Okay, I’ve been dying to post something here, so what subject matter shall enter my head? For the past week I’ve been failing at starting an essay due for Thursday, discovering just how awesome I am at this procrastination shit. Seriously, I’m amazing at it. I should write my own book. I can take an infinite number of naps throughout the day – well, probably not infinite. There’s only so many naps you can have in 24 hours. Facebook is a distraction that is so fucking useless, yet addictive that I wish I could permanently remove myself from it, if I wasn’t such a weak pussy with no will power. And of course, now, posting useless shit here will become a new one to add to the list.

With all this reading I’ve been doing, I’ve started to come to the realisation that I’ve completely floated through University without thinking about things properly, and that I’m trying to get a degree in something I have absoloutley no passion for. Which is English Literature. I also study Media Studies which is a lot more entertaining and fun, and I’m sure if I took that straight I would be flying through school right now like a mad genius who genetically modified his genetic code to shoot lasers out of his eyes and seduce women and dolphins with the blink of an eye.

But they both contain something that I just can’t wrap my head around anymore; interpretation. It just makes no sense to me. After a gap year of trying to make little sense of a big world and how I can have some kind of place in it, I’ve filled my head with all kinds of social, philosophical and psychological bullshit and logistics, making my perception of things quite clearcut… at least in my own head. I kind of like facts, I like things to make sense but I also like figuring things out when they don’t. But all this interpretation shit? FUCK IT.

I don’t mind too much in the media context. I like the media, it’s logical from a business perspective. Everything is designed with an audience/market in mind and everything is there for a reason such as the design and content in a magazine. Directors in movies attempt to manipulate the audiences with camera angles, symbolism and it’s all groovy because it’s easy to arouse emotion and responses in this way, through visuals, music, etc. It’s fun!
But English Literature? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m ’studying’ this shit. Well, I rarely study as alcohol is much more fun, but I’m talking about the rare points in time when I try. What is all this interpretation bullshit? Now I’m thinking about it more and more, I can’t see any sense in looking at words scribed by a deceased writer, trying to find some cryptic or political meaning in them when for all we know, the dude just wanted to write a fucking poem for some chick that he didn’t have the balls to talk to!

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Of course, there’s the writers who are still alive, in which case why don’t we just track the bastard down and interrogate the fucker under a spotlight and get him to settle once and for all what his intentions were behind all those letters and words? There, no need for that text to be in an English Literature course ever again, because all further interpretation and guestimations are officially BULLSHIT.
Perhaps the writer wants people to delve into the deep and rich meaning behind his writing to find some kind of deep and rich meaning? In which case, I wouldn’t hesitate to say such authors are pretentious idiots who are getting ahead of themselves. If you have something to say, I see no reason why some people can’t grow the balls to just SAY IT. Get a diary, fool. Why dress up your personal feelings behind all these irrelevant events and magic, adding strange metaphors in the hopes that someone will buy, read and decode the text? As if it’s some kind of modern day version of an Egyptian Hyroglyphic, except a lot longer, less pretty, interesting, and, oh look, it’s the cure for insomnia all of a sudden.

The other day I had a bit of an epiphany when I was telling some friends I have no idea how to approach English Literature. I explained to them that it’s stupid and involves blowing things way out of proportion and how most people studying it will take something simple such as:
“The young man crossed the road.”
And transform it into some cool allegory. There’s no chance in hell the guy wanted to cross the road, that’s just stupid. Fuck narrative progression or any sense of logical plot; no, this kid crossing the road REALLY MEANS that he was leaving behind his childhood and stepping into adulthood.
As I said this to my friends, I realised that despite how fucking stupid that shit was, this was English Literature. This is the weapon I had not equipped myself for far too long; I wasn’t taking shit and exaggerating it as much as I could! Of course!! For far too long I was taking things literally (in literature. huh) and at face value. A dog was a dog. A Church was a Church. A woman was a woman. When REALLY the dog was a representation of man’s manmade war on anything that isn’t man and bending it to his will. The Church wasn’t a Church, it was a symbol of consumerism and that fried chicken is what Jesus actually died for, when you think about it. What the woman REALLY is – when you think about it with your scientific brain of facts and data – is a type of fleshy robot socially contructed by the male species to do our bidding and spells the abundance of discrimination even within our own homes and families.

I MEAN HOLY CRAP. THIS IS WHAT I’M STUDYING.
I’m ‘learning’ how to make a mountain out of a molehill. Shakespeare is probably rolling around in his grave, thinking “dude, Hamlet was just tripping out on crack the whole time, chill the fuck out, shit happens.”

I sit in lectures and watch old men sit in front of hundreds of students, reading notes of a piece of paper he read the year before about how many meanings the word “uncanny” has. “The uncanny is the unexpected. The uncanny as explained by Ralph Nobodygivesashit describes the uncanny as strange. Someone once said he was hungry and wanted ‘a candy’ but it sounded a lot like ‘uncanny,’ so the uncanny can be related to a sugary treat.” Are you fucking serious. You’re getting paid for this. With money. REAL MONEY. Not Monopoly money which is also too good for you. REAL MONEY WHICH BUYS REAL THINGS. LIKE A FUCKING DICTIONARY SO YOU CAN LOOK UP WHAT THE FUCKING “UNCANNY” IS.

I sit in seminars and stare blankly at my classmates who read the same book as me and got a completely different meaning alltogether out of it. I read a book about a very boring butler who does very boring things in a very boring way. As a narrator, he is very boring and my perception of him is very boring. My classmates unearth that the butler is actually the descendant of Hercules, but is working as a butler to hide his indentity until he can pass on his genes for another century before the new heir to Olympus will rise once again to take his place as King of the Gods and restore Greece to its former glory… OR SO THE PROPHECY SAYS…
He will have very good table manners and etiquette. He will shoot silverware from his sleeves.
He will be named Forkulese.