See how easy it is to post and make me write back? I’m so inspired by people actually reading this that I can barely hold back my furor.Well, not quite. I’m in college, and that breaks even the most creative person’s spirit down into bureaucratically overtaxed chunks of exasperation and guilt. Or maybe that’s the Catholic Church. <rimshot> Or not. In any case, that whole ‘classwork’ thing combined with the exasperation (at the least) from the administrative morass that is college is just too much for even the staunchest of creative minds to really, truly, withstand. They (I) can try, but the forces against it (me) are so great and unrelenting that eventually they’ll (I’ll) slip and it will be for good.Example:I was allowed to register for classes today, seeing as to how I’m a third year student. No one told me when any of that was supposed to happen. At all. Or even what I was supposed to do. Maybe that’s my fault as I’ve not talked to a single advisor about scheduling, my degree, or courses to take. I don’t even know what I need to do to declare that I’d want to take a minor in philosophy. I’ll readily admit that I’ve not tried to find out. But I shouldn’t have to search out something as basic as “when do I sign up for classes?” Really. They do everything over email. Why can’t I get a nice little automatic reminder that I can register.</rant #1>Whatever the problem is, I wasn’t even told where to go find the information. The orientation process didn’t cover any of this. I think it’s just assumed that because I’m a student from somewhere else, all colleges work the same way and I just know how to do things. I think that’s a bad assumption. I’m not the only one, I’m guessing.This sort of sould draining, hopeless, crushing environment is almost good for creativity. Many artists (of all kinds, including writers and preformers, as well as visual artists) feed on the negative emotions they have or had. Great works of art often have wide-ranging hoplessness and defeatism depicted in them. Very rarely is the art contemporary with the feelings. The crushing hopelessness breeds not great art, but mediocrity, grey personality, and true, nearly suiicdal, defeatism. After the light emerges from shadow, the world is no longer so bleak and colorless; only then is the art created. It is a catharsis to purge emotion so as to move on.We may be creating better artists in the future, (ostensibly the goal of the art programs) but we are destroying their artistic abilities now, when they are supposed to prove to the world they have them. This is entirely evil. But it makes for a great story, and directly attacks the rather leftist notion of school as the sanctuary of the useless (aka “culture”). Or perhaps not. Regardless, this has been a Friday Rant.And it’s even early.

Note: This entry imported via Facebook's Note feature from my old website, much is expected to be broken.