|
|
Bryan Zarathustran was a solitary child, a lonely boy, and a companionless youth. He wasn’t socially inept, and not completely indifferent, but he was introverted and skittish. He wasn’t the best with first impressions, and all of his extroverted endeavours resulted in a direct contradiction of his introverted self. He was awkward to approach and was originally quite shy and innocent when he entered the public high school in grade nine. Half-way through grade 10, he found himself cynical and bitter, a withdrawn and sarcastic social outcast. He hated this sullen self of his almost as much as he hated his classmates. They were all so very superficial and tightly knit. He had no clue as to how he could penetrate their social circle, and so he decided that he didn’t want or need to. He saw no place for himself in this high school’s social equation.
By the end of tenth grade, Bryan grew weary of his lack of social activity. He was sick of this concept of solitary self that he maintained so absorbedly. He was tired of playing the lone wolf. He went through the identity crisis that was typical for people like himself. He crumpled up his own unique sense of style and threw it in the trash, only to pick it back up half a year later. Upon finding it, he wept pathetically and smoothed out the tattered edges of this wrinkled self. He had always been a nonconformist, refusing to be corrupted by the youth of today with their materialistic nonsense. Here he was, a smothered radical with a name brand sewn across his chest. He burned the overpriced clothing, the capitalist’s idea of fashion, and washed the smell of mothballs out of his thrift store clothes. They had sat idly by for too long, dormant and without voice like the sheep he himself had become.
Bryan changed schools in grade eleven and was bussed to a nearby town to attend a Catholic high school. It was a small and somewhat friendly place where he was not completely accepted, but tolerated. Mostly, he was relieved that the student body was so small, and not so strong willed. Just the same, they were a tightly knit group, but instead of being gawked at, he was simply ignored. He blended in perfectly with his dull metal locker; now only half as cold and twice as strong.
Bryan’s life was never very simple. He fought his way through most of his high school years to make a name for himself that he could proudly utter. By grade twelve, his vision of self was stable and constant. His classmates eventually shook off his superficial qualities and saw who he was as a person. Unfortunately, who he was even more unsettling for them. He was a genius boy, very clever but too stubborn to go anywhere in life. He could never swallow his pride and fall in with the pack on any subject. He stuck out like a sore thumbs-up.
He was a terrible student, and most of his teachers hated him for his lack of discipline. He refused to accept their superiority or their authority over him. If he hated an assignment, he didn’t do it. If he disliked a teacher‘s teaching style, he would most likely fail the course. He was not an overly unreasonable person and his expectations were not exceedingly great. All he wanted was an assignment that he could be passionate about, that he could care about. He hated bull-shitting his way through assignments that didn’t matter to him. He didn’t mind being taught, and loved to learn, but he hated how everything was shoved onto his plate. He wanted free choice.
Bryan had a somewhat vain concept of modesty. He was very philosophical, and admitted that there was much he was uncertain of. He accepted that he still had a lot to learn. One thing he could not accept was that others couldn’t understand this concept. He wanted to deflate all the swollen egos of his classmates. He wanted them to see themselves for what they were. He wanted them to care about things the way he cared. He knew he couldn’t change them all, and soon he realized he couldn’t change any of them. He was isolated up there on his high horse where the meaning of life was more than just a myth.
When he graduated, he left the school without looking back. He went into the working world and got slapped across the face fifty times before he learned his lesson. He learned what the word 'boss' truly meant and learned the guilty value of hard-earned but wasted money. He got used to being ordered around by people who were less intelligent but much more practical than him. He learned to quiet his eccentricities, and hide his true self. He knew exactly who he was but his identity was a secret for only the privileged few. He was again corrupted, but not so entirely. He was ashamed of his skill in feigning simplicity and shallowness, but he was not limited to it.
Entering University he found friends that he could truly relate to and eventually had a circle of friends that he could have philosophical discussions with. He had some professors that really appreciated his work and gave him enough room to use the talent he had. There were some professors he encountered that tried to control him, but instead of shouting out his rebellion, he fought a quiet revolution in his personal writing. He wrote what he was told to write sardonically, and accepted failure when it was handed to him. He handed in every assignment he was given, but wrote with only a little sense of compromise because his was a story he was writing for himself. He didn’t write his story for his teachers or peers, family or friends. He wrote his story for himself about his self, with nothing to hide. He was ruthless in his resistance.