metanoia's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Moldy Bread I. Must. Update. I feel the need to write about lots of things, until the time comes to actually sit down and write it. To actually sit down and put it into words... Words are so limiting, which is good in a way, I suppose. They help to define and focus on 'the point' whatever one's point might be... If my life were a movie, how would it play in Beeville, Texas? The romance, the danger, the drama and suspense! You'll laugh, you'll cry...Now playing! Limited engagement! One of those hot, still, dusty, dry Thursday afternoons in Beeville, Texas I am playing a matinee - is there anyone in the theatre? Are the ushers so bored with the story, they don't even bother with a 'free' look? My life is playing out to no one, my theater is empty and quiet and dark and cool. Escape the heat! "It's COOL inside!" Still, no takers and the film plays on, for now. Funny story. A few million frames ago, when I went to college (for that brief nanosecond - I should probably address that in another entry) one of my classes was biology. It was early 1971 and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was one of the books for the course. The course had a definite environmental spin on it, which was not a mainstream topic back then... One day, in Biology Lab (a class of about 40) the instructor was talking about preservatives and their effect on our bodies and our world. After a lengthy lecture on the evils of preservatives, he posed the question to the class, "Knowing what you now know, which bread would you eat - this bread (holds up pristine white bread w/preservatives), or this bread (holds up wheat bread w/o preservatives with a few spots of mold on it)?" He then makes a classic error and presents the question to a girl, I don't remember her name, who was a little smarter than the rest of us and a little more candid. I'll call her Shaniqua. "Shaniqua? Which bread would you rather eat?" He looks at her smugly as though he already knows what she will pick because of course he has been preaching the evils of preservatives for over an hour and this will conclude the lecture and cement the point he has so laboriously, painstakinly made and Shaniqua picks >>>>> THE WHITE BREAD! The class was silent (oh, fuck, wasn't she listening?), the professor stunned (I can still see him frozen clutching bread in each hand with a puzzled, defeated look on his face - hahaha). Shaniqua sat calmly amidst the palpable, uncomfortable silence, as though totally unaware or rather unaffected by any other persons opinion. He could have asked any of us other students, we would all have played along and picked the wheat bread, class over, thank you very much, read all about the evils of preservatives, see you next Thursday. But he picked Shaniqua and I don't know if she taught anyone else a lesson, but I know I learned something that day. The professor stood, bread in each sweaty little hand, took a deep breath and said, "We have just discussed all the nutritional value of each bread and the detrimental effects of preservatives on the human system (etc. yada, yada, yada). Why did you choose the white bread?" And Shaniqua said, "Because I ain't gonna eat no old moldy bread." The class just broke up - pandemonium! The professor just said, "Thank you, read all about the evils of preservatives, see you all next Thursday." And we filed out. I left with the knowledge that if he had asked me, I would have parroted what the prof had been preaching. I would have had the 'good' student answer. I would have gone for the gold star that day. But Shaniqua answered honestly, from her personal truth, and I think we all laughed because, really, we wouldn't want to eat no old moldy bread, either. I left that class wanting to be more like Shaniqua, and less like good little metanoia who always had the right answers for the teacher, but not necessarily answers that reflected my personal truth. Shaniqua had it all over the rest of us that day. I don't know if anybody else did, but I learned something that day that had nothing to do with preservatives and everything to do with individual thought. And, come on, I don't know ANYBODY who would rather eat old, moldy bread. 9:10 a.m. - 2004-09-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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