Looking Back, A Bad Idea is an editorial written by Tim Clark and shared with The Ugly Writers with the theme Fools Rush In for the month of April
Being retired gives a person time to think. Though, you need to want to think. Which is my problem. I start thinking, and pretty soon I start remembering, and then I start to imagine things. Next thing you know, I’m wondering why I didn’t listen to the science teacher in junior high and become a surgeon.
But that never happened, my junior high science teacher was a nice person, though, I don’t remember her, or him, at all. That’s how I know they were a nice person. I have total recall of the mean, pushy, spiteful, angry teachers.
Looking back, though, I can’t blame a teacher for finding a better way to spend a short class time. I was lazy, uninspired, prone to drifting off into worlds not covered in social studies or geography. Wandering in and out of reality, crossing over to a land where I was popular, and people looked toward my future with warm, anticipatory feelings of success. Looking back, I understand why I spent so much time in my reality.
I remember enough to know none of my teachers ever thought I should be a doctor, or accountant, or lawyer, professional athlete, civil servant, grocery store cashier, or railroad worker, bricklayer, bartender or bus conductor. I remember one class, I think it was current events, the teacher said; “In America anybody can grow up to be president.” After looking at me, sitting as far back as I could, he/she (I don’t remember) added; “Well, almost anybody.”
It isn’t productive, thinking, remembering, imagining, spending time dwelling on the past. There is no escape thinking about tomorrow, the future is dark and filled with the unknown. All you have is the present, trapped between the times you regret, and the days you dread. And somehow, you’re supposed to put on a happy face, join the dance and pretend it makes sense.
Every year has 525,600 minutes and 31,536,000 seconds, and most of them are meaningless passages of time.
In junior high the art teacher, (who told me I was destined to be a master, akin to Michealangelo, not really), taught us about the vanishing point technique. Everything in the picture runs to a sharp, clearly defined point. It is supposed to add depth to your drawings. I could never get the hang of it.
It is a trick of memory, to focus on a single point. An instant in time, a full screen spectacle of enormous shame, wrapped in a humiliating shroud of humiliation and impotence. And you are stuck, looking at a full screen image of a painful instant, thinking who the hell is that?
Even though, you know who it is. It’s you.
In the middle of the night, you might say to yourself; “there had to be some seconds where my life went right, surely, I wasn’t an idiot all the time.”
And you weren’t, probably. You had some victories and accomplishments. But, your memory has forgotten those.
Being retired gives a person time to think. Though, you need to want to think. Which is my problem. I start thinking, and pretty soon I start remembering, and then I start to imagine things. Next thing you know, I’m wondering why I didn’t listen to the science teacher in junior high and become a surgeon.
But that never happened, my junior high science teacher was a nice person, though, I don’t remember her, or him, at all. That’s how I know they were a nice person. I have total recall of the mean, pushy, spiteful, angry teachers.
Looking back, though, I can’t blame a teacher for finding a better way to spend a short class time. I was lazy, uninspired, prone to drifting off into worlds not covered in social studies or geography. Wandering in and out of reality, crossing over to a land where I was popular, and people looked toward my future with warm, anticipatory feelings of success. Looking back, I understand why I spent so much time in my reality.
I remember enough to know none of my teachers ever thought I should be a doctor, or accountant, or lawyer, professional athlete, civil servant, grocery store cashier, or railroad worker, bricklayer, bartender or bus conductor. I remember one class, I think it was current events, the teacher said; “In America anybody can grow up to be president.” After looking at me, sitting as far back as I could, he/she (I don’t remember) added; “Well, almost anybody.”
It isn’t productive, thinking, remembering, imagining, spending time dwelling on the past. There is no escape thinking about tomorrow, the future is dark and filled with the unknown. All you have is the present, trapped between the times you regret, and the days you dread. And somehow, you’re supposed to put on a happy face, join the dance and pretend it makes sense.
Every year has 525,600 minutes and 31,536,000 seconds, and most of them are meaningless passages of time.
In junior high the art teacher, (who told me I was destined to be a master, akin to Michealangelo, not really), taught us about the vanishing point technique. Everything in the picture runs to a sharp, clearly defined point. It is supposed to add depth to your drawings. I could never get the hang of it.
It is a trick of memory, to focus on a single point. An instant in time, a full screen spectacle of enormous shame, wrapped in a humiliating shroud of humiliation and impotence. And you are stuck, looking at a full screen image of a painful instant, thinking who the hell is that?
Even though, you know who it is. It’s you.
In the middle of the night, you might say to yourself; “there had to be some seconds where my life went right, surely, I wasn’t an idiot all the time.”
And you weren’t, probably. You had some victories and accomplishments. But, your memory has forgotten those.
Read more from Tim Clark by visiting his website at Life, Explained or by checking out his previous write-ups here at The Ugly Writers.
