share.

Mr. Greenbaum was one of my high school math teachers. I always thought he was a decent enough teacher/person, didn't mind him as much as I did some other teachers. cough cough Dr. GOLDBERG but thats a story for another day.

I've always been decent enough at math, but math classes are difficult for someone impatient as myself. Here's the story of every class I've ever taken: Two weeks in I'm busting straight A's. Then all of a sudden I no longer care about anything. I've tried to be aware of this and fix it, its hopeless. Then, all of a sudden, after I fail midterms, I start hustling to get my grade back up to a C or B.

Thing about math is - it's cumulative. So I can't just pick up and learn everything I have to. I have to go back and learn the whole quarter/semester's material. Needless to say I'm not often very successful beyond a C. Case in point: Mr. Greenbaum's math class. I use to doodle alot in class. Listen to music, joke around, but most of all drew alot. It was my escape from the boring drone at the front flipping transparencies writing numbers (for some reason i HATED transperancies, always have always will if it werent for powerpoint wouldnt have made it through college). I got in trouble fairly consistently.

So this fucker catches my mom at the grocery store one day, and you wouldn't believe what he has the TESTICULAR FORTITUDE to say to her. He said, and I'm quoting this to the best of my recollection, "judging from his actions in my class he is not going to amount to anything."

He said that, he actually SAID that, and I wondered for years and years and years WHY he felt compelled to say that to my mom. I mean I was no saint but I was far from the biggest fuck-up in the class. I wasn't hurt or anything, I just wanted to know why, its so random.

Anyway, recently I heard something interesting about him. Mr. Greenbaum - before he was one of Eleanor Roosevelt's Sub-Par Math teachers - was actually an ART student.

Huh.

Now, I may be jumping to conclusions, but this sounds to me like someone giving up on his dream. Because I haven't met many people who either wanted to be a great musician OR a high school math teacher. Standards were lowered.

This still begs the question of why he would criticize me so harshly. I mean those words sound downright resentful. What could he be resentful about?

Again, I may be reaching a bit, but this makes perfect sense in my head. Maybe something about myself reminded him of himself when he was young and full of hope. My attitudes, actions, peronality, whatever it was. His dream deferred shriveled up and rotted over, and anyone that appeared to have a similar dream was clearly a fool that would amount to nothing. Unless being a high school math teacher is something to you.

I'm a little salty about what he said (especially that he said it to my MOM and not to my fucking face - rgh), and that probably comes across, but the moral of the story is that HATE is usually borne of some conflict within yourself.

Often in the past I have seen all kinds of things and thought to myself: Man, thats crap I could do so much better. But I hadn't been doing anything, let alone anything better. I was sitting there critiquing things that I didnt like instead of creating things I DID like. When I realized what I had been doing, I had to change, quickly.

This had two effects: 1 - I was focusing my positive energy instead of negative. I just felt better about art and life in general. I appreciated things about works that I once would have dismissed as not "good enough."

2 - I felt better about my own shit, considering I had these ridiculous standards for everything I saw, I held the same thoughts about my own stuff. And that type of thinking doesn't go well with art. So I felt freer about what I put on paper. The fun of it came back and I became alot more productive.

So watch the hate. It's a creeper, a silent killer. Keep an eye out for it you might be surprised how much it comes out. Maybe not out loud but in your head, you gotta monitor your thoughts too. And trust me it does much more damage than good. I may have an exaggerated concept of how many people do this to themselves, which might make you say "wow youre an asshole." possibly true but if you're thinking that..... stop hating

hehe
Cheerss

... Hennessey and Tea dog for real don't sleep

edit: HenneTEA haha yesss..