Golden Teacher

“Don’t be a pussy”, said the male child. 

How do I know the child is male? I just assumed, though I assure you I’m not a bigot. I see all things as equal, and I mean all things. I see man equal to bird, equal to rock, equal to nothing. 

But the gender of the child isn’t so important.

“I’m not a pussy this is retarded”, the children may be bigoted. 

“You can’t say that”, don’t let this fool you, the child is being sarcastic. 

Also, this child is different from the second child that spoke. If I am entirely honest though, the distinction between the two children is a necessary abstraction to help one make any conceivable sense of the world, and the story of course. 

But sir? What makes you say this? What then of their separate bodies? Or better still, what of their differing opinions on the illusive topic at hand?  

It’s hard for me to describe, language is brilliant indeed but it isn’t all encompassing, some things are ineffable and I’m afraid I speak (or rather don’t speak) of such things. 

Furthermore, I assumed you assumed that I was a male. Forgive me if you are of pure heart and didn’t make this assumption. I don’t know everything after all. Assumptions, although rude, make for swift conversation. If I was to be entirely without assumptions all the time then I would seldom speak a word. Because language is inherently based on assumptions. Again, please trust that I know these things, I haven’t much time (I really mean room) to explain.  

I would forgive you for politely thinking to yourself, questioning my legitimacy. This man/woman/thing makes such outlandish claims and expects me to simply trust it/her/him. Rather she/he/it sounds like a conman, a swindler, a common politician. If it is in your best interest to distrust me then be my guest. It doesn’t make much difference whether you believe me or not. What matters most of all is that you see the picture that I paint. A picture is worth a thousand words right? Perhaps some of those words have yet to exist in language, perhaps some are capable of attaching to virgin ideas. 

This is my effort to explain things to you, if only you’ll be open to listen. I can’t ever ask you to accept my ideas as true, I don’t have a seat in your inner deliberative house. But I do beg that you let my ideas enter into your mind and hold them there until I have finished. Then be free to discard or accept, whatever satisfies your illusion of will.

I’m going to go on a tangent unless this, being the story, will get confusing. The first boy you’ve been introduced to is named Vos. He is of some peculiar descent, peculiar meaning anything but Anglo-Saxon (you know of the Anglo-Saxons?) and he is more intelligent than the other boy. 

The other boy, and I realize referring to him as such is rather degrading, is named Awa, he is also not an Anglo-Saxon. But such is an irrelevant detail and I know that I should only include details that add to the story. But perhaps it isn’t so irrelevant. Now you have an idea of what the boys don’t look like. Let your mind imagine what they do look like, simply given their names. Let it fill in all the blanks. Did you expect me to do all the work? Like I said, I haven’t much room, especially when I’m trying to speak whilst minimizing (or at least explaining) my assumptions. 

I fear that you are getting the impression that I care for your opinion of me. You don’t even know what I am, I assure you your opinion of me won’t be taken seriously.

I wasn’t getting that impression. Then forgive me.

Why must you inform me that you don’t care what I think? I think this to be proper etiquette, and if you think this to be a lie or deceit, then I’m also lying to and deceiving myself. 

I would appear rather silly if you don’t happen to think any of these things I’m assuming you to think. You probably wouldn’t take any of this seriously then. If you haven’t stopped reading, I mean listening, by now then I’d again implore you to try to fiddle with the ideas without knowing first if they are true. And this extends to the assertion, which everyone implicitly makes, that I am trustworthy and my words are veracious.

But what ideas? Are they to be found in the story? You keep yourself on immaterial tangents. And you speak in a stilted, distasteful, pretentious manner. I should’ve forgotten parts of the story by now if you'd told me any of it. 

I will have to find you to be correct, I am taking too many tangents. I think I find myself married to the pursuit of pure understanding. I will fault language again, and for the last time, it takes me too many words to convey what I mean. And even then I can never achieve the pure transfer of meaning that I desire. I think I’ve now come to understand that I desire too much. I will change, I will rely on your mind more now. But even so, I was simply working to make sure you didn’t fill any blanks in regards to your perception of me, perhaps I did truly care all along. Your perception of me came first, the story was secondary, which makes no sense. 

Or perhaps I need you to perceive me in a certain way.

And about my speech I can’t apologize. I long ago swore a vow to authenticity that I have to uphold. I will not explain myself as to why I ‘speak this way’, because you must understand that I am the one confused about how you speak. 

Ah ha!

But again I am a pragmatist, maybe you’ll sense a change in tone as the story progresses, maybe the language spoken will change. Because all of this again doesn’t matter. And I am willing to put on an accent, however painful, in order for you to focus on what is being said. 

Are you paying attention?

So without further adieu. 

“This is mentally disabled behavior. You need to get tested buddy.” He said. 

He said? I hate that so much. Is that how you want me to speak? Isn’t it obvious that this is speech, and we’ve already established that this quite possibly is a male, even though that doesn’t matter. ‘He said’ is criminally redundant. But modern writing would have you write ‘he said’ but by doing so as creatively as possible. ‘He’ would be changed to the boy, or a more creative writer would dive into the definition of the character, ‘the non-anglo saxon less intelligent boy’ said. And ‘said’ would be distorted into something unrecognizable, like retorted, exclaimed, shouted, or better yet, sang. Really? He sang his words?

You’ve deceived me, you again go on tangents.

My deepest apologies. 

“What’re you afraid of? No one’s gonna know.”, shouted Vos. 

“That means they’re low quality”, retorts Awa in a hushed tone, as to indicate to Vos. “Besides, why is it necessary that we do them here? I feel like you do this type of shit just so people think you don’t care about things. You need to let everyone know how much you don’t care.”

Man is truly the deceiver. Awa wants to do the mushrooms, but his mind wishes to first waltz. He must air out all the necessary trepidations befitting a responsible individual as to maintain that image of himself. Vos will convince Awa to do the mushrooms, that Awa wants to do, meaning Awa isn’t responsible, and is still responsible. 

Sometimes I wonder if everything we do in our everyday lives is simply to maintain impressions, to others and especially ourselves. 

If we didn’t care to be seen as anything, to identify as anything…

But do I assume that identity is wrong? I assume that other forms of living exist, but maybe they aren’t better in every way, maybe they have their own tradeoffs.

“How much will that read cost me Freud? And I said no one’s gonna know. I should need an audience to show how much I don’t care right?” 

Did you understand that Vos is the one speaking these words? Was the context enough for you? Or did you need me to explicitly state as much? 

Your asides have very little to do with the story, and only work to distract me from it. This assortment of words you call literature doesn’t flow at all. It can’t even do what sewage does easily.

You know what?? Fuck it. I tried my best to give you a good story but all you do is nag nag and nag. I’m running out of time, I had a bad day, there’s no way I’m completing this in time. So I’m just going to put this out into the world for you to dismantle with no semblance of empathy or elegance.

Although distraught, I’m not cruel. I will tell you of the story.

Awa and Vos are two boys in the woods. They’re on a school trip, as per the prompt for this week, and are being taught major life lessons via magic mushrooms, aka the ‘Golden Teacher’. But Vos and Awa don’t exist, they’re simply you and I in conversation with each other, whilst I am under the influence of mushrooms. I am going to fight this.