When I was fifteen I painted geometric watercolors. My art teacher said they reminded him of Kandinsky. That spring we were at MOMA and I saw my first Kandinsky pieces. No resemblance to my work, but my teacher went out of his way to give me something to relate to. A bit of your drive and success is attributable to your teachers. Congratulations and I enjoy Pens and Poisons
I would never advise someone to major in English unless I knew where they were studying it—and even then I would have my doubts. The major is not what it once was—as Wordsworth said, those days are gone, and all their dizzying raptures. One could still spend a lifetime reading and thinking about great books without the price tag or being asked / forced to read dreck.
Thank you for sharing that. It was rather inspiring!
My own experience has some points of analogy with yours, as well as many differences (different millennium, different field, different life plan). When I went to college, I majored in mathematics because it is beautiful and physics because the universe is mysterious. I did not go to college to prepare for a career; I went to college to study the things I loved most, damn the torpedoes and devil take the hindmost. (Well, I love poetry as much as the other subjects, and it was a close thing which would win out; in the end, I believed I could study poetry on my own, and so I did.)
There are in my experience, two classes of people who treat education this way: children of privilege and children of poverty. If your place in society and the economy is assured, you can study what you will; if nearly anything would be an improvement over your starting point, you can also study what you will. I was in the latter camp, and it has its benefits: although a teacher's salary is not satisfactory to many people, I still (after many years) feel rich. My roof doesn't leak; I have indoor plumbing; I do not have to get up early and milk cows, or till a garden until my back aches, or wade through a swamp, covered in charcoal and sawdust, cutting wood for a living, all of which my father had to do, and I worked along with him. Yes, rich. And I get to think, talk, and write about beautiful and mysterious things, because I studied what I truly wanted to study.
When I was fifteen I painted geometric watercolors. My art teacher said they reminded him of Kandinsky. That spring we were at MOMA and I saw my first Kandinsky pieces. No resemblance to my work, but my teacher went out of his way to give me something to relate to. A bit of your drive and success is attributable to your teachers. Congratulations and I enjoy Pens and Poisons
I would never advise someone to major in English unless I knew where they were studying it—and even then I would have my doubts. The major is not what it once was—as Wordsworth said, those days are gone, and all their dizzying raptures. One could still spend a lifetime reading and thinking about great books without the price tag or being asked / forced to read dreck.
Thank you for sharing that. It was rather inspiring!
My own experience has some points of analogy with yours, as well as many differences (different millennium, different field, different life plan). When I went to college, I majored in mathematics because it is beautiful and physics because the universe is mysterious. I did not go to college to prepare for a career; I went to college to study the things I loved most, damn the torpedoes and devil take the hindmost. (Well, I love poetry as much as the other subjects, and it was a close thing which would win out; in the end, I believed I could study poetry on my own, and so I did.)
There are in my experience, two classes of people who treat education this way: children of privilege and children of poverty. If your place in society and the economy is assured, you can study what you will; if nearly anything would be an improvement over your starting point, you can also study what you will. I was in the latter camp, and it has its benefits: although a teacher's salary is not satisfactory to many people, I still (after many years) feel rich. My roof doesn't leak; I have indoor plumbing; I do not have to get up early and milk cows, or till a garden until my back aches, or wade through a swamp, covered in charcoal and sawdust, cutting wood for a living, all of which my father had to do, and I worked along with him. Yes, rich. And I get to think, talk, and write about beautiful and mysterious things, because I studied what I truly wanted to study.
So did you. Hats off.