It’s always that first damn sentence that’ll get you. If you look too long at the white whale, it is sure to swallow you whole.

Ok, this is the first real sentence I am going to write. Here I go:

Ok, but first, another gruesome explanation: I don’t appreciate my world being taken out of context and used against me. I am a unique individual, who happens to, just like everyone else, have some dark humor, and it just so happens I write about it on a public forum.

Ok, hang on—this is actually worth writing about. After this point, I will return to the first sentence.

I am trying to be a “professional” in this modern world. My profession happens to be in education, but it might as well be in corporate America or a non-profit. And I, although I don’t want to rely strictly on making this an age thing, happen to be on the Gen Z/ Millenial cusp.

Just as importantly, I am an “artist.”

By being born after, um, the internet was invented, it just so happens that there happens to be a place where people share their ideas, opinions, personal information, nudes, and art, known as the internet. It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody I know in real life reads all of these personal anecdotes about me without revealing to me that they know my every thought.

Personally, I don’t care. However, professionally, I am starting to care.

I think that there should be an updated Terms and Conditions that what a person does or shares on the internet is not necessarily a reflection of who they are in real life – and they shouldn’t be fired for it. There should be some protection apart from, “Hey, what you said came out wrong, and you are banished like a martyr from medieval times from society.”

Where is the line? And who draws it? Your employer decides. And that’s the job.

It might be a bad example, but I definitely did not know 76,000,000 Trump supporters existed. Why? Probably because they were afraid they would lose their job if they admitted it. It is hard to admit to ourselves that we don’t like people who have different views of the world than us, and we can often threaten them on and off line. I do not personally agree with certain beliefs, but people should be allowed to have them, publicly without prosecution.

It feels like “we” – being ethical, relatively liberal intellectuals – are censoring ourselves from “information” – ranging from political opinions from the other side, discomforting artistic expressions, and media on social platforms – and that is how we all lose by omission. We are talking to our small circles known as ourselves – and I really mean that – our circles are getting smaller and smaller as a byproduct of the internet, so it seems. And we wonder why the world is divided.

I think I would make a fantastic modern teacher – I hate bigotry and racism; I like learning. In Florida, this might be a problem. So there, my point is argued both ways. The educational system is just as outdated as my complaint, but that does not mean it is not important to learn both sides of a story.

I’m not some profound on-the-pulse internet guru. I am a writer who needs a job and to be able to express himself. Enter Generation Z. I just wish the times, and the people could move as fast as the world seems to be moving these days.

Worst of all, we are all little Howard Roark’s who don’t think either of those things should be compromised for the other. And if one is to be compromised, it will be the job, thanks to our parents compromising their happiness to work when they were our age, which has resulted in some generational wealth so we could just “be ourselves” and “live our lives.”

We are compromising progress because it doesn’t agree with what the past looks like.

That’d make a pretty good first sentence if you ask me, but here’s what I wanted to write:

I was substitute teaching for Special Ed today, and one of the kids said I was fat and short, and I replied, “Look who’s talking.”

That DID NOT HAPPEN. But in my opinion, the joke is funny. Maybe not politically correct, and I certainly don’t actually believe that, nor would I ever say it to a student, but after they did, in fact, take shots at me, on my walk home, that joke popped into my head, and yes, I laughed.

I wrote that joke to prove my point. The whole article would have been in vain otherwise. Writing about theoretical premises is great, but what we write is usually rooted in something we’ve experienced.

I am afraid to say something like that because then I won’t get hired as a full-time teacher. However, there is a sentiment, or lesson, behind the joke that proves you can say things that are wrong but have them be meaningful in the right way

I struggle with Special Ed students. I always have. I never know how to address them or talk with them, and I usually feel generally uncomfortable around them. However, today, I was assigned to cover a Special Ed class. I had to be comfortable, as a professional, in a position I had never been in before.

And you know what happened? My fears about how I should act around Special Ed students melted away. They were comfortable. I talked with these kids. I cracked jokes both about myself and them like I would with other students. We got to know each other by our character rather than our accomplishments or status. We’ll be giving each other high fives tomorrow. A kid’s laughter is probably the best sound in the world.

And you want to know what really happened on the other side of the story? A teacher, during the class, asked me every question I’ve been asked my entire life – summing me up in a few sentences. My age, where I went to college, my graduate program, what my parents did for a living, where they live, and about my siblings and what they do. All the socio-economic things that I feel like, as a society, we put so much emphasis on and yet make us feel so small.

Maybe a part of me feels bad, you know? I was in a Special Ed class in middle school. I couldn’t tell you one thing I learned, but I could tell you three names of the five students in that class. Zoe. Grace. Kenny.

If there is one thing that I have learned from being both a student and an educator, it is to use encouragement rather than punishment. Encourage me not to want to prove my point with an offensive joke, show me why I’m wrong, and accept me for being different.