Short version: it sucks.

I have confirmation on this.

My therapist has a friend in the industry and that friend told him, completely unprompted, that nobody in the business has any respect for a degree from VFS.

And you know what? I am not surprised. Not in the slightest. Because the education I got there was pathetic. Practically worthless.

Why? Because the leadership sucked.

I am talking about you, Michael Baser. I wasn’t surprised when you agreed to head a totally different faculty while still heading the Writing faculty.

Ya know why? Because you do jack shit at Writing, so how big a deal of it to do jack shit for two? Why not three, or ten, or all of them?

You know there is a serious lack of leadership at an educational institution when the teachers can get away with not bothering to do ANY grading until the students are on break between terms?

I mean, what kind of bullshit fucking system is that?

And I get it, Mike. I really do. Like a lot of creative types, you don’t like being the authority figure who tells people they have to do things and pushes them to try hard or really does anything at all to safeguard the quality of the education the kids get.

And besides, all that really matters is that the kids get the certificate with their name and VFS on it at the end, so why try hard at all?

I mean, a VFS education will always open tons of doors for people so why should you bother to do such hard and non-fun things as take an active interest in students,  worry whether some of them were falling through the cracks, making allowances for those struggling with mental illness, and especially not talking to students who are definitely not getting recommendations from any teacher if that student is sort of scary and gross.

That’s why I only found out about the contempt in which they all held me on my second last day of classes, when it was far far too late to do anything about it. Sure, they could have told me when I first did things that bugged them, but that would have taken effort and concentration and actual commitment to the welfare and education of students even when they are not excellent sheep like the rest of the students and dare to have an actual personality.

And now you’re just talking crazy! I mean, what kind of lunatic would bother to help someone if it was, like, hard?

And hey, we’re basically in the business of selling worthless pieces of paper for $20,000 a pop, and why would yuou want to ruin a sweet racket like that with something as crude and unpleasant as real effort?

That’s why are the teachers are so slack. They made it very clear that their goal was to make it through the class with as little effort as possible and then leave and completely forget about us until the next one.

And they had enormous help with the sweetest scam since group therapy : peer review! It’s like magic because it makes the kids do most of the work. They write the things. They review each other’s work. You can also review their work if you’re one of lunatics that does that kind of thing, but you don’t have to. Nobody is going to make you.

But even if you decide to go that route, you will only be doing as much work as your students do.  That seems fair, right?

Why should you work harder than they do? That would be almost like working for a living. And fuck THAT, am I right?

And here’s the best part : you don’t even have to put a grade on it. Sure, that would give student a concrete way of measuring whether they are getting any better at writing, but grades are all gross and mathy and stuff, so why bother?

It’s perfectly fine that all our students know is that no matter how hard they try, everyone is going to find fault with their work anyway because that is what they are supposed to do. Maybe it’s getting better, maybe it’s getting worse. Who knows?

And more importantly, who cares?

And it’s all because of you, Mike Baser. The rot starts at the top. All the teachers that work for you are confused and uncertain and demoralized because you do not give them any leadership at all. Many of them are very worried about what kind of education the kids are getting but none of them want to say anything about it.

And you know why? It’s because everybody likes you. After all, you’re a great guy. Funny, nice, warm, and easy to get along with. What’s not to like?

And because people like you, they do not want to say anything to upset you. They might talk amongst themselves about the problems they see, but even then, they will almost never directly criticize you because they know that everyone likes you and that therefore the slightest criticism will draw the wrath of all your other adherents.

Plus, according to what I have overheard, you are not above (in fact, significantly below) punishing people for daring to criticize you or complain at all by other means. Like firing them, for instance. And not even firing them to their face, because of course, that would mean doing somethung unfun and difficult so why bother?

No, tbhey would only find out they were fired when they went to get their paycheck and there wasn’t one. Or they would be told by another teacher. Or their contract would not be renewed and no explanation would be given.

You’re a two-faced coward, Michael Baser, and you are terrible at your job. If the industry no longer values a degree from VFS, it’s because people like you have let everything go all to hell while maintaining your happy little bubble where you are the fun uncle of all these kids when you should also be their disciplinary parent.

So buck the fuck up, Uncle Buck, and do your goddamned job.

Because remember, you teach writers, and writers have the power to hurt you with their words when they realize how badly they got screwed.

And some of them, like myself. are not the excellent sheep that you are used to fleecing for $20K a pop, four times a year.

Some of us are wolves.

And we’re getting really fucking hungry.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

But not like this.

Damn I am funny.

But no, what I am going to talk about tonight is the struggle I am having between the sweet and gentle person I am (most of the time) and the flaming raging arsehole that my id wants me to be.

Turns out,. this whole integrating you id into your psyche after ignoring and suppressing it for most of your life is kind of…. tricky.

Because the bad stuff I have been thinking lately really, really wants to come out. And it flares up at the slightest annoyance. I feel besieged by my own hair-trigger sarcasm and biting back those words is a daily struggle.

Of course, my wants me to give in and let it run loose. That’s what the id always wants in one form or another.

If my id had its way. I would tturn into an angry dragon that roars and breathes fire until all know and fear my name and nobody is ever going to ignore, step on, or deny my reality ever again unless they want to risk my sick burns.

And you know the form my fire would take. Words. Oh so many words. The urge to use the enormous power of my words is strong and getting stronger. Words are my weapon, my shield, and my nuclear arsena. I have felt their power for a long time, in an abstract way. Same with my enormous intelligence. I felt its power too.

But without a healthy id, all the power did was scare the daylights out of me. It made me far too worried that my slightest move could hurt someone, and there was no way I was even vaguely ready to take on the weight of responsibility such power implies.

Perhaps if I were a more irresponsible, that would not be such a deal. WIthout my deep and precise belief that power and responsibility are always exactly equal, I would be freer to throw my mental weight around for my own advantage or even just for my own amusement, or just to see if I can do it.

But the degree to which power and responsibilty are equal is my definition of justice, and therefore I cannot tolerate any discrepency within myself.

That dog don’t hunt.

However, it is possible that when it comes down to the fine details, I am too harsh on myself,. and imagine small insensitivies as massive crimes and give other people way too little credit for being able to handle less than perfect behaviour on my part.

I mean, I have very high moral standards but I am a human being, not an angel, and I should give myself the exact same kind of kindness, forgiveness, and understanding that I give to everybody else.

I’m working on it.

Back to that angry dragon. It’s a product of decades of deep, deep imbalance in my psyche. The id is there for a reason. It is not optional, despite what the ego thinks. There is no such thing as the ego flying free of the id into some kind of falsely dichotomous state where the mind is “pure energy”, whatever the fuck THAT means.

Might as well be talking about “pure mass”. The mass of what?

Because this imbalance has been so profound for so long,. correcting it means letting the pendulum freely swing the other way and back until it runs out of energy and comes to rest in the moderate middle.

Otherwise known as “sanity”.

So it’s going to be a bumpy trip, to put it mildly. I am only connecting now with emotions most people learn to deal with their teens. Rage. Lust. Ambition. Desire.

You know. all the really fun stuff that they love to put on movie posters and the covers of potboiler romance novels.

Dealing with this stuff is like getting the German Measles – the older you are, the worse it’s going to be.

It’s clear to me now that if nature had taken its course, I would have “blossomed” into a rude, angry, sarcastic teen (in other words, a teen) and that would have led me to a lot of butting heads with authority – especially as school – and generally being that raging flaming arsehole I mentioned earlier until I had vented enough and matured enough to calm the fuck down and get a grip on myself.

And wow, would I have been obnoxious. Way more then the usual teen, because the usual teen is restrained by social worries. lack of confidence, and the limits of their budding intellects and verbal skills.

I have no such limits. I have total intellectual confidence at all times – that comes from always being the smartest person in the room starting in Grade One.

I have always been willing to make a big scene if it suits me.

Deep down, I don’t give a fuck what people think of me. I have always been ferociously myself no matter what, and that has always trumped any concerns I might have had about beng popular and fitting in.

Ironically. that might have made me pretty popular if it came with the confidence and a certain degree of calculated aggression.

Oh, and we can’t forget my deep level of psychological insight, because that’s what would make my sarcasm really hurt.

I can see people’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I can see everything. It takes no effort. It’s as basic to how I see the world as my sense of sight.

Being a very nice and very sensitive person, I do not exploit this knowledge for personal gain and I would never use it to hurt someone except in self-defense,and that would have to be a pretty desperate situation for me to feel it is justified.

I’ve done it accidentally or in reaction before, and the guilt is… indecribable.

But without crippling neurosis. I might have taken that bad path I feel I narrowly avoided because some people were nice enough to explain things to me.

I might have become that obnoxious, manipulative, arrogant, self-centered asshole who loves nothing more than proving how much smarter than everyone else he is by taking whatever the fuck strikes his fancy and leaving people without a single way to object because they are simply not articulate enough to describe what I did to them.

I hate that version of me. But he will always be there in potentia. My id integration (idtegration?) has woken him up like never before.

And it’s up to me to make sure that other, better versions of myself win out.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.