I think that maybe I could not avoid fame.

December 28, 2014

Before I started first grade, there was a night when my parents took me to a play.  I thought the play was fascinating.  When I got home, I ran around the house doing what all kids do, which is to copy what they see and hear that interests them.  I didn't think anything of it; my parents were surprised that I was saying entire parts of the play, which I had never seen before.

There was skipping a grade, and there was also my being therefore 11 instead of 12 when I took the SATs in 7th grade.  Taking the SATs in 7th grade was something that a number of kids did; it was to test them for their ability to take a college-level class in the summer.  I qualified, on the verbal part of the SATs, to take the class.  I also got the highest verbal SAT score in the state, of all the 7th-graders who had taken the test.  It's true that Vermont is a small state; that probably had something to do with it.

Although I did not attend another summer class, I was 15 the next time that I took the SATs, which were actually the PSATs, in my junior year.  If I had taken the SATs for that summer program, at 15, I would have qualified for both math and literature classes.

Unless I had stopped writing altogether at a young age, instead of what I did, which was to try to be good at it every year of my life, I don't know that I could have avoided some sort of fame.  

The horrible nature of the fame I have is a tough break, deliberately and maliciously inflicted on me for no reason by hateful people who want me to fail.  It's not my fault; maybe, someday, they'll stop.

They want people to think I'm stupid.  They want people to think I'm promiscuous.  They want people to think whatever will prevent the public from being horrified by the way that I'm treated instead of what will cause the public to think I deserve to be ceaselessly tormented.  Whatever excuse the conglomerate thinks will gain the public's support instead of its disgust and anger is what the conglomerate will continue to publicize.

Copyright L. Kochman, December 28, 2014 @ 8:03 p.m.