TRIGGER WARNING: This is essentially going to be my experience with English and writing. It will be heavy with criticism and very sarcastic. This essay will most likely offend people who enjoy writing, or claim it as a crucial part of their career. Also will offend Satanists (I think). But alas, I do not care. For it is a sarcastic piece of work.
Hate is an extremely strong word. We use the word ‘hate’ casually when referring to things we dislike. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary hate is “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury.” Hate means you want to bring or watch physical harm to something. So when it really comes down to it, we don’t actually hate what we say we hate. We just like to overreact a little. But not me. Everything I say is dead serious. And I testify that I HATE writing. To the point where I would enjoy watching my english teacher suffer on her deathbed so I wouldn’t have to right any more essays. Whenever I write essays, I get to a point of so much frustration I want to bring physical harm to others, myself, or my computer. Yet here I am. Writing a fricken essay that is already two weeks over the deadline. Pretty hypocritical right? I’m technically supposed to be using ethos right now so you will be intrigued to read the rest of my essay. Well frick english, frick the system, and frick ethos. And while I’m already insulting you, have some of this.
My goal is 2,000 words for this essay. I mentally and physically cannot force myself to write anything other than a rant. So let’s take a journey down this little article both you and I don’t care about. (We all know the only reason you’re reading this is because Mrs. Koopford told you to.) We’ll take the party bus/bus of shame (your choice) to a couple of my favorite points of why writing is literal worship of the devil. First let’s take a glimpse at who in their right mind enjoy english.
Do you Enjoy Writing? Yeah? Well Frick You
Personally I believe you have to be possessed by Satan himself to enjoy writing an essay. According to Verywell Mind, traits of a psychopath include: antisocial behavior, narcissism, superficial charm, impulsivity, callous, unemotional traits, lack of guilt, and lack of empathy. Verywell Mind did an excellent job listing the characteristics of psychopaths. But they missed a very key quality of a psychopath. That is none other than experiencing enjoyment while writing.
Let’s get real here. Who in their right mind believes that writing is a fulfilling career? Who thinks, “Oh Boy! I can’t WAIT to watch and then spend 10 of my personal hours writing a movie analysis of how the villain has heroic qualities in the intriguing movie, Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil Mutant Hellbound Flesh Eating Crawling Alien Zombified Subhumanoid Living Dead, Part 5!” This is a classic example of a personality no one in this world likes.
When examining what the typical writer entails, they are most often introverts. These type of people would much rather sit in a corner with a candle and coffee and write about the fascination of a cat’s digestive tract.
Might I say writers introverted personality boldly mimics Ted Bundy’s Behavior. All That’s Interesting says that, “Bundy remembered his high school years as isolated, claiming that he ‘chose to be alone’ and preferred to be by himself. He recalled focusing on schoolwork, using academics as an excuse to hide from the social situations he feared.” You might think that this is a faulty equivalence as I compare an essayist with a murderous psychopath. Well okay english nerd, news flash, there is no difference between writers and Ted Bundy. I’m not saying you’re a psychopath, but for every essay you enjoy writing, you’re one step closer to becoming one.
If you aren’t convinced, might I point out that the Unabomber isolated himself in a little shack and wrote a 35,000 word manifesto about industrial society and its future. So please, if you enjoy writing, I’m begging you to make human interaction. Anything works. For the love of Rosa Parks, at least shake a stranger’s hand at your local 7-11 convenience store.
My Trauma with Writing
It all started in 4th grade for me. Up until then I loved writing. The simple prompts of, “What would you do with a Million Dollars!?!” or, “Who would you like to spend a day with?” were basically the prime essays of my entire life. Out of all the essays I’ve written, the ones I’m most proud of are from 3rd grade. They were also the only ones I cared about too. I actually put quality into these things.
“Well what happened in 4th grade?” you might ask. Essentially I didn’t learn to hate essays, but became dramatized by them.
Now this isn’t a matter of what happened, rather a question of who happened. I will not reveal any names or personal identifying characteristics that reveals their identity because they have a right to privacy.
The teacher I had in fourth grade despised children. Period. To the point I don’t even know why they chose a career where you literally deal with children all day. I’m sure their thinking was, “I’ll give these kids some backbone and teach them how they should really be.” Their whole essence of the classroom was ruled by fear.
When I reflect on 4th grade, I see more good in them then evil. I can see the points they were trying to teach us. Overall a good person, but not to fourth graders. They were extremely critical about the way we did everything. I don’t have a single memory of anyone being complimented or praised in that class. The teacher’s mindset was that of a fire alarm. They stay quiet and do nothing when everything is going right, but blow up when something is going wrong.
Eventually the essays came rolling around. The topics were similar to any previous topics we wrote about in early years of elementary school. Simple questions like, “What superpower do you want?” Just the basics. The types of questions to get the mind flowing and children familiar with writing. Nothing exquisite. After a few of these essays, the teacher apparently wasn’t satisfied with my writing capability. So much so they wanted to teach me a scarring lesson. They told me to stay after class to have a word. As the class filed out they pulled out a long black whip and beat me to a bloody pulp screaming, “HAIL SATAN!” the entire time…
Obviously not. (Seriously if you don’t understand I’m joking, you’re probably looking for a reason to hate. Hate is bad, might I give this superior advice?)
They did something worse than physical harm. Public humiliation. For some reason they thought it was a good idea to turn on their doc cam, cast it on the screen for the entire class to see, and blatantly grade a 9 year old’s essay in front of everyone. I wouldn’t even consider it an essay, just a fun prompt.
The teacher made it a ‘fun’ class activity! “Come on kids! Let’s harshly criticize Liam’s essay for the benefit of him and everyone else in this class. This will be so great for Liam’s mental health! Liam struggles to write at a 10th grade level as a 9 year old, so we’ll embarrass him so he’ll never make these mistakes again! Everyone together now, what problems do you see?”
“His handwriting is terrible!” yells a peer.
“The essay has no smooth transitions!” yells another child.
“He spelled horse like hoarse!”
“You are so right Jim!” Says the teacher. “What a freakin idiot. I hope he dies choking on his hopes and dreams because this child doesn’t deserve to be part of our society. Isn’t that right?”
(All children with beaming smiles agreeingly nod their head in unison chanting, “Sacrifice him to the Grammar Gods!”)
This was basically how I remember those moments. I sat at my desk listening to my teacher rip apart my essay. They would use it as a superior example of what not to do. Classmates would chip in on the fault-finding festivities to earn some brownie points with the teacher.
This eventually became part of the class schedule. Bell rings, we do announcements, learn some math, have a grammar lesson, grade a fresh new trash essay of mine promptly displayed on the screen, then get into our new essay topic.
I sat through countless classes of hopelessness as this teacher made a group effort to destroy my confidence in any writing ability I had. Essentially they stomped the writing skills out of me, condemned it to Hell, and shoved it back inside me. All for my personal betterment!
After school I’d cry alone in the most pitiful spot of my house because that’s what I was convinced I deserved. Each new essay prompt scared the living daylights out of me because I knew no matter how hard I tried, there was always something wrong with it. This eventually led to an infestation of fear toward writing. Because writing meant public embarrassment. Obviously this means my opinion is extremely biased because I’ve only experienced the dark-side of writing.
Writing is as Pointless as a Dull Sword
What I struggle with most when writing are the pointless aspects of it. Writing is deemed extremely important in our lives, but in my eyes, it’s not.
The whole idea of writing about a problem is irrelevant in everyday life. Never will your friends ask a stirring question then follow up with, “Please get back to me with a 5 paragraph essay of your response.” The best way to influence someone is through a face-to-face conversation. Your friend would probably be offended if you said, “Let me get back to you.” Then later texted them your response. People are more likely to have interaction through a speech than an essay.
Harappa, a website dedicated to teaching professional job skills, explains the importance of body language in conversation. “According to a 1981 study by body language expert Albert Mehrabian, words, body language and tone of voice account for 7%, 55% and 38% of effective communication. In other words, we as human beings pay more than 90% attention to body language and tone of the voice more than the actual words.” This study proves that peoples opinions on you are based almost entirely on how you act, speak, and talk.
Take this quote for example, “Anyone can deal with victory. Only the mighty can bear defeat.” What an awe inspiring quote right? Well this is a famous line that came out of the mouth of Adolf Hitler. Your perception of this quote probably completely changed. You probably just reread it to find the deceit hidden in it. Despite the awe inspiring message in the words, you will have no respect for it.
So why in school do we focus on our words with absolutely little to no focus on our physical presentation? People from around the world show up to Ted Talk events to watch speakers give speeches that spark something inside them. It would be so much easier to just read the TED Talk posted online in essay format. But no one wants to do that. They want to go to the actual event and not listen to the words, but listen to how the words are being spoken. Through speech the true meaning of words are given.
I’d also like to address another aspect of writing that is absolute bogus. The YouTuber TheOdds1Out highlights the point perfectly in this video from timestamp 1:39 to 3:42.
English is as Rigged as the 1919 World Series
Never in my life have I struggled more with my English grade than in any other classes. Not only because of how much I struggle with writing, but I can never figure out a teacher’s personal preferences.
In math if the answer is 2, the only correct answer is 2. This straightforwardness is seen in most other classes, including, chemistry, biology, history, government, woodshop, health, and multiple other classes. All except for English.
Ultimately your grade in English depends on the teacher’s interpretation, opinions, and preferences. I cannot count the amount of times I’ve been given back a B- essay with no comments on it at all. When I ask the teacher what I lacked to hit the A mark, they just say, “It met all the requirements, but it just wasn’t A level writing. It wasn’t deep enough or inspirational enough. It just needs to be better.”
What the heck are you talking about?! Listen to the words coming out of your mouth?! Since when has the advice “get better” supposed to literally do anything then mock someone. I’m sorry I didn’t write a letter on par with the Letter from Birmingham Jail. Now that I know that I indeed suck, I’ll apply your wise knowledge of “get better” to my essay. Next time I’ll write a culturally profound piece like that of Maya Angelou’s. With my topic of: Should schools include art in their curriculum?
All I’m saying is if you got nothing to say, It’s an A.
Here’s an Apology for You Suckers
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think writing is a practice used to worship the devil, I just think it is heavily influenced by him. It’s okay to have a career that is virtually pointless and has no benefit. We all have skills no one cares about. I’m sure if you work really hard to develop your writing skills, you could eventually write a profound groundbreaking essay on why someone should come and clean your house for you. Until then I’ll rely on my own backbone and actually contribute to society.
I know writing has benefits too. Writing teaches us to find solid evidence–which happens to be lacking in this rant–and support our claims with evidence. The speech has to be drafted first through writing. Writing is a great way to get your thoughts and emotions out of our systems. It’s also a great way to preserve our knowledge for future generations.
In the end, we’ve become so virtual that our own character doesn’t even matter. Right? We can do whatever we want. As long as we sound smart, inspiring, and creative in our essays, we can distort others views of us. The magical part of essays is it teaches us to B.S. our way through actual life. Writings great. I LOATH- I mean LOVE it. According to the my high school these writing skills are sure to take me only great places. Because here’s what I know.
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
– Adolf Hitler
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