In the end, we always win. Isn’t that the way it goes.
I would never know.
To be a truth speaker in a world that
demands the truth… yet no one wants to hear.
I would never know.
It was the summer. The air conditioning had gone out in our
house so my Dad took us to go see a movie while it got repaired. The movie: Dead Poet’s society. How that movie would affect my life I would
never know. Gawky adolescent staring at
a screen unknowing of the challenge issued.
I would never know.
As a boy I was Neil. Or was it Todd. A student stifled; waiting only for the
challenge of a sweaty toothed madman to help me rise above. To dare.
To dream. To tell the truth. My truth.
To a stifled world slumbering in its complacency. To
release my barbaric yawp. To give voice
to the stifled stuffed words trapped inside my throat. To beckon their release. Damm you.
Damn youl
I would never know.
I would accept his challenge. I would stand to be counted. Despte the cost, despite the hardship, I
would be true to the truth. I had
to. It would be what I knew.
I would never know.
Against the onslaught of the world I could stand. Whatever they might yell to me, I could respond with my barbaric yawp. They would cast me into darkness, but I could sound my barbaric yawp none the less. A bulwark of strength, if was only brave enough to use it. If one was brave enough to dare, brave enough to dream, brave enough to be a truth seeker… then the barbaric yawp would be their prize. Though it may have been humble, it was enough to act as a torch to keep the wolves, the ones that sulked right outside the doorway, at bay. They would not consume me. Not today. Holding aloft the torch of indignant truth, they would be held at bay, by god.
As I grew, I could no longer be Todd, or
Neil, no I had to become Mr. Keating. I
had to spread the light. To be a
free-thinker. To get people to
question. What is right? What is wrong? What is?
To question everything… including me.
All the while, the sweaty toothed madman was whispering in my ear. Each time I was ready to let it down, he
whispered in my ear… “to thine ownself be true.”
Damn you.
Curses on you. Rimming, simmering, sweltering, he was
everpresnt; this sweaty toothed madman.
I would never know.
It would have been so easy to run, to
have hidden. But that is not for us,
this sweaty toothed madman and I. If we
are to do our jobs, we must teach to think; to question. To rise above ourselves. To aim above the norm, to be not only good,
but good for something.
I would never know.
Beyond being a teacher, I transversed into
documentary. My latest doc was on Wally
Linebarger. A teacher who inspired and
nurtured his students. Come to find out,
he announced his homosexuality.
Expulsion and defemation followed.
Being a servant of truth, I made a doc about this. Although I am heterosexual, I saw Wally’s
story was a human rights issue. To
release truth. Foolish me. I forgot; the world loves to adhere to its
black and whites. The comforting sedation
of types. Grey only confuses things. I forgot; just don’t pay attention to my
grin. That one that is born of truth. That one that challenges. It can take your
beats, your anger of born of no consequence, only to challenge back… “Is that
all you have?” Well is it.
My doc might invite the viewer to free
thought. I know… bad me. Trying to get people to crush the comfort of preconceived
notions that flow so easily from the mouths of demagouges . It could come from both both sides. I heard I was a homosexual, I heard I was a homophobe. “Is that all you got?” Passing clenched teeth frozen in a grin, “Is
that all you got?”
Ahh what a messy world. It doesn’t matter. Such is the damage, such is the danger, of
telling truth. But it has to be done
regardless. Like a mad prophet I stand
outside the gates of the city. Shouting
truths in the hopes that one will hear.
Don’t worry, some listen to this man who now has become a sweaty toothed
madman himself.
Some do.
These ones who will break the mold will
grow to change the world. The power they
contain…
I would never know.
Sleep well, my sweaty toothed madman.
