On My “Masters”: I feel like such a fraud especially when people get overwhelmed about my having a master’s in “Economics and Finance”. Then I really feel the emptiness of my credentials. I mean “master” is such a…masterful word, I feel like I should be a connoisseur of my trade building (discovering really, for nothing there is that wasn’t before-Eccl.) whole theories Adam Smith-style, cooking up new recipes, but all I do is regurgitate tried and tested ones and use “economic terms” that make one seem clever when you are only speaking an uncommon, but nevertheless, taught, language; who the hell can’t say 2 if they are taught that’s the answer to 1+1; the real beast is the one who discovered that and u bcoma beast when u discover 1×1=1. So, that being said, its not really humility when I smile demurely to someone’s praiseful advances. I just feel like if I utter a word, I will be discovered. I go and invest my benefactors’ life earnings into learning this vocation which necessarily makes one an ambassador of the vocation and thus must speak with authority about it but it only ends up feeling like an impertinent burden rather than the liberating duty that saves one from flailing about life’s journey without a purpose, and prevents one from that awkward defensive response which turns into a justification when asked a simple ‘just-making-conversation-type-question’ like “So, what are you up to these days?”.
I am not in anyway against education- shoot, it taught me how to ejaculate what’s on my mind, an activity that comes second only to reading…and sex?…and eating chocolate? Ok, rephrase: a non-sensual activity that comes second only to reading- but the pretentious eliticism that comes with the “formerly educated”. I guess it’s the difference between buying your charger from a wood-paneled Click Africa store, complete with receipt and tax-and boy do you get taxed-and getting it cheaper from a vendor- when Click Africa may also get it from the vendor and charge u an arm and a leg-just cause its sitting on wood and especially cause it comes with a receipt? Isn’t that what schools do as well? Charge you an arm and a leg to get ‘formal education’ and bring in ‘uneducated’ speakers like Bill Gates to give talks? The only thing wrong with this analogy is that Click Africa gives a warranty. I think schools should give warranty to employers as well. I digress, you expect Click Africa’s charger to be better, guaranteed, than the vendors so you don’t mind paying more for the receipt but I bet if u had 2040 vision and saw into the future and saw that both were just as good, you would go for the cheaper one. Soooo, I guess I’m just projecting my own feelings of “what’s the big whoo-ha”? Maybe I missed the point. Shooot, I probably missed the point didn’t I? On the flipside, “Let me not be misunderstood” *Obama voce*: I am not for using the whole “I’m educated by the street” philosophy as a way of side-stepping education because of one’s lethargy.
Personally, I don’t think one should ever go for a master’ s without letting reality test you on what pre-graduate has taught you; its like reading up on how to boil an egg and then going on to read how to make bloody Eggs Florentine without even having boiled water. One needs to bloody experiment first and know that cooking eggs for 8min in boiling water is not the only way to know they are done, and only then can you bring something to a master’s degree; horrifyingly, nobody told me this when I was going for mine so imagine my consternation on the first day of class when several of those overachievers that want-to-make-you-feel-like- a-loser-when-all-the-while-you-thought-you-were-on-the-right-track go up to the professor to talk about their thesis statements. I thought I had missed the school start date or hadn’t read one of those documents that they send you and become more important than your birth certificate pre-visa time and are now shoved in some box labeled miscellaneous, which would have told me to come bearing thesis statement or risk getting “weeded”. You can also imagine my orgasmic joy at the professor saying “Chill out; its not time for that yet-first go through the course, then find a topic you want to explore more” I latched onto this as if this was the reasoning behind my incompetence.
Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t fail my master’s; I have mastered the art of regurgitating other people’s cud down to a capital T. And, undoubtedly off topic, the only reason I went and read up on Eggs Florentine after only trying to boil an egg once is because I’m not trying to make a career out of economics. It just a means to an end; Art and Literature. Some people do it the other way round; Art and Lit as a means of economic welfare. For me, something you love should not be 4yrs here, 1yr there; it should be a lifelong vocation-plus I don’t know who would pay me for reading books without requesting I write up on it or give some sort of authoritative opinion. But my point is: I am not trying to make a career out of economics. I don’t climax at econometrics—maybe at Adam Smith, but I’ve always had a weakness for this type of genius and singlemindedness which leads to making things look, what my father termed, QED (quite easily done), so even in this its not really economics; it’s the man. I always felt, before my bachelor’s, that once this hill is climbed, I’d feel Professor Chikaonda-esque. Three years into it, I don’t feel “educated”. I knew it would happen once I received the receipt of purchase formally called the certificate. When this did not happen, I was left with no choice but to go for the Master’s, and *Surprise! Surprise!* it’s the same emptiness leering its ugly head a year later. Is this why people get obsessed with formal education? They feel the emptiness of their accolades weighing down on them and so feel they must better themselves to match them?
To all my friends with formal education, it’s not you, it’s me: I have a problem. I have been told more than once that I over-analyse things. Please understand that when I say things it’s usually very subjective. I noticed a few people deleted me from FB (and their lives?) after my “marriage rant”, and some awkwardness in face-to-face conversation with others, specifically espoused friends. I just try to put stuff into the context of my reality; do not take it as a piss on you- my friends list is already constricted as it is.
o to all the furckers (my siblings excluded caused I understand they need a return on their investment) that keep “advising” me to get a job- I aint trynna leave a life vocation to settle for a job. I’d advise you to get a life vocation Period
