You read the title correctly. Grandmas are better than textbooks. How's that for a thesis statement, Ms. Dreisbach?

I don't care if they cost $140 each. You might as well throw them all away. Beyond passing your course, the textbooks you bought this semester are, in all likelihood, of very little use to you. And while passing your courses may seem like a must-do; it's not. Honestly, it's not even close. We have been duped. Powerfully deceived. Totally goosestepped.

And when I say "we," I mean anyone who worries about completing college, or about having their children complete college. We don't have to.

Now I probably sound like a naive, privileged young man insulated by a protective bubble of luxury and ignorance, a spoiled brat gone rotten from too much comfort and the inevitable accompanying complacence which gradually erodes the soul of man, extinguishing the will inherent to all of us from birth which drives us "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield!" (Thank you, Tennyson.)

So let's establish some context for my thesis. Who the hell am I?

Okay. First of all, my legal name is Daniel Elijah Vazquez.

I was born in New York, New York on June 25th, 1995, two days after the New Jersey Devils won their first of three Stanley Cups.

But I have lived all my life in Newark, NJ, specifically in its prized "Ironbound District."

My mother sadly passed away due to lymphoma complications when I was not yet two years old. And so, I was raised, along with my older brother (four years my senior) by a single dad. My father worked for over 25 years as an ESL and Foreign Language Teacher for the Newark Public Schools. He chose to stop working when he was diagnosed with Cancer in 2004. He still kicks ass every day.

My dad is a quirky, an unintentionally funny man who has trouble saying "I love you" in words, but shows his care for me in every action, not to mention every bead of sweat that slides down from his forehead when he goes crazy worrying about my well-being.
(I have a tendency to do and say things that would scare any reasonably risk-averse parent, like "Hey, ya know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad being homeless after all. It could be liberating!") (Or write articles about the relative insignificance of a college education.)

So as I begin the task of laying out my reasons for stating that grandmas are better than textbooks, the implication being that your college degree is of less worth than the insights your 89 year old grandma could offer you, I do so very well aware of the fact that my dad would flip out if he were to read this article. (To my brother, Victor, don't show this to Dad. A heart attack is not a pleasant way for him to go. He prefers getting lost at sea, remember?)

Now I did not get to know my grandfathers. I did, however, get to know my two grandmas. And thank God for that. Like anything else which I choose to ramble about via this blogging medium, my contention that grandmas are better than textbooks is a matter of philosophy.

"Philosophy," Cicero once said, "is the art of living." So any assertions I make from here on out are the result of my personal assessment of how life ought to be lived. Naturally, you may disagree with some of the assumptions I make about the so called, "good life." But if you share with me a recognition for the inherent beauty of being alive, it is not hard to argue that when it comes to the comparative value of college textbooks, (on any subject) vs. the precious conventional wisdom of our elders, it is actually the Winnie-the-Pooh-like pearls of wisdom, often offered to us by our grandparents, that are worth immeasurably more.

Why?

Let me quote David Foster Wallace, the impressively cerebral writer who ended up, in Shakespearean irony, taking his own life a few years after stating at a college commencement address:
"In the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can often have a life and death significance."

Cliches are important. Actually, as we can parse from Wallace's quote, one could easily argue that they are, literally, vital.

Yes, cliches are that powerful. There is a reason why generations of people go on repeating the same lines over and over again. Because they're true! The sayings we hear ad nauseum are the truths that bear repeating, the most valuable insights that cultures throughout the ages have decided to pass on, generation after generation. And if we stopped rolling our eyes at every occasion in which they're invoked, and we took a moment to just listen, we would be so much better off for it. For in the confusion of a postmodern world which spins faster and faster and carries on aimlessly, void of any salient, authoritative institutions who impose on us a collective sense of purpose, we often find ourselves "lost," directionless, hopeless, despairing. Worse yet, cynical. Misguided by the amorality of the very systems we had initially put into motion to help us survive, we now lack the perspective to feel gratitude for the gift of each and every waking second we have the miraculous fortune of experiencing in this universe, in these human bodies.

Our profound lack of gratitude is truly madness. When you think carefully about your existence, in this world, at this time, with your human brain and body, and keep that awareness at the forefront of your consciousness, moment by moment (hard to do!), it becomes nearly impossible to feel distressed over the minutia of modern living.

And yes, I throw "college degrees" into the minutia category!

While I can recognize that, yes, college degrees do have value (which is steadily decreasing) I strongly believe that, in the grand scheme of things (please challenge yourself to really, truly, deeply think about the "grand scheme of things") a piece of paper representing your completion of any program at a higher institution of learning does not matter much, certainly not in the same life-and-death kind of way that the platitudes your grandmas offers do.

My two grandmas have served as role models for me. Sages, really. Exemplars of the virtues that make being a human a distinctly beautiful experience, more valuable than that of all the other creatures who do not share our capacity for rationality and ethics.

From my father's mother, I learned patience. The methodical practice of deliberate little actions, moment after moment, done mindfully and with great care, to create a beautiful, peaceful home and moreover, a imperturbable composure of the mind which allowed her to laugh sincerely and without bitterness when she, in old age, would lose her balance and fall on her posterior on the kitchen floor.

From my mother's mother, I learned faith, in one's self, and in the face of life's inevitable sufferings. When I lost my mom, she lost her daughter, a soul-crushing pain I can not begin to imagine. And yet she bore it. Her spirit has always been passionate, and strong. She came to this country with pennies in her pocket, and made it, with unfaltering trust in her own abilities and an unbreakable resolve to achieve the American Dream. And any time I ever showed doubt in myself, she had no qualms telling me to grow a pair, because she knew I too had it in me, that uniquely human will to thrive and flourish against all odds, because it's just what we do.

No textbook can teach you these things. No textbook can serve as a living in-the-flesh example of life done right.
No textbook can give you a hug and a kiss when you need encouragement.
No textbook can believe in you when you don't believe in yourself.
No textbook can tell you stories of its childhood days on a farm in Spain during its civil war, or of its unabiding love of the United States of America, the country which graced her with the chance at a better life than the one she left in communist Cuba.
No textbook can tell you to not "let yourself drown in a glass of water," or say, rhyming in Spanish, that "there are three things in life: health, money, and love. Whoever has these things can thank God."
No textbook can serve you rice and beans, pasta and chicken, sausage and potatoes, and so on until your stomach is ready to burst.
No textbook can look at you without judgement and see you for the miraculous oddity of the universe you are.
No textbook can love you. No textbook can hold your hand while lying in bed, in a hospital or at home, and tell you with insistent reassurance not to cry when it's time to say that final goodbye.

These are the golden gifts our grandmothers give to us, and more. No textbook will ever come close to their value.

No textbook will you ever show you so undeniably and concretely the sacredness of every nanosecond of your life.

Please know this.

So, fine, stay in school. I am, for the moment. But please know that with or without a degree, with or without a well-paying job, with or without a fancy car, with or without a handsome husband, a beautiful wife, adorable children, immaculate houses, luxurious vacations, or even a modest house or steady employment, you have always just won the cosmic lottery, every second you take to appreciate the astounding fact that-- holy crap, I'm still alive.

That's right.

Holy crap, you're still alive.

Rejoice and be glad in that. Seriously.