Biographies: Stories of Wisdom, and Adventures in Life
I could see the people who knew High School was fake, or at least trouble,
all three principals knew, and the English teacher.
The English teacher,
tried to pass on a message.
He didnât care about anything but that message, the message was:
âThe choices we make dictate the life we lead, to thine own self be true.â.
The third principal put up an experimental class to try to get a read on us,
I was the control sample, that was the semester I dropped out.
(I am not 100% sure he became a principal,
someone who had his last name was a principal few years ago.)
It is good data,
I hope he used it.
He had another message,
âWherever you go there you are.â
This message means that you canât run away, or move somewhere, or escape something,
that the change must come from within.
The reason I ended up as the control sample, was because the news class teacher,
and let me just say to this day I donât know what a news class is...
Was unstable, presumably attempting to be funny,
I am 95% sure he licked his finer and put it in one of the sleeping studentâs ear.
I needed to leave that class,
because it was creepy - I donât remember what my plan was - but I was exploring the school corridors when the experimental class teacher grabbed me.
The class would always open by asking the students how they really feel,
and the teacher said, not to say I am fine, becasue that meant fâd-up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.
So the kids would talk about their lives,
the assistant psychologist would scribble things in the corner.
These were real feelings, real concerns,
real experiences.
But there was a problem
with what the teachers were trying to do.
And they were getting corrupted feedback from us,
as a result of the problem.
Sunaura Taylor has this heartbreaking, powerful, gut wrenching, screaming, work of art,
that brings me to tears every time I think about it.
That perfectly captures, why they were getting shit data from us,
it is part of her âFactory Farmsâ set, entitled âChicken Truckâ
So, we were reporting how we were doing relative to the world we knew,
and the world we knew in High School was pretty sad.
In order to report how we were really doing in school, and in life.
we needed to know more about life.
At the very least... we needed to make weekly trips to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit Historical Museum, Detroit Zoo, Michigan Science Center, Bell Isle Park, ride the People Mover,
we needed to be at every performance of the Michigan Opera and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and never miss a new show at the DIA.
The most important thing we needed was a plan out of poverty,
meaning we needed help with building our companies.
In case this is somehow too new, or too unrealistic,
please, please, realize that, the first company the class would have co-founded together, was going to take care of getting students to visit all those places and more - weâd have lectures all around the city.
Instead, we were just reporting how we were doing,
in Sunauraâs Chicken Truck.
We were,
F.I.N.E.
High School is our first real problem,
and not letting it crush us, is our first battle against invisible prison walls.
We can push the walls back - well enough,
but we canât see what is outside.
We couldn't answer how we were doing,
anymore than a person who spent his life in a cubicle could
I think we need to be more cautious,
about letting other people convince us that they have all the answers.
And we need to keep in mind,
that some people will not be aware they are hurting us.
This is probably what âroad to hell is paved with good intentionsâ means,
people being tricked into thinking they are helping.
It may not be safe to believe,
that schools are going to make the future certain for us.
In military the recruiter always lies,
there will be no Charger, no Camaro, what you sometimes get is being scared of fireworks for the rest of your life.
In science or medicine, even if we set aside the 400,000 yearly deaths from medical errors,
getting into science does nothing for Mental Health, Wisdom and Greatness.
If schools tried to help us for real,
co-founding businesses, constantly reading beautiful biographies would be the first and foremost.
And that is what we need to do,
set aside the stupid ideas of grades, and that diploma which is made worthless by schools forcing us to memorize like little actors.
And we need to focus on building companies,
instead of working for them.
You can still have your medical carrier,
but here you will no longer be discarded when they realize that you can be replaced with two cheaper employees.
You can still be a scientist,
find your won co-founders, get investors to help you build powerful laboratories.
But above all,
our education needs to be Real.
I know,
you are in a chicken truck on this one.
It is hard to know what a real education is,
but we can get past this, by reading biographies.
Biographies are something else,
real people, real lives, real struggles and - my goodness - real wisdom.
Biographies only sound boring,
they are stories of adventure, adventure in life.
You should absolutely,
start with the stories that interest you.
The whole point is to become inspired,
and a little bit wiser.
The books that people adore that seem uninteresting to you,
or maybe seem too hard to read, are actually things you leave for later.
Some books may seem confusing the first time you listen to them,
but that is only because you are reaching too far, your on-ramp is too steep.
For example, before you start reading philosophy,
you should read about the philosophers, and then about the work you are trying to read.
Or before you get to Shakespeare,
you should read everything about him, and then study guides, and kind of like him as a person, or persons as the case may be.
Understanding life is important,
and it will absolutely help you see where to go next.
Biographies, or Stories of Wisdom and Adventures in Life as they should be called,
are probably the best way to look outside of high school, outside of all the cages in life.
I know we are all extremely intelligent, that we can learn anything,
and before we know it we start becoming wise.
Learning is about going at your own pace,
and learning in a sequence that fit what you already know; that fit you best.
Wisdom is about thinking of new solutions, to new problems,
by subtle analogy to the things that you know, to the things that you have learned from wise beings.
And then beyond Knowledge and Wisdom,
is Greatness.
Most of the books worth reading,
will be written by Great Beings.
Great beings are the people that change the world for better,
they are the true force that drives the advancement of Human Kind.