This guy don't fuck around.I've always had a fascination with old, wise hermits. I remember seeing the Karate Kid when I was little and imagining what it would be like to have a little Mr. Miagi of my own. I wanted a little guy to teach me the ways of life through impractical painting methods. Sometime after that, I found out about kung fu movies and the Shaolin Monks. I couldn't figure out how the steady consumption of rice with splashes of other flavors could build a body that could glide through air and break stones. I'm eight years old, wishing I was bald, malnurished, and celibate. In retrospect, I feel like that says a lot about me.
Lucky for me, I'm asian. I grew up around a bunch of tiny, bald men with funny accents and I can honestly say that I have yet to meet my Miagi. Most of the time, my encounters with these would-be senseis were dull. I was never enlightened on how to do anything extraordinary. There were no two-finger push-ups or magical healing palms. Nobody spoke like fortune cookies. For the most part, my uncles were drinking Heinekens and singing karaoke while my aunts bombarded me with pinchers for my chubby, adolescent cheeks. (There is nothing like a Vietnamese party, except maybe Hell. That is, if they served good food in Hell.)
So, I grew into my teens with an unsatisfied need for my own personal Confucius. Yet, I still had hope. With years of sitcoms and T.G.I.F. under my belt, I could recall one of the most influential persons in the history of fiction: George Feeney. The Feenster. Feeneroni. Mr. Feeney Weeney Bo-Beeney. Fuck Miagi --- Feeney didn't need crazy eastern magic or fancy moves. He accurately quoted any historical figure without hesitation, taught grade levels 6-12 as well as college, ran John Adams Senior High School pretty much by himself, and he still had time to keep an immaculate garden in his backyard. Plus, I'm pretty sure he's fucking Batman. Regardless, I had Feeney on my mind as I walked into high school. I was going to find that one teacher that would change my life.
The reality of High School is much different than sitcoms suggest. It's not like movies where people fall into their niches and life plays out like a screenplay. For the most part, high school just sort of happens. You make a good amount of friends, you meet a good amount of people, and you do a lot of stupid shit, but when it comes down to it, it's sort of uneventful. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of events, but most of the effects of said events wear off by your junior year of college. (If they haven't, then you are living a sad life of reminiscing about "the glory days" of high school. Wikipedia Al Bundy for references.) Worse off, most of the really good teachers have been teaching for a while. They have 6 periods to teach every day, and each class has over 30 kids in it. Multiply that by however many years they have taught and the number you get = NOT FEENEY. No teacher really cares about their students like no doctor really cares about their patients. For the time being, they are doing their job and hopefully doing it well. But they can't form too close of a bond because once you leave it's a bunch of new faces. My version of Feeney, I am sad to say, was a bust.
After so much disappointment, would college turn out to be the meeting grounds for my Wise Man? I thought of possibilities. "Think of college movies. Hm. Animal House? Beer, boobs, evil deans. Van Wilder? Beer, boobs, evil deans. Old School? Beer, boobs, evil deans." I couldn't think of one movie where someone of substance was anywhere near campus. But fuck it, my search could wait while the next 4 years were spent drinking beer, looking at boobs, and hating evil deans.
So I'm at the end. I've finished college and now I'm a grown ass man. I did not find out my path to becoming a better human being from anybody. Instead, I learned from my own mistakes and figured out some of life's shit for myself. I wrote all my own fortune cookies, if you will. I've come to realize that no one is going to figure things out for me --- I'm going to have to figure most of it out on my own. And then, when I'm old and bald, I'll stroke my extra long beard and tell everyone everything I know. And hopefully by then, I'll at least have something good to say.
Well written. It seemed like all along you were searching for a guidance figure in the male form to show you the 'easy path of life'. Unfortunately, most of us have realized that we are going to have to struggle, run through obstacles, empty our bank accounts, go through break-ups, and still be required to wake up in the morning and go to work. Keep writing.
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