Dear friends and/or family members,
For starters, does anybody mind if I just call ‘em as I see ‘em? No? Good, then let us proceed.
I do not fancy myself a writer. Yet I love language and communication and am fascinated by both. I collect dictionaries. I want to know about word origins all the time. I just dig it. I would just as soon read a dictionary as any other book. As many of you know, I love to sit around and think about stuff as well. Or, as a friend once put it, I have a rich fantasy life. And now this: I intend to teach college-level English eventually. Well, I will probably be doing just that fairly soon (I plan to complete my undergrad stuff in the 2006-2007 school year and get a teaching assistant position for the following year.)
So here’s the rub- guess what is usually expected of English professor types? You beat me to it. Writing. Who do people want to learn stuff from? How does a university gain prestige? Right. And how, indeed, does one prove that he knows what he is talking about so that students know that taking your class will not be a colossal waste of time? And so the department will trust you with the keys to the overhead projector? Yeah, so I think I have sufficiently beat that one into the ground. Oh, but another thing- it is simply a more efficient way to share ideas with people. And I don’t have to wonder whether I am putting them to sleep or they are just being polite by smiling and nodding as I wax philosophic once again. Like now- if this is of interest to you, then you are still with me. And if you just have other things to attend to or your eyes have already glazed over and you can’t hit the delete key fast enough, then far out. No hard feelings at all. Those that have ears, let them hear. And those who wonder, “What is that supposed to mean?” simply reply to this message with the word ‘remove’ in the subject line and we shall speak of it no more.
Anyone with ties to a good university (other than EWU, as it may be a good thing for me to branch out a bit) might want to give them a heads-up now and let ‘em know that Vince is coming. I like Oxford. Or at least their dictionaries. I will probably pass on Ivy League, highbrow or power-broker nonsense, but you never know. I will try to keep an open mind. If they act quickly they may be able to avoid the feeding frenzy. Here is why: peeps is gonna be fallin’ all over themselves to award me a Ph.D. before long. Just you watch. Oh, my goodness, but that could come off as outright arrogant! I am not, though. Just a late bloomer. I finally know, at the tender age of 38, what I am going to do with myself, at least professionally. And so I am excited and I want to share this with y’all. [Author’s note: when I use the word y’all it may seem I’m trying to be cute or something like that, me not being from the south. This is not my intention. Actually, I lament the fact that ‘proper English’ is missing a plural form of you. I find ‘y’all’ to be a useful term.] But back to the ‘Dr. Vince’ thought. I am no smarter than anybody else. But also no dumber. A former neighbor of mine actually helped me to realize the latter and for that I owe him a sincere debt of gratitude. See, we were having a minor disagreement over use of the property (both of us were tenants at the time of the same premises) and we were discussing this in the back yard. The details are unimportant, but, as he is attending law school, this fact understandably informs his world-view. So basically, after we had toned down our rhetoric and lowered our voices a bit he was still trying to lawyer me to death. I wasn’t buying it. I stayed right there, I held my ground, I kept a civil tongue in my head. I didn’t run upstairs and slam my door, nor did I find it necessary to pop him one. Hey, I can look up terms like ‘corpus christi’ and ‘ad nauseam’ just as easily as the next guy. And I’ve seen more episodes of ‘Law and Order’ than most people. Consider it fair warning. And here is what I learned about myself that day: I am not intellectually intimidated by anyone. No, not anyone. Not Stephen Hawking. Not Stephen King. Not Joseph Campbell or even Glen Campbell. Not Albert Einstein. Not Sigmund Freud, Socrates, Plato, Kant, Jung, Confucius, Gandhi or Lao Tzu. Ain’t none of ‘em got nothin’ on me. It is a simple fact and that is why it is not arrogant. But here is also why: it ain’t me. What I mean is that I stand on the shoulders of- I was going to say ‘giants’, but that is not the case. I stand on the shoulders of the planet earth and all life contained herein. Or thereupon. Or whatever.
Here is how I arrived at this conclusion: I was telling my philosophy teacher for ‘Intro to Ethics’ the other day about how western philosophers drive me crazy. It is not that they are not Smart Guys, it’s just that it all seems like a lot of hooey to me. They are smart, but not always so wise. Sometimes the truth (or ‘The Truth’) is very simple. It does not beg to be dissected by you. And the dissection process does not shed more light upon the subject; nay, often the reverse is true. The more we talk it to death, the more confused we become. But, said I, I have learned to appreciate the fact that I have the benefit of hindsight. And current thought, having not been formed in a vacuum, on an island or, for that matter, in a vacuum ON an island (take that!) owes something to the thinkers that came before. AND NOW, MY THESIS:
We owe what we are to ALL that came before. Therefore I sincerely wish to thank the second law of thermodynamics, the PTA, photosynthesis and S.C. Johnson (a family company). Also, Pope Pious III, the Wright Brothers, the crazy lady on the bus who smells like tuna and menthols and the breath of air that I just now exhaled. And all y’all. Maybe some more than others, but who cares? Thomas Edison could never have invented the light bulb, had it not been for some dude that dug up some pretty-colored dirt one day and brought it home in a pot. And his wife that used it as a fire extinguisher when dinner got away from her one night. And his neighbor that saw something shiny on the floor near the hearth. And that guy’s great-great-granddaughter who, years after he was dead and gone, found that she could use the shiny stuff to make a better knife. Or whatever. You get the point. Bill Gates: Self-Made Kajillionaire? Hardly. Vince Price: Self-Made genius. Good one. But Vince, you say, are you seriously comparing yourself to the Great Thinkers throughout history? Damn straight. And so should you. Not me, but yourself. Nearly every smart, beautiful, creative, wonderful person I know sells himself short. [And here, another gap in the lexicon. We desperately need a new batch of gender-neutral pronouns that flow naturally and don’t look or sound ridiculous. I get the ‘s/he’ thing. It is just not quite the ticket. Useful, perhaps, but clunky. We need some brand new words.]
So, to remove this a little bit from excessive chest-thumping, another example: Smart Guys and Smart Gals of today owe everything to everyone who has ever lived. And probably to a lot of other stuff as well, but you know how it is. Every generation thinks that they invented sex. And wearing all-black. And road trips. And every other damned thing that has been around in one form or another for eons. You know, it is not that we don’t learn from history. It is simply that, as a species, we are slow learners. Thus is the nature of evolution. Our learning is on a time line that has more in common with that of plate tectonics than of season two of Desperate Housewives. Imperceptible change. So slow, so subtle as to appear to be no real change at all. But take heart; life knows how to live. It cannot be killed. Love shall indeed overcome. The good guys will win. Same as it ever was. God forbid, but even if we manage to totally do ourselves in, it is not all in vain. Some records will survive. Along will come some of our space brethren and find our books and hard drives. Or, next time around it will be someone else’s turn to rise to the top of the food chain. Opposable thumbs are quite handy, but primates are not the only tool users ever to live. Our knowledge will be of use to someone. If we are exceedingly lucky it just might be future generations of humans.
I believe this will suffice for the time-being, especially in the light that what I am supposed to be doing at this moment is study for a mid-term in African History, finish (after I start) a writing assignment for another class and read a translation of the words of some German guy who has long since become worm food. I think that I have delivered the goods. I submit to you, gentle reader, that what I should be doing is just what I have been doing for the last 5+ hours. (Yes, I am slow at composition.) I should get paid to sit around and think. Writing is the proof that it is not in vain. Thank you for reading.
Vincent Irvin Price
May 8th, 2006
p.s. I am submitting this to all of my instructors in the form of an email, and maybe of a print-out as well. As far as I am concerned, I have more than earned my bachelor’s degree. For that matter, master’s and doctorate are already done, too. Now I just have to prove it, I suppose. I do not say this to disparage the scholarship of those who may read this, nor to minimize the hard work and sacrifice that it has taken to earn what they have. Nor do I wish to sound like I know everything about everything. What I do not know could fill infinite volumes. I love to learn and I like to be around people learning and asking the vital questions and attempting to solve the riddles of the universe. That is why I am willing to put up with the doo-doo of academia and I imagine that’s why my teachers put up with it too.
p.p.s. Am I crazy? Oh, most certainly. I will use my powers only for good.
