Gideon Miller
Collage
Collage
My Enlightening Transcendence
I was sitting in the back right corner of the courtroom watching my dad cross-examine a witness for a car accident involving a DUI case. I could see the defendant talking with the judge, explaining what had happened on a very unfortunate night. Before this moment, I was wondering what I was going to see. “Am I going to have to meet all these criminals? Why was I here? What did I do to receive such a terrifying moment reminding me of all of my past mistakes?” The moment was so surreal because I didn’t know how I had gotten there. After all, it’s not like I was ordered by law to be there. My dad had brought me there to discipline me, but I never felt disciplined.
After moving into a new house during my 5th grade year, I became enraged with the fact that I was leaving all of the friends I ever knew. A month or two later, we had settled into our new home and I had finally come to the realization that I could still be with my friends at school. Nevertheless, I felt desperate and conflicted.
I wasn’t even sure what to think of myself at that point. I was in Mrs. Burnaby’s class and My group of friends had always been poking fun at each other, but we never did something if the other person didn’t like it. I remember saying “Nick, is it okay if we call you Nickelodeon?” He would reply, “Yes, that’s very funny guys.” He never once resisted and we felt like it was fine. One day Nick chose to focus his physical outrage on me. I heard a roar coming from one of my friends named Nick. As I turned around to see what was going on, he jumped onto my back and stabbed me with a pencil! I felt so much shock and adrenaline inside of me, that I sent him flipping over a desk. I soon realized that this was a result of trapped emotion. He started balling in the corner of the room and I was given many looks of bewilderment. I was then directed to the principal's office. Principal Spindler basically told me I was reckless and wasn’t going to succeed in life because of my actions, if I let them control me. I apologized sincerely, but it resulted in a suspension and I was sent home right afterwards. Although I certainly do not condone violence, I find it very belittling that I was given an ultimatum at such a ripe age. He made me feel horrible. Reflecting on this traumatic experience, I know that I had performed an act of self defense. On the car ride home, I was chastised by both parents about how horrible I was and they told me that I was “going to be home schooled for the remainder of the year and my 6th grade year. We are VERY disappointed in you.” I remember saying back to them, “But I wasn’t the only one who caused it! Isn’t a suspension and the embarrassment enough? Plus, it was self defense!” Despite my pleading, they could not be moved by what I was trying to tell them. I now had zero friends who lived nearby and was being home schooled.
After elementary school, I was sent to a charter school. By my 8th grade year, I had been behaving in opposition to my parents for about a year or two. My emotion got the best of me and I became outraged whenever I had to go to the Godforsaken, Excelsior Academy, a charter school that most students were forced to attend. During this time, my dad got so exasperated with me, that he would make me spit out old sayings. One came from The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It demands that, “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.” I would have to repeat this over and over, until I said it right. I understood that the consequences of my actions required responsibility, but I really didn’t think I was a bad kid. I was left wondering who I really was and I dwindled down the dark path of depression.
This is when I was required by my dad to go to work with him. The courtroom was frigidly still, with a couple people weeping in the stands next to me. I looked around and saw the judicial authority as a way out for many who had committed crimes. After the hearing finished, my dad led me to the presiding Judge Valdez's office who said, “I’m sure you're a great kid, but I want you to know that I am fully confident that you can enjoy you life outside of the system.” My dad concurred and told him that I had “been into trouble lately and we decided to come in today to seek a solution” for my behavior. I was obviously very frightened at this point and I vowed to never get into any kind of trouble. Even so, my parents let me go to the public Stansbury High School, cautiously. They were very strict members of the LDS faith and I respect them for that, but sometimes it got to the point where my salvation was on the line. My father has always stressed the importance of my spirituality above everything else and that my priorities should be set up that way. My mother was slightly more easygoing and I felt like I could go to her for a problem much easier than my father. I started out my Freshman year in fear of failure. This fear demanded me to go to any lengths to promote my future. I excelled in school, but was non-existent socially. I played High School football, basketball, and baseball, but didn’t experienced much satisfaction, even though I practiced hard and did everything I could to also succeed academically. I needed to truly discover myself as opposed to conforming to every rule and responsibility out there.
I had a couple years to recuperate to where I am now, but for a while, I was depressed, lonely, feeling the weight of the world crushing me beneath it. Literally and physically, depression is “the action of lowering something or pressing something down.” (4.) I began to enjoy talking amongst my peers. I was now excelling in all aspects of my life. Up until this point, I thought I was going to utterly fail at everything in my life. I was finally obtaining the hope I had been longing for. I began learning more things about myself than I can count. I love the outdoors, I enjoy listening to classic rock songs and old movies, and I even came to love some of the books I never knew I would read, like the Great Gatsby. I discovered who I really was.
My down years have really made these recent couple years that much more special. Because of the deep, dark, surreal experiences that spanned from 5th grade into my sophomore year, I learned several valuable lessons. I learned that Principal Spindler was wrong about me and I knew that my parents had been cutting me short of my full potential, by not letting me focus on the things that every kid should have the opportunity to enjoy. Once I found the freedom to enjoy expression instead of depression, I uncovered a part of me that was left untold and trapped. I actually thought to myself one day, “I can become who I want to become, no matter what anyone says, even my parents.” I changed my state of mind and discovered the ability to ground myself in the face of any circumstance I happened to be in. I now consider myself free from anyone’s grasp and have been living life to the fullest ever since that enlightening moment.
Don’t get me wrong though; I learned many valuable lessons from my parents, but I realized the truth. Everyone is corrupt to some degree and I was blindly following the very people suffering from a mental illness. Narrow-mindedness is the mental condition I am referring to and it has to do with shutting down the creative half of your brain. One of the main symptoms of narrow-mindedness is when “people enjoy pinpointing wrongs in the society a lot more than they appreciate things that are just as they should be.” (1.) Another look at this disorder is from the definition, “having a biased or illiberal viewpoint; bigoted, intolerant, or prejudiced.” (2.) When I think of these type of people, I am think of the upcoming election. “In the 2016 campaign, Sanders won more votes among those under age 30 than the two presumptive major-party presidential nominees combined. And it wasn't close.” (3.) Young voters are a perfect example of a group of Americans that could do so much, yet don’t participate. The potential of them is great because of their unprejudiced outlook on life. I believe it is the young generation that is most liberal, and also free from the corruption that society, including our parents, give us.
As I sat in that courtroom, I felt like my life had come to a complete stop and I had lost the freedom, because it was frankly, being withheld from me. I was humbled by seeing what court was like, but this experience had cut too close to the core and I was left feeling abandoned and alone. I was looking up at the defendant and my father defending him when I realized that essentially, I was merely another one of his clients. He once told me “You are going to end up just like my clients if you keep acting like an idiot without a conscience!” I would always listen to what he had to say, but I always knew there was a deeper knowledge and understanding inside of me. Sure, the principals of the LDS gospel taught me the basics of being a better person, but I couldn’t trust the part of my dad that had made him advise me to “do and die.” I had to discover this within myself. I could not be taught it.
As the court hearing concluded and the people began walking out, I had an overwhelming feeling that my relationship with my father was distanced and not profound. I could see the look in my father’s eyes that demanded perfection more than love. I knew that being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ doesn’t automatically make you a good person. It couldn’t. Out of all the people I have encountered in my life, my dad was a pervading example of this kind of a person. I decided in that courtroom to never turn out that way.