the phd

The Phd

No amount
of education
enhances
creativity.

When I was your age I
produced matheorems
I ‘d had had not
a lick of higher training for.

At this stage
you are at your intellectual
peak and all goes to shit from here.

Maybe you should move,
but remember that educated people
need educated people:
the creative need no one
even though it is likely they adore everyone,

despite probably
only being able to tolerate
the conversation of lunatics and old Jewish ladies.

Also
remember that a lot of the people
who you look down on
are more
creative than thou,
and that this creativity is the essential thing,
the only thing people may remember you by.

As for your desire,
the next generation of position-seekers
and money-grubbers will inherit your position and money.

nothing more loathsome
to a true artist or scientist than a vapid highbrow
with nothing to show but the stretch marks of education and maybe a pay stub.

I will take a happy idiot
or an ignorant genius
over the merely well instructed,
together with their ho-hum orthodoxy
of avid hubris and impotent negativity towards humanity.

And you didn’t want to be friends?
You have enough love and knowledge already, do you?

You may leave the door open behind you.