So get the fuck up already.

Today was an okay day of school. Just one class, Dialogue, with Aaron Bushkowski. Got into an argument with him about his issues with my Three Page Dialogue, which made no sense to me. Not every character needs to have a clear objective in a scene.

In my scene, linked here, one character (Manny) is very drunk. Drunk people don’t have objectives beyond “stay drunk”. You could say his objective is to stay at the bar and keep drinking, but that’s a cop-out. You’d just be defining his objective as being the opposite of Ricky’s objective, which is to get his big brother home so their Ma will stop worrying.

Ricky’s worried too, and for much clearer reasons.

Honestly, I felt like what I was getting was a formulaic criticism. Like instead of really reading it and understanding it, the prof just ran down a checklist in his head until he found something to say about it and then harped on that.

But I could be wrong.

I have been feeling like that about a lot of my profs – that they don’t really know what they are doing. And that would be understandable – none of them are professional educators. But feeling like I know more than those purporting to teach me is kind of a big issue with me. It’s something that has been with me ever since my first day of school.

And the thing is, the problem could be me. I think that “obvious intelligence” thing unnerves teachers and professors. They may feel, on some level, like they have to defend themselves from me. And that might end up leading to a sort of power struggle between them and me as they try to retain their superior status.

The fact that I don’t acknowledge said power struggle could be interpreted as not considering them a credible threat.

On the third hand (you should see my shirts) it could just be that I am feeling irritable because of tension and that is expressing itself via my argumentative nature. Comments that normally I would simply ignore as irrelevant now rankle me so much that I feel like I have to argue my case.

And you know what? I just plain should not do that. When I argue with people, people get hurt. Usually them. When it comes to argument, I have enormous strength and skill and that means I can’t play by the same set of rules as everyone else. I can’t participate in verbal struggle the way most people do. If I try, I end up with arguing with rooms full of people and, more importantly, I come across like a smug asshole who argues for fun and loves to prove he’s smarter than everybody else by verbally twisting their arm behind their back until they say uncle.

And that is mostly not true.

So if I want to go to the next level on this thing (and I always do), I am going to have to look at things from the professor’s point of view a little more. And work with them to make this education thing work for both of us.

I’m not looking to hurt anybody. I don’t want to make anyone look bad. But a twitch from me can do more damage than an average person’s hardest punch. Having your argument destroyed by someone of superior intellect must be extremely painful and humiliating. No amount of being “right” can justify that.

So I dunno. Maybe becoming disillusioned with my profs is inevitable for me because I want so badly for them to be the genuine authority figure I have craved for so long that I build them up in my head well past the point any mere mortal could possibly live up to.

And so, the quest continues.

I argued with Jackie, the Sketch prof, too. And shes totally an expert. She’s worked in skitcom for 20 years, on and off, and written for tons of TV shows and other projects. If she says something would be better with X change, I really should believe her, or at least not argue with her about it.

I don’t want to slip back into being the obnoxious person I was sometimes when I was in my early twenties. That side of me is not to be reinforced. I am very grateful to the various people who gave me the medically necessary doses of ass kicking I needed in order to get over myself and realize the damage I could do if I did not control myself.

It’s possible that I over-learned that lesson to the point where I lacked assertiveness. But better that than using my mental muscles to push people around. Unchecked, I could have become a real self-satisfied prick on a level that would make Dennis Miller look like Forrest Gump.

And there will always be a part of me that wants to say “fuck it” and let loose anyway. Force the world to deal with the real me, with the safeties off and the reactor shielding down. That’s the nature of the id, I suppose. The superego can restrain it, but it can’t actually keep it from wanting things. And the longer it is restrained, the stronger it gets.

So what I really need is a way to let that side of me out to play in a non-destructive way. I suppose I could become a message board troll. Not in the sense of setting out to hurt people – I could never do that, I’m too sensitive and responsible.

But in the sense of being that to kick ass while chewing bubble gum. Take on all the twits and destroy their evil beliefs. Give them the verbal thrashing that they might deserve.

At least in that arena, people are there (in a sense) to argue. Sharing and airing one’s opinions in a public forum is inviting critique. That’s how the interchange of ideas works.

I would still be obnoxious. Just…. in a more approved way.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.