Rules: Why I hate, them continued

Look at that weird title. A small part of me is irritated by it even now, but I'm not sure why. Let me rephrase that: I know why it bothers me, but I hate that it bothers me. I have this nagging compulsion to edit it and make it look right. But, what is right? I guess you could say grammatically it doesn't look right. But who invented grammar, presumably not a single person.Who invented the comma, the semi-colon, the em dash? STOP!

Before you even think to tell me who invented what, know this: I don't care. I could google it right now, but I won't.  Why, you ask? Because knowing will do me no good. It won't make me enjoy writing more, or less. It won't make me a better writer. Knowing proper grammar is useful, to a point. It allows us, the uneducated, unwashed masses to communicate effectively through... email, and... letters? Does anyone send letters anymore? Ok, maybe its useful for instructions, and lists, and areas where exact meaning is exactly what you need. But, what about when it comes to expression?

Our whole lives we are told the proper way to write by people who have no idea how to write themselves. I mean, they understand the semantics, they know subjects and predicates, they know periods and commas, they can spot a gerund a mile away; but, their command of semantics is married to a deficit in passion. They go to university and they get degrees with distinction -- distinction in mimicry. They learn that an essay has an introduction and a thesis, that each paragraph has one point (by necessity, of course), that the page number goes in the top right corner only, that hanging indentations must be used in a bibliography, and that any font other than "Times New Roman" is blasphemy; they learn that the second person is weak, that they should shun being too informal, they learn to detach themselves from their emotions and think critically, they learn to avoid rhetorical flourish -- in short, they learn to become robots. Robots programmed to act and think in their programmers image.

 I am not a robot, and so, every time I write a University essay I die a little inside. My latest philosophy paper was particularly taxing. I had to detach myself completely from my feelings and write some on an abhorrently boring subject in an abhorrently boring fashion. I just about wrote "I think", when suddenly I heard a voice in my mind, it was my monotone philosophy professor. In his characteristic manner, and by characteristic I mean devoid of any character, he parroted "your opinion doesn't matter." That's right, in philosophy your opinion doesn't matter, all that matters is the ability to rationally prove your point. Rhetoric, imagery, emotion, these are the bane of philosophy. I can already see that philosophy will be the bane of my soul for the next three months.  

I've decided to continue to add onto this whenever I encounter rules and conventions that bother me. For now my paper rage has fizzled out. More to come, that's a guarantee

Ps. This is an older post rewritten. I'm not sure how other people write, but this is how I do it. Usually the first time I write something it's shit. The first post was basically all rage, I like to think of this as a slightly more refined rage.