originally written 2014
I’ve always felt a sense of at least two selves. Growing up, I was instructed to be the good boy. I self-consciously conformed to what others expected me to be. But there was also another self. A deeper, not fully conscious, more comfortable, yet somewhat dangerous self – my inner self.
I’ve always had a perverse inclination to seek out the unknown, and to experiment. One of my earliest childhood memories, reinforced by the anecdotes of my parents, was of a child of three or four reaching for the door to the outside, opening it, and breaking free of the confines of home to explore the great unknown. I did not get far, but I did get out.
I’ve always had the need to reach, to get out. But not all doors are so easily opened, and the social gatekeepers are always close behind. Those moments of getting out, of exploring, were the most educative and exciting times of my youth – they were also taboo, and strictly prohibited.
I had many friends growing up. My close friends were not church going folk. If they were, they were not outwardly pious or domineering about their faith. I spent as much time as I could outside my own home. Visiting the houses of my friends, I encountered the unknown, the explicitly taboo, the dangerous – the devil.
I reveled in everything that I was forbidden at home. I listened to popular music, songs about sex, drugs, and violence. I read risky literature: Mad Magazine, fantasy novels, and science fiction. I gaped at pornography. I watched television, including the newly invented evils of MTV and HBO. I hung out with girls, flirted, and played not so innocent games of physical exploration. I talked about sex and other naughty things. I used profanities and scatological humor. I snuck into unlocked liquor cabinets, wondered at the strangeness of condoms, and choked on the bittersweet smoke of a stolen cigarette.
Life seemed pregnant with possibility, yet always with the hint of danger. My friends and I consciously stalked at the perimeters of morality, taboo, and legality. We tried to break our way into adulthood, which was for us prohibited, but we still tried. I learned to sneak, to hide, to skulk.
But for most of my childhood, these moments of transgression were few. I was usually stuck at home. I could not often leave the house, and when I could, it was only with permission. My parents were quite explicit that I always ask to leave my immediate neighborhood. There were always restrictions and curfews when I was allowed to roam abroad.
Most of the time I was confined to my house or my immediate neighborhood. Yet I still found ways to escape. I would activate my imagination and lock myself in fantasy worlds, either in my toy-filled room or in the open fields behind our house. Alone, I created the imaginary conditions of an impossible freedom, which were inspired by those fictional stories that animated my life. I would be the knight, the soldier, the explorer, the king, the builder, or I would just roam the fields and forests with fantastic visions of other worlds, other times, other ways of being.
But my ability to experiment and indulge in this inner self was limited. Not only did my parents police my activities, but being born in a lower-middle class family, I learned that many types of experience were beyond my grasp. Outside of fearing God, I learned to fear the lack of money and the pain, suffering, or denial that it could bring. But I never had to go without basic necessities. My parents always provided their children with more than enough to survive, and extra besides.
I was fortunate to live such a comfortable life. However, there were many luxuries that seemed like necessities to a child, as the power of peer groups and social status become more and more important at school. Yet unlike many of my other friends, these luxuries were almost always denied to me and I deeply felt the want of such things.
The experience of economic deprivation was both humbling and frustrating. I was of course frustrated in not being able to join my peers at movies, soccer camps, skiing in the mountains, concerts, or holiday trips. I was also often embarrassed when I could not do small things, like go to the movies, go out to dinner, or have the fashionable attire on the sports field or at school.
I especially felt the want during the early years of high school when I did not have a car and had no prospects of getting one. Eventually my grandmother gave me her old 1974 Chevy Malibu, which had a good engine, but it was a rusty old-boat. I was teased to no end, not only for the car itself, but also for the modest amenities I added to hide the damaged interior, like blue carpet (in a brown car) to cover up the cracked dashboard and rusty floors. But at least I had a car. Some of my friends did not.
Outside of the indignities of want, I was humbled by the fact that industrious and frugal people, like my parents and a great many others, worked very hard and long hours just to scrape by. I learned to work hard, save my money, and to appreciate those times when small luxuries could be purchased and enjoyed.
As a kid, I always had to do chores around the house, several hours a week, to earn basic privileges, like watching t.v. or earning time with my friends. I also had to work part-time during high school, at jobs I hated, just to pay for small luxuries of my life, like gas and maintenance for my car, going to the movies, going out to dinner, or for a case of cheap beer.
I was a manual laborer, and had I not fought my way out of my destiny, I would have always been a manual laborer. From my first job mowing lawns at the age of twelve until I was a sophomore in college, I worked with my hands doing low-paid odd jobs that were physically demanding, and often dirty work.
Even in graduate school, I sometimes did manual labor during the summers to earn extra cash. I have mowed lawns and fields, dug ditches, cleaned toilets, mopped floors, vacuumed carpets, cut and nailed timber, hauled trash and debris, landscaped yards, built houses, painted barns, and harvested Christmas trees. I've worked through pouring rain, freezing snow, and scorching heat. Most of my bosses were skilled, but poorly paid contractors who worked every day from dusk to dawn with very little to show for it.
I hated this type of work. I hated the sweat and the dirt and the pain of sore hands and sore muscles at the end of the day. I vowed early on that I would do something more with my life. Somehow, if I worked very hard, I might become economically free one day.
So, unlike most of my friends, I tried to save the little money I earned in hopes of a better life. While I cherished the freedom and happiness that it could buy, I also feared the constraints and embarrassments of its absence. I worked hard and never spent idly. This regimen only intensified during college.
My childhood was constantly policed: by parents, by priests, and by my own powerlessness. The perimeters of my being were guarded and the inclinations of my inner self confined. But I still struggled against this confinement.
I yearned to be free. I yearned to do as I wished. And, on various occasions, I did break free, if only for a few moments.
But once my parents became aware of my dalliances with the dark side of my nature, they became ever more firm, watchful, restrictive. Certain friends were prohibited. Social activities were closely monitored. I was forbidden “secular” music or movies. The few tapes and magazines that I had smuggled into the house were confiscated and made an example of God’s power.
Once, I sat with my father watching my cherished contraband burn in the fire. We both half-expected demons screaming and rising from the ashes because my father had told me that such occurrences really did happen.
I was forbidden most television shows. Books brought home from the library were censored. Those deemed un-Godly were confiscated and returned. Visiting the homes of school friends was strictly regulated. Without much power to rebel, I was often reduced to a smoldering fury of feeble rage, carefully waiting for a chance to be free - someday.
As a boy, I was very practical. Openly rebelling was not an option. Such insolence would have been beaten out of me, and what little freedom I had would have been reduced to nothing. I learned that sanity meant giving into the might of the powerful.
Most of the time, I let my unobtainable dreams of freedom float away. I spent my childhood living up to my public self, scrutinized by the gaze of protective parents and a wrathful God. I tried to become a good Christian boy, which basically meant loving Jesus and doing what I was told.
Gradually I embraced the religious life of my parents. There was no other option. Just as Kafka’s ape embraced the imposition of human nature, I embraced Christianity as my only way out.
Up until high school I faithfully went to church two days a week, sometimes more. The congregation met every Wednesday and Sunday, supplemented with extra services, meetings, community service, and social activities. I was an active and highly respected member of the congregation – largely, I might add, because my parents held leadership positions in the church.
My parents were extremely active in the myriad activities of the church, which meant I was extremely active as well. As a dutiful son, I did my best to live up to the esteemed stature of my parents. I tried to make them proud.
I was a founding member of the church youth group. I helped start a Christian hip-hop band. I was actively involved in community service, especially projects that benefited the needy members of our congregation. I taught Sunday school to toddlers (my first real teaching experience). I was a camp counselor for Bible camps. I was called upon every now and again to help issue the Holy Communion or take up the collection during a Sunday service.
And on many occasions, Bible in hand, I went on evangelical missions near and far to help save souls for Christ. All in all, I seemed to be a model Christian. Much of the time I actually believed that I was a faithful child of God.
But throughout these times of professed piety, I also indulged in my perverse, private self. I found ways to sneak contraband into the house (books, movies, music, and magazines). I had many impure thoughts, obsessively thinking about sex, as all young boys do. I privately criticized certain aspects of Christianity that seemed unrealistic or overly harsh. And at times I even questioned the reality of God.
I relished those times when I was away from my parent’s confining gaze, especially in the company of secular friends, or even with my more liberal Christian fiends. Ultimately, I had troubling questions. I also had an insatiable curiosity, as well as a growing rebelliousness that bubbled up from the darkness within.
Yet I retained my pious mask. I tried to find comfort in the rigid confines of Christianity. But always my imagination held hope for a different way of life. I dreamt of the possibility of broader freedom.
My parents no doubt suspected the darker side of my nature. At around the age of thirteen they locked me in an existential cell. My parents decided to pull me away from the snares of the secular world and cloister me in the confines of a strictly Christian education.
I was to be home schooled.
Without much time to react, I was withdrawn from the public school system halfway through 7th grade. My parents didn’t even wait for winter break. I was quite upset by this decision and forcefully tried to block its implementation. I even threatened to run away. But eventually I acquiesced because in reality, as in every other area of my life, I was quite powerless.
I had no choice. I had nowhere else to go and no other way to survive. My parents held all the cards and I was smart enough to know that I was beat. All my secular school friends quickly disappeared. We moved to a new house. Although still living in the same city, I felt worlds away from my former life.
Academically speaking, home schooling was a waste of my time and talents. I languished. I was also socially isolated. My weeks were filled with monotonous routine.
I was indoctrinated every day with a Bible-based curriculum (Christian English, Christian math, Christian art, and Christian history), supplemented by reading the Bible (in case I didn’t get enough from the rest of the curriculum). My extracurricular activities included going to church, volunteering for church-related activities, or sometimes visiting other home-schooled families from our church. Had I completely conformed to this educational regime, I most certainly would have turned into a monk. I’m sure that would have pleased my parents.
Most of the curriculum was designed by an Evangelical Protestant publishing company. It consisted of a series of workbooks and fill-in-the-blank tests, which ritualized a very superficial fact-oriented knowledge. Although given its clear Christian bias, much of the “factual” content was merely pre-packaged bite-sized dogma.
The history book was somewhat different. I read a large textbook, which used a Biblical literalism to re-tell five thousand years of Western history from a Christian point of view. Yes, in case you’re wondering, the dawn of history begins with God creating the heavens and the Earth in six days. I wonder how it ended…
The remaining part of my curriculum was more laborious and boring. I had to read the Bible cover to cover once a year – on top of the verse by verse reading of the Bible in church twice a week. In case you haven’t managed to read this entire book, it’s overrated as literature and quite vague as a spiritual handbook for modern life. Perhaps that’s why my father’s bookshelves were filled with Biblical commentaries on every facet of this baffling book. Even the faithful get confused by its incoherence and contradictions.
God’s Word penetrated my daily being. It pervaded my consciousness. It seeped into my skin. Even as a middle-aged man, I still sometimes sweat the Bible out of my pours.
I was home schooled for about three years. During that time, I was intellectually starved, socially isolated (except for church related activities), and generally board. I hated it. I had friends at church I enjoyed, especially when I could escape my own house and sleep over, but the rest of my life was largely a nightmare.
And as all prisoners do, I acquiesced to the confinement. I settled into an acceptable routine. I was smart (and devious) enough to realize that the home school curriculum was a joke. So, by the second year of my prison sentence, I secretly rebelled against the absurdity of my existence. Every morning I took both my work books and the answer key. I didn’t bother to read the textbooks. I just used the answer key to fill in the blanks and circle the correct answers. The history book was a bit more fun because I loved to read and I liked history. I managed to read this text book and write several essays. I would have liked to skip the Bible reading, but my father always asked about the scriptures, so every day I breezed through a couple chapters of the Bible without much thought.
This was my educational routine for the next two years. Cheat, read the Bible, go through the motions. I became so efficient that I was finished with “school” by mid-morning.
Thankfully, I finished the bullshit quickly, and I had most of the day to myself. I usually sat in my room, pretending to study, and let my imagination run free. I listened to music, daydreamed, and sometimes thought about the future.
Mostly I used the time to read, often contraband books from the public library that I snuck into the house. As a young boy I loved fantasy novels with sword play, strange creatures, and heroic journeys. I remember the Lord of the Rings trilogy was my favorite. I read this trilogy and The Hobbit at least once a year. I also checked out other books from the library that were more traditionally educational, like biographies and history books. I’ve always had a fascination with the past.
Books became a window into another world, exposing me to various forms of life that I was denied. I read to feel alive. I read to escape.