Through many years of schooling and many different graded assignments fabricated from
the worst ideas of the English department which only ever managed to demoralize their eager
students, I had suffered the criminally terrible book choices and entailed assignments as one of
many in a hollow crowd who would otherwise have been primed and ready to detonate at the
sight of knowledge on pages more alive than their physical existence would suggest. The public
education system had left many with the insidious parasite of morale, the false idea that reading
and writing are for those nerds who really have nothing better to do and who have no sense of
quality beyond the pretty cover pictures and “conceptual understanding”. I used to believe every
last word the parasite whispered into my ear, refusing to read anything for the mental anguish of
suffering the worthless feelings of countless nonexistent
men, women, and children; all
abominations of their real life counterparts, each tarnishing the banner of literacy, burning it in
full view of all classes. This Anti-literature
was only the tip of the iceberg, for behind the initial
barrage of humorless comedy were the assignments that each and every last demoralized soul
had to wallow in for fear of failing. I sat through all of this attempting only just to survive the
perceived vollies of refuse and “empathy” at each paper; turning it in with only the expectation
of C’s and mediocrity.

One example of such an assignment came in 7th grade in which I had to write a short
story using some specific version of a narrative (First person,
Third person
omniscient, etc). I
had no designs on writing well or even succeeding, I just wanted to churn out a paper and be
done with it. Whatever plans I was going to have were in the future, a series of distant blips yet
to come into the radar horizon. With no real aim, I had squandered the opportunity to improve as
a writer and as a student by writing the most impure form of unintelligible drivel. I scored a C-
with no personal fanfare or surprise. I carried on with my day as if this were entirely acceptable.
I did not care for writing, it was a skill arbitrarily forced on me by a worthless school system
with enigmatic policies. I learned to hate reading and writing because all of what I had been told
to read was painful to the point of being unreadable, therefore the writing by extension was
painful to the point of being unwritable.
Every assignment held some new barb waiting to cut down my will to type at any second
with one terrible book and terrible paper after another, flying forth in a seemingly infinite stream
which would annihilate whatever good feelings I had had that day. If I had previously found
something amusing, my humor would wilt and crumble when I would remember that there was
an English teacher with an eager inbox, waiting to receive the latest papers with a decrescendo of
enthusiasm. Time marched forward and the mushy anti-literature
droned on. I could only grow
impatient and wear paths in the carpet every time there was a writing assignment to do. For me,
however, a clear point would soon be made somewhere in the back of my mind. Dawn would
soon come.

One day, I emerged from the ruins of my morale to see a great aurora beyond my
immediate obstacles. My senses had burst forth from the pit of my gut to behold the objectives of
my planned future, in which I envisioned that I would serve my country. I realized that I could
not simply accept suffering through the same old tango every time that a paper or assignment of
any type had come. I learned that life will throw its worst at me wherever I go, near, far, and on
all fronts. I wanted instead to make those papers vanish into the grade book with stellar marks
and to develop a moral ethic of treating writing assignments, big and small, terrible and tall, as if
my future depended on it (it did, and still does). If I wanted to succeed in the world, I first had to
realize the qualities of a good writer. From then on I knew that it was imperative that I learn to
walk it off and plow through every last bristling heap in order to write the best possible papers.
From there on I began simply to put my mind far out of reach of the tendrils of morale drain.
From one dastardly assignment and book to the next, I learned to write better, seeing beyond
sight a glorious future! My grades in English only ascended as it dawned on me that, if I am ever
to succeed as a writer and person, I must avoid thinking too hard about how loathsome the
assignments are. After that point, I had deciphered the writing portion of the life success matrix
and realized that writing doesn’t have to involve pulling teeth or fingernails, it only needs a little
patience, to focus on my long term goal of commissioning in the US Military, and to start typing
regardless of whatever mental pain is being experienced.

One book, however, tested my will to the last ounce. “A House of Sand and Cards” was
the title on the front, there to greet any and all unsuspecting readers who might just think that it’s
some B grade fiction that is as half decent as the “critics” say so on the back cover. Deeper
within however lies a behemoth composed of half baked and fully frontal sexualization and an
uninspired attempt at having an international character (supposedly an Iranian, but the quality of
his character and lines was of distinctly non persian
origin). When I received an assignment to
write about it, I knew that, no matter what it was, it wasn’t going to be a bed of roses but the
spines instead. The most that I could do was point out the insane stupidity of literally everyone
involved in the story. Following the plot was simple to follow only because it couldn’t possibly
have been overly written or ruined by how abominable all of the characters were. Fortunately for
me, I was at least motivated enough to start. It was not that the assignment was difficult or that it
had any special requirements, merely that it was tedious, scouring the putrid corners of the
book’s pages just to find the right quote to use as textual evidence or to piece together why one
of the characters had done something so insanely stupid as to be worthy of a Darwin award many
times over. After the dust settled, I had completed the required rough draft (which had the
consistency of sandpaper) and a final paper in which I had mostly overgrown my previous draft
to make something intelligible from its ashes. I managed to finish the assignment with an A- and
was sufficiently pleased that I had survived the mental torture of mushy fiction once more and
that I had triumphed in spite of a lack of morale. From there on, terrible assignments have not
bothered me in any significant way.

It was incomprehensible to my former self, but it wasn’t writing that had caused my
many disappointed groans and ruinous headaches, but my inability to ignore how terrible the
assignments were. In order to smash through them in such a way that victory would only be a
matter of cranking out a paper, I had to ignore the pain and revise each paper down to its bones
and then back up into a fleshed out work of uncompromising brilliance. I had embraced the suck
so thoroughly that it had become fused to the core of my being, ready to consume all bullshit so
that it may be predigested for my viewing pleasure, and sanity. Whatever my end goals were, to
improve as a writer, to get good enough grades to get on a commissioning track in the US
military, I came to know that good writing was something far too important to shirk, however
dull or agonizing. So I set out to succeed in embracing the suck, and was rewarded with
acceptance to VMI where there will inevitably be further waves of suck inbound. Whatever
future successes that I’ll have will depend entirely on keeping my final goal in sight and staying
determined to write well.

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