“Godzilla? Or Not.”
A micro memoir by Thomas Nie (9).
“What have you been doing for 30 minutes? How have you not even written a single sentence, not to mention a single word yet?” yells the creature sitting opposite to me. My ears ring as if hearing gunshots.
My back immediately stops slouching, and I sit straight up, face staring at my father. A very clogged and deep “hem” is the sole noise exiting my mouth. In that moment, I experienced the worst morning of my life–specifically 3 am on a school day. My social studies project, a month-long project, was waiting to be turned in 8 hours, and I still had a pristine and wordless paper in front of me. As the miserable 7th grader I was, failing to come up with anything to write about, I was led to my father’s office to finish my project.
Social Studies could have been called “Abstract Studies,” and it would have made no difference in my life. To me, it felt similar to reading a Calculus textbook without having learned multiplication.
“What’s the point of learning about America’s past? It’s not like the exact same situation will repeat, will it?” This was my mindset and the root of my narrow-minded thoughts when I attended my Social Studies classes. Having never been captivated by history, I had an unbelievably hard time creating a history-related magazine.
“What?! It has been half an hour, and you’ve written nothing? What’s looking at a ceiling going to do?” my dad yells. “Is God going to finish your project for you? Even if you were trying to think, don’t you think the best place to look is your screen?”
Sitting on a rough chair, I look into the eyes of my father, who, then, resembled Godzilla. Frozen in fear, sweat running up and down my arms, I stayed silent. Now, the only thing racing in my mind was the word “Sh*t.” I truly comprehended the word “fear” that day.
“Just go to sleep. Just get an F on this project. With this progress, be it a month or a year, you’ll get nothing done.”
The words seemed to form into bricks and ram into my heart. I felt trapped inside a cell with withered flowers and grass everywhere.
“What was the reason that I stayed up 3 hours past midnight to finish a project and have virtually nothing done?” I concluded: I needed to maintain my grade. “This was just middle school, and I have trouble with a simple project. How will I survive in high school and then college?”
“Seeing you adamant in your decision to finish your project, I will give you one piece of advice. It only matters whether you listen or not,” my dad says. “Start writing some crap. Crap is the most useful in writing. When you are stuck, you need to write crap. Crap will breed ideas and, you can further build upon these ideas to create this masterpiece you desire so much. There is no such thing as a masterpiece created without foundation.”
I was a kid back then, and to me, my father was a monster. Though he may have resembled Godzilla, I cannot deny the fact that he was a very caring one–sleep is essential, and grades should make you destroy your life. He must have understood that I still had not learned my meaning of life.
After his speech, I immediately followed directions. I made it work somehow. The next day did not result in a total catastrophe like I had predicted it would.