November 4, 2014
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I am Indignant and Resentful
I have found that I feel indignant lately, I also feel resentful. As I am called to the front of the class, as I am called to the front of the group, as they look up at me and expect me to pour forth my information like a pitcher, I feel this way. It isn't when I am up there, in that moment when I see the faces there is a compassionate engagement, I feel a kinship with the audience. It is the moments before I move my way toward this confrontation where I feel this feeling. I thought it was nervousness but I haven't been debilitatingly nervous in front of people, in this setting, for years. There is a fit of nerves that arise but it is a reaction that is more than manageable. But this feeling that I know now is resenting and indignant almost keeps me from doing this aspect of my job, or calling, or whatever it is.
The only message I have to say is very similar to that of what Gandhi said, "I have nothing new to teach the world." In his statement he was answering to the ideas that he was said to put forth on non-violence, and, to a degree I am saying that too. I am a teacher, really, at heart an elementary school teacher. I have moved through this life to a position as, for all intensive purposes, a principal for a drop-out re-engagement program. I resent, at times, that this rolls off my tongue and that it sounds so crafted from a marketing standpoint. The students that I serve are all that you would imagine would fall into this demographic, poor children, inordinately brown children, addicted, adjudicated, I would say abandoned, lonely, and, to me, beautiful beyond belief.
When I say that last bit, which is more truthful than the others which are just indicators of a system (real in their effects), whereas, as I believe, their beauty is an innate aspects of nature, I am chastised with platitudes. "That is so pretty", "That is so nice.", etc. They call to me and ask for numbers, they ask for evidence, but I tell them the evidence of innate beauty is that logic, reason, can take you to the cliff edge but one must jump off and fly with wings of faith then. Then they shiver, the one's who link faith with mania. I do not mean in religion (and I don't not mean it either). I mean that a conceptual inquiry can only come to this cliff edge. The edge of its usefulness leads to a big giant arrow and a sign that says, "Jump, you will fly". That is really the entirety of my message. And it is, as the Gandhian quote ends, "As old as the hills".
Yet, these beautiful, bright, intelligent people don't believe it. They get to the cliff side and they turn back around to the forest and continue with their mutterings. They deepen their processes, they widen their reasoning, but each time it brings them back to that cliff side they cower back and go back.
"We are data driven" I hear. I want to say, "No, you're not." and they would say,
"Why do you say that?"
"Because if you were you would have stopped doing this work." (if they are working with at-risk populations-another word that I am resentful at-we are all at-risk for something but this is a demonizing term)
"Why?"
"Tell me, even socioeconomically because racial conversations are very uncomfortable for some, tell me who has always been at the bottom of the Public High School barrel? We all know it. We have hundreds of years of data. Why would we keep doing it? If evidence was why we did this then it shows us that the effort is futile and that we should just stop it. The 'return' we get does not equal the input. Why do we do this? Also, you'd never have children."
"What?"
"Tell me in what non-value measurable way that it would benefit anyone to have children? We are poorer, our relationships become more stressed, there is higher levels of dissatisfaction in marriages, etc. etc. If we didn't have immeasurable reasons to have children we would not have them at the rates that we do."
My indignation doesn't come from the fact that we are not value driven but that we are not conscious of the values we are espousing. We are ignorantly adhering to a value that is materialism, or nihilism, or some sort of this ilk. We do this because it has become habitual not that it is true. I am indignant that I have to say this that we all believe, that we are ineffable beings meant to act upon this understanding of ourselves and others. That this is the most effective way to engage in organizing because it is our best selves. That we believe that it is 'secondary' at the the most, or something that can be done after the 'reality' of work, life, etc. is done is dooming us to failure. To quote Gandhi again, "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
What is violence then. It can be the gross level of hurting, physically, the body of another. But it is equally, if not more so, an act of violence to damn a person to a life of emanating and believing that life is an expression of our worst selves. Worst in the sense of a zero sum engagement, winners, losers, etc. When we believe we must compromise the highest of our selves to a system that demands less than that of ourselves we have cut off a part of our selves that is no more damaging that if you cut off a limb.
I am reminded of a passage in Saul Bellows book Humboldt's Gift when a group of people are talking about a poet that had killed himself. The group was basically saying that he was too weak to live in this world, he was too sensitive, he cared too much. The character, I believe it was Humboldt, then criticized this group because he said what are you saying about the 'world' then? That it is cruel, uncaring, etc.? Is this the world? I don't believe it is. I think, even, that logic and reason on are on my side. I even think that those that believe this is the world do not, really, believe it because of how they treat people they care about in their lives. They think of it, this engagement, as a respite from the 'norm'. But if the norm was so pervasive, if it was the 'norm', then it couldn't be so common for this kindness to arise. If, even, selfishness was evolutionary then selflessness, as I believe it arises in each of us, all of us, at one time or another-usually many times, would have been bred out of us. The very reason that our goodness arises in such a seemingly overwhelming tide of its opposite is, in itself, no matter how rare, that it is the actual Norm. It could not arise so often if it was not.
Thus the only need to change is to reduce the barriers to what we are naturally. We do not have to add anything to it. I am reading One Straw Revolution right now Mr Fukuoka says it beautifully in regards to farming. He identifies it as "do nothing" farming. Not that one doesn't work hard but instead of adding things to the mix you see what the mix is already and really identify whether you need it or not. You try to reduce what arises naturally. What I have found through my own experimentation in education is that education is natural, that learning is natural, that wanting this learning and education to be driven toward and supporting something good is natural. That we want to find meaning on a larger scale, to find a way that our contributions and uniqueness of being is universally important is natural (that it is true is true as well-we just have to find a way to believe it).
I am indignant because I am sure very few will apply these concepts, that very few will really believe it, and I have spent so long-20 years, of showing how it can work with very high barrier (I resent this term too) students. The basic methodology though is applicable to any system. I am resentful because, well, frankly, I am resentful at all the suffering of those that are in power and those that are not. I am resentful because it really doesn't have to be this way. In fact, it is easier after the systems are realigned.
I don't know. Perhaps it is that we are so rare, each and every consciousness, that we have an opportunity because of this awareness and we have relegated ourselves to accepting a poor return.
So I stand, just before, saddened, sorrowful, until I get to see those wonderful, wonderful faces. Then I am engaged, happy, and working hard to help support individuals to realize this beauty. Then afterwards, many times, I become happy/sad. Happy because I am sure of the truth in that it points, conceptually, to the goodness of being, but saddened that so many will continue to not believe or act upon it.
