- left foot, right foot -

- Preface -

In the eve of dawn, I had finally made the choice. A choice, a choice! But let us feel a bit marrow for the books that haven't survived the chopping block of this entry. Shall we?

For this entry here I was a bit set that I shan't include any works of philosophy, since it would take an embarrassingly long time to simply justify and explain away the work. (Looking at you GWF Hegel and all you other Dialecticians; and stop crying over the Diogenes bipedal, featherless chicken argument, Plato!) On that, I decided equally to not include any works of recent since that would be equally cheating and I still have to work through the motions. Equally so, I decided to cut out any multi-part book series as well since that's more than A BOOK and is a SERIES of books.

With that said, let's take gentler care on the book that hadn't made the cut despite being a finalist. The Schwa. Against the roll of Fortuna, it was either going to be a middle-school book or an elementary school book that I know that I still have found memories over. And well, Fortuna decided I should focus on elementary school me over middle-school me; we all know what the middle-school book is, but we tend to forget it if we don't stare it in the eyes. Simply put, The Schwa was a book I read in Middle-School who's character of interest was on a kid that was "invisible to everybody" except the main character. Basically, take the Invisible Man concept (when it first debut as a work of literature by a male African-American when he explained figuratively his experience with the racism found in Northern USA) but take it from a view of an accomplice of the Schwa. Since I ain't focusing in on this book, we can look the other way... you forgot about the book already? Wait why are you asking me about "what book now?"... Whatever... (Nota bene: the Schwa as a phonetic letter goes unpronounced and is sometimes even forgotten to be included in pronunciations!)

- So VICTOR, what was that book?~ -

Well I am glad you yelled it in my ears, but let's delay that for a bit to set the mood. And yes I just told you my battle plan for this post, no I won't repeat it here. Now where were we? Oh yes, the background~

Like the first pages of a book, there usually is the highlight of the life where the "problem" exists but has yet to be made clear - thus hinted at or setting the stage for such. Lil' Vic (hey that's me! :D) was just a wee lil' school kiddy walking around being all shy and such. And lil' Vic had a speech impediment problem that made it excruciatingly hard for people to understand what I was saying and how hard it was to communicate with others. Particular it was those that didn't stutter, fumble, mispronounce or blob words on the regular that got weirded out whenever I spoke to them. So with a brain so aware of even a pin needle dropping a mile away, I was equally aware of (and sometimes misunderstood) all the social signals people kept emitting to me that I was making no sense to them.

Yet, looking back at it now, I guess I can understand their frustrations as those where students at the same age as me who were also understanding the English language for the first time, native and non-natives to English. But 'twas another problem that some adults completely took me for nervously stuttering at random or just dumb syntax-wise whenever I phrased something. So they had to hear me speak the same line in different ways while I had to make myself blue to get a simple sentence across that I, me and myself, thought made clear sense. And before we even explore together (yes, you are coming along for the ride now) this grave bundle of memories I choose to rather keep secret, let's discuss another field of equal trouble.

Why at-home lingual and accent differences, especially for parents that understood not English! And this highlight marked with such exclamation should be a red-light to you more than people just not "getting me" whenever I spoke. For the number one influence of a kid's development, language included, are the parents or any guardian/caretaker of a child. Now what exactly could go wrong with parents that immigrated to an English speaking country that couldn't speak English and had no formal education on English can do to a child? Well we shall leave middle-school me to answer that problem, I like to spotlight elementary school me first on the troubles I had to deal with. And elementary school me would go along these lines when answering this problem: "well, ju-ju-st dun't know. M-my pa-rents parents are speaking ha-ving time hard English. T-tat's-that's all willy." Now lemme clean that up and add a final sentence to this diatribe already: "Well, I just don't know. My parents are having a hard time speaking English. That's all really" - yet it was also their constant slipping back to Polish and having accents non-compatible to the local school children that made me quiver in social anxiety.

- Okay we get it, but go on -

Let's agree, it's Dr. Seuss that made it and he no longer cares for royalties c:

So skipping into first grade and here I am walking up to the school library with my mama, just perusing the aisles of books and I stumbled upon a funny book with pictures and words in it. So my lil' hands reached in and tried yanking out that book, stumbling a bit backwards and my eyes looking at the cover title. Why it read out "The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss" and had that adorable Dr. Seuss creature sticking out their foot while pointing at it. Emulating a bit of the creature, my mama picked me up and said that was an excellent choice; so we got the book checked out and I was reading that the entire car-ride home, with my mama helping out in the margins. Unlike a TV show, Movie or a certain Video Game I could point out that certainly got me learning, this helped me break, through the long line of Dr. Seuss works, my social anxiety and my speech impediment.

While I may not remember the content of the book at heart nor of the countless nights I just divulged works of fiction created by Dr. Seuss following this book, I remember being in love with the book - to the point I was sad I had to return the book back in the library. But just following that, me and my mama picked out a new Dr. Seuss book and I would just go at it and read that (funnily enough it wasn't the Green Eggs and Hams, but the book of fishes). My oh my would I be mesmerized by how everything was spelt, how to pronounce the words (and things in the book) correctly, how the images where drawn and just why everything was the why it was placed in a book. Countless nights I tell you.

- Hey that's cheating! You're- -

So let's focus in on the "Foot Book" by Dr. Seuss and try to remember a memory so long gone it makes me wonder how far I came that it becomes hard to appreciate from a distance. So with my binoculars on, I must say the first claim of correcting my syntax was a very important lesson to overcome. Put simply, if you hadn't believed me above, then believe me now that I was a syntax error in the flesh. Yes, you could understand me if you paid attention; but imagine being a kid in elementary school and just learning this whole language that everything is written in and everybody's speaking in. Now add me into the equation who seems to be some hopping dæmon who was just saying phrases left and right. Standing right there with that kid, I would even be more confused about what the hell even is happening. Well, if I hadn't drilled in the point, I was feeling that mental and social pain twenty-four-seven (or for those not in English speaking areas: twenty four hours and seven days a week).

English to me was some ancient hieroglyphics that was readable but I was tasked, after every lesson, to read on my own without a hand to learn English. Couple that with the fact of peers not understanding me and parents being as clueless as me and I can guess your next question: how did I even became to be able to string posts of literature and philosophy everyday like it's nothing? Well I would first suggest to start thinking of people as becoming what they are and becoming something else later on in life. Secondly, let's talk again about the "Foot Book" now and how that forced me, more than any other instruction could do, to sit down, focus in on the things purposefully laid out, understand what was being displayed and make it through a work as a first grader. Thirdly, to keep the trend of counting in orders, let's make a new paragraph to talk about it.

So why am I making a sh- gotta remember the kids here - why am I making a dung-storm out of a huge problem that affected me so long ago, what gives? Well it was first here that I could even formulate a coherent sentence structure, both consciously and unconsciously, of words that I knew and hadn't known already. To see what each word meant (even if a particular case, I was able to relate it to myself; including the pig feet part because my mama's side has a farm in Poland) was equally helpful as it helped me identify a word (signifier) with an object (signified) at display. To make me understand, even in a tiny dosage, why people couldn't understand me and to pay attention to how others speak. And to make me love books and to read them as I study each word like I was investigating some fishy investigation scene or the [word has been excluded because a judge told me I couldn't pick out this unholy book out] itself. Truthfully I give thanks to Dr. Seuss for granting me the opportunity that works of fiction can be fun, eye-candy and a learning experience with a set subject in mind.

- Hey, what about social anxiety? -

Well before I gag you for making one more word, lemme do cover this important topic that hindered my ability to overcome the speech impediment I had. So how did Dr. Seuss to simply converse like a human being to other kids my age and stop being shy? Well first, don't make me repeat what I said above; second, let's stop counting in numbers; so let's get this straight: it pushed me as it tore down some of my speech impediment problems, yet I still had a social anxiety (which may have been extreme shyness, not glossophobia weirdly enough) to contend with. And it was very much a protracted process of overcoming my shyness so I can fully heal from my speech impediment and, at the same time, be no more looked at as a strange kid which I knew people were looking at me that way.

So why do I give any credit, even the initial credit, to the "Foot Book" made by Dr. Seuss? Well other than to commemorate this work of childhood fiction, one cannot forget the power of the narrator and the images have on everybody. It's often forgotten in anything creative, from journalism to artistry to writing, that everything is created by an author with an intent purpose; hypocritical to itself only, the "Death of the Author" book argues, by a clearly biased author, that books shouldn't be politicized or seen to have an intent purpose of making - speculation must run free! If one accepts the dialog made by the narrator, that kills and supports the central argument made by the author; if you don't except it, same effect but reverse the order of killing and supporting.

Yet the entire time, you are in dialog with the author; constantly conversing with them with your biases against theirs, to find the absolute borders that interpretation stops making sense and learning the book well enough to make concrete your biases on the book's subject matter. In a much more kid-friendly yet visually complex example to kids, Dr. Seuss despite being in the grave is still in dialog with you with the fact of his book's existence. Sure, he's dead alright and we won't the responses back like we do with living authors; but yet the book stands-in for him and acts as that soundboard with someone that wasn't born yesterday. And to a very impressionable but shy me, the fact that I could even imagine the narrator talking to me and helping me understand the "many, many, feet" I would see. To make me not feel judged but still lead in instruction of "feet" in this "foot book" without an ire or a point-out for my existing condition. And the fact I could even have the gall to push myself to chit-chatter to others was an intensely cleansing feeling from so many doubts and fears.

- So what about middle-school you? -

I'm very glad you asked, but that's an entire minefield to course through and entirely different set of books that inspired me more (albeit that I was still grateful) than Dr. Seuss at that moment of my life. So I shall leave that alone, as those problems that grew inside of middle school would only feel resolved by the time I got into high school, doesn't mean I didn't spend time trying to fix them in middle school! So let's rather talk about how speech impediments continue to stalk me despite me mercilessly tearing that apart a long time ago since, at the worst, from the end of fifth grade.

Indeed such a wonderful topic that I am going to forcefully draw an analogy right now about speaking fast: those that speak fast like Eminem when he raps "Rap God" are masters of speaking unlike those that speak fast like Scatman when he sings "I'm the Scatman" who tend to slur certain parts of spoken English incorrectly. While both are intelligible on a careful listen, trying to replicate it is an entirely different story and one that shall end in error pretty fast more with "I'm the Scatman" than "Rap God" for most people. And from my counted experiences I do sense when I speak fast to a native English speaker, they tend to think me as I am the Scatman but haven't the pizzazz that makes intelligible my slurs (funnily enough I could sing "I'm the Scatman" just fine without error). And slowly I came to realize that while I had made major progress against speech impediments, I find myself still correcting what people heard what I say and getting frustrated that they heard me wrong. Which now makes sense some awkward scenes where people mistook me for saying one thing but I saying another thing; I was a fast speaking kiddo when I got into middle school...

And while I have to practice my speech in a fast-speaking manner as to exorcise this speech impediment from my vocal cords, at least I am glad that I don't suffer from shyness or social anxiety as-such. Instead I still suffer from misinterpreting social cues and signals from time to time. Not at all helped with the fact that the internet lacks a unified tone and accent to make intelligible from one part of the World with another. (I mention this since I was an internet kiddie in the early days.) So urah! I still have to learn how to untrain my misinterpretation of social cues and signals so I can better suited with my English. Cause that's going to be so annoying, especially with having to deal with the culture of the area I live in now making major cultural shifts when I was only beginning to grasp it. Thankfully I managed to understand the internet's general culture just fine, now if only they had more unity in the general sense when it came to dialogues and conversations...

- The many, many, feet you'll see -

So whether you'll see pig feet, lanky feet, socked feet or -here comes the clown feet! Feet like those, my mind will always somehow find a way to remind me of Dr. Seuss before I chuckle at the contingent reminder - thankful that I can at least sound intelligible. If it weren't for people like Dr. Seuss, I probably wouldn't get the kick to over come my speech impediment nor my shyness; likewise, I wouldn't run into difficult lingual lessons of life early on than later in life. Yet, withal, I must say that "the Foot Book" wasn't a sole accomplice as aforementioned and I would dive into other Dr. Seuss works like a raging wildfire that sparked in the dry forests of California. So whether you think me ridiculous for remembering such good memories or think me cute for even thinking of my past self, go ahead; I bet you can find an early childhood book that influenced you massively that you would be embarrassed to think about if I used your line of logic against you. But that's enough of me being cutesy and ridiculous to the reader, do consider (as above linked) joining this contest and sharing a book that influenced you greatly right here right now.

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