the more and more i look around and have conversations with adults and people my age, the more and more i am realizing that i am really intelligent. i knew this in my younger youth years, but than my belief in myself dissipated and i began to sink into the thought group that, yes, i was clever, but i was not nearly as intelligent as those hard-working studiers. but now i am re-realizing that book smarts and actual knowledge are so different from each other. i am a dictionary of obscure and interesting facts. i know my way around foreign countries and big cities. i write beautiful pieces. i can hold my own in adult conversations. i have groundbreaking ideas and i can explain the hell out of anything. i do work, sometimes dilligently. i have extensive background knowledge on any a subject. i could leave now. i could drop out, get my GED, and begin to learn other things on my own. i could study people, cultures, art. I could go live in a foreign country. Hell, I could go to a museum or to eat alone in a cozy cafe. I could research my books and I could read and read and read. I could love. And I could see films. teachers always comment on how i’m in the know and very clever. they must think that i sit at home and study the news and the dull books they hand out. but, in reality, i’ve gotten a better education from television, films, books, music, the internet, and my own culture studies than every single sheltered child in this town. the kids who sit at home and do all there homework and watch american idol and listen to disney stars and read only the books they are assigned. how do they live like that? how do they not know that they are only discouraging themselves. when they leave home, they won’t know what the fuck to do with themselves. they’ll realize, they could get a perfect score on their SAT’s but end up in a tiny apartment with dirty clothes because they don’t know how to buy a house or how to do their laundry. society fucking doesn’t understand. but i do. and, as soon as i’m done covering my tracks for the simple showboating of apparent knowledge… thats when my real education will begin.
