Carpenter 1

Zayne Carpenter

Mrs. Cramer

College Comp Pd. 1

1 October 2021

Literature and Expression

As someone who has always been known as the math guy, you can imagine the look of

shock which overcame my counselor’s face when I told him I wanted to be an English teacher. I

have valid justifications. The first is that teaching the same math lesson to disinterested students

over and over would likely devolve into a cycle of monotony that would drive me insane within

fifteen years, which is unsustainable. The second is that my mathematical literacy came to me

naturally, not out of interest; I don’t remember a time where I had to work for it.

The final justification is probably the most important. To put it bluntly: if I stopped

writing, I would probably be thrown into the looney bin.

Notice how I didn’t say I would go insane. I think that I’m already too far gone to be

restrained by the chains of sanity. My mind is an incessant creator. No matter where I’m at or

what I’m doing, my brain is always droning an internal dialogue. It’s a television that’s always

turned on, and the remote is broken, and it randomly switches channels, and it’s stuck on the

loudest volume setting, and it’s an old tube television that constantly makes the high-pitched

hum, and the room is just dark enough for the light from the television to strain your eyes. The

watcher dries and decays from the strain of the light but there is no force in the world that can

make them look away. Their morbid curiosity holds them chained to their own suffering, victim
 Carpenter 2

to the pain yet addicted to the idle sting, addicted to the everlasting content that proves itself

ephemeral the moment they avert their eyes, addicted to the way is permeates their skull and

slowly becomes the soul occupant of their mind as they give in to the merciless, white haze.

In only a few short paragraphs I’m sure I’ve convinced you that my machinations are far

from that of a sane man. However, Van Gogh was also far from a sane man.

I don’t think that I am too far removed from my peers. I firmly believe that everyone

desires an avenue to express themselves, even if they aren’t aware of it. I look to the people of

my generation and see a group of individuals who lack an ability to express themselves. I see

people who live with the unrelenting pressure of a television parading in their heads unchecked. I

see people drown themselves in work, social media, video games, or alcoholism. I watch these

people slowly go insane.

I want to teach because I want to help people. Teachers are more than textbook

regurgitators or slave drivers or people who are forced to grade your papers when you submit all

of them at the same time three weeks late. A great teacher can inspire the students to express

themselves through their writings, no matter how insignificant the student has convinced

themselves they are. Writing can help us understand why we are still alive, and that is far more

important to me than calculus.