CONTEMPT

EARLY BIRD

(some ear words – er sound)

 

Have you heard of the snirl who yearned to learn

At a time when there wasn’t a college?

It set out in earnest to search the earth

For a book that contained all knowledge.

It ate every book it came across,

But none answered all of its questions,

Not even the question that bothered it most—

How do you treat indigestion?

I wrote this rhyme for my The Adventure’s of Jix story collection—and it only occurs to me now that perhaps I chose to treat the pursuit of knowledge with such levity because, in my own life, it was fraught with anxiety.

There was a moment, sometime in my elementary school years, when I realized that my father wasn’t a nice man. We were in a restaurant; I no longer remember where or what was said—just that my father treated the inexperienced waitress with scorn. I saw, in their interaction, a man who looked down on the rest of the world with disdain. And it wasn’t only other people’s ignorance he was contemptuous of, I began to see, but he was critical of what he deemed their weaknesses and failings, having no sense whatever of his own faults and limitations. He didn’t seem to suffer from the insecurities that bedevil many of the rest of us, as I’ve said, and was completely indifferent to what other people thought of him.

What I learned from my father from infancy on was that intellect and knowledge were the measure of a man—or woman. Period. Other qualities didn’t seem to factor into his assessment of people at all. He was also impressed by the trappings of intellect, like degrees, awards, prizes, and relevant numbers such as I.Q.

It wasn’t until I was thirty and living with two graphic artists that it became real to me for the first time that there were other criteria I might measure myself by. They were so creative—to me, such stimulating company—that I finally understood that my creativity had value too. But that was many years in the future, and, growing up, I used the criteria I was handed. Of course, I knew it was important to be a good person as well, but that didn’t make me interesting or my opinions worthy of respect. Consequently, through all my years of schooling, even after the move to California, I would channel all my energies into achieving academically—in order never to sink beneath my father’s contempt.

Perhaps I should also mention here that though I thought of my mother as the nicer of my parents, there were a few things she said and did during these years that foreshadowed what was to come. One: I loved to sing, but whenever I did, she would effuse about her sister Dory’s beautiful voice, making me feel like mine didn’t compare. Another: She told me that children couldn’t love—that they were too self-centered. So throughout my elementary-school years, I wanted to grow up as fast as I could so I would be able to love. I felt that as long as I couldn’t, I was only a fraction of a person, and I longed to be an adult so I could feel whole.