[Over the past few years, long lost friends and flames have contacted me. We have reached that age and stage. The "existential angst" I have felt with not knowing how to respond to these messages from the deep blue past gave birth to this template. I confess I have not actually used it.]
I am not very good at this--connecting or re-connecting with people. Some character flaw, I guess. Plus, I have become more of a loner and recluse these past fifteen years. Life's buffet has not served up the right choices, or I have chosen poorly.
Suffice to say, I am indeed still kicking and intend to for as long as possible. I appreciate and have made a religion of truth, beauty, and goodness. I use my talents and energies to discern and understand "what is." I am in good company, but certainly not special--neither a leader-to-follow nor exemplary parishioner. But I do my best to enjoy the moments and the visual and other candy that I discover each time I open my eyes, or close them.
I am happy to know you are here, too. I have strong and weak memories, some surely repressed, of the times we were together. It would be nice to sit and go through these. Who knows what would surface? I am sure there would be discoveries to delight, or perhaps dismay us. Regardless, it would be worth the effort. And it would allow us to share again a relationship-love that brought us together in the first place, caused by fate or fashion. And that surely has joy, sometimes laughter, associated with it.
Unfortunately for now, I am one of those who is limited. Call it economically challenged. I will travel to Mexico in a few days and try not to disappear (France would have been preferable). I have had to swallow hard and work on digesting the latest necessary corrections in the course of a life. I am not sure where my one-way ticket will finally take me. At least I can work on languages and cultures still, perhaps find a caretaking or other low profile job.
As you can see, it is difficult for me to get close. I use language and other defenses. My intent is not to do this, but for now I still find it necessary to cover the sadness and pain that otherwise can overwhelm me. In person I am still presentable. I am fit and healthy, handsome in a grayish sort of way, positive, and whatever else. I am not embarrassing to be with in public or one-on-one. Normal in everyday life, if that is descriptive of anyone--I doubt it is. I evade groups.
I cannot account for what has happened over the years. That is a kind of writing I was never good at and have decided not to try anymore. Suffice to say I am here now and glad to be able to say hello. If this is not the strangest message you have received from a distant someone, I would be happy to hear from you again. I will do my best to respond, but it may take some time. As I said, communicating and connecting are challenges for me, and I am flying below the radar, not entirely by choice.
End of August, 2007
Showing posts with label apologetic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apologetic. Show all posts
March 18, 2010
October 4, 2008
Sepulchral inscription two
There is no one who will ever know the secrets of your heart. I suspect there are so many and so varied and so deep, some even unconscious, that full knowledge and self awareness escapes even the most advanced or enlightened among us. Having said that, I believe that some among those who are left after we are gone will be curious or interested to know more, to have as big a slice of knowledge and understanding as is possible, if only because we-others who have traveled this road can guide us on our way. The insatiability of these journey makers is not about us, the dead and gone, but about everything and themselves.
So it is that we take to writing or otherwise documenting who we are. And whatever we intend to communicate, that pales in comparison with who or what we are in total. Once externalized and all taken together, images and strong possibilities come to the insatiable from which s/he will take what s/he will.
Who knows if our best friend was killing herself with negative messages she sent to every one of her cells for years? Was it old age or meaninglessness that finally did auntie in? Was my partner ever really there when we were together? or was he somewhere else, hoping for a better life with or without me? Did that person in that moment delight or destroy me intentionally, because of me somehow? Or was it somehow else?
In this life we never know. At least not the in fullness. There is always the known hidden from view, and the unknown perhaps forever unattainable here.
Is it our duty to leave records? to make ourselves as transparent as possible, or necessary in the moment? Is it proper and safe to be invisible except for what people can observe? Can today be understood in light of the inevitable changes that will be tomorrow, and thus my thoughts and feelings and words will be different and then of no or some account at all? What do we owe our audiences and friends and loved ones to account for ourselves? Everything, nothing, what?
Such are the questions I ask each time I write and share the always unfinished text. And each time, I have no answers except to make an account in as accurate and honest a way as I can. I must let the cards fall as they will. It is then both intention and fate which propel me forward. I choose and act; I am chosen and acted upon.
There is a power or a force, or what you would call it, higher than ourselves. Limited in space and time can only posit the infinite because of our very condition. It can be no other way except nothingness, which some say is the same thing.
So it is that we take to writing or otherwise documenting who we are. And whatever we intend to communicate, that pales in comparison with who or what we are in total. Once externalized and all taken together, images and strong possibilities come to the insatiable from which s/he will take what s/he will.
Who knows if our best friend was killing herself with negative messages she sent to every one of her cells for years? Was it old age or meaninglessness that finally did auntie in? Was my partner ever really there when we were together? or was he somewhere else, hoping for a better life with or without me? Did that person in that moment delight or destroy me intentionally, because of me somehow? Or was it somehow else?
In this life we never know. At least not the in fullness. There is always the known hidden from view, and the unknown perhaps forever unattainable here.
Is it our duty to leave records? to make ourselves as transparent as possible, or necessary in the moment? Is it proper and safe to be invisible except for what people can observe? Can today be understood in light of the inevitable changes that will be tomorrow, and thus my thoughts and feelings and words will be different and then of no or some account at all? What do we owe our audiences and friends and loved ones to account for ourselves? Everything, nothing, what?
Such are the questions I ask each time I write and share the always unfinished text. And each time, I have no answers except to make an account in as accurate and honest a way as I can. I must let the cards fall as they will. It is then both intention and fate which propel me forward. I choose and act; I am chosen and acted upon.
There is a power or a force, or what you would call it, higher than ourselves. Limited in space and time can only posit the infinite because of our very condition. It can be no other way except nothingness, which some say is the same thing.
August 3, 2007
Xmas 98
The time has come,
My heart tells me so,
To locate West.
And there I'll go.
No light matter,
This fall's decision.
Uproot again;
Repair division.
Europe was it
For almost 25.
A place to be,
But now it's thrive.
And thrive I will,
'Cause will will help,
In times of good
And those others . . .
Dreams I've had.
More I would.
Change of place?
More I could.
I'll see spring,
Mountains 'gain.
Hope's eternal.
Each day again.
Is it possible?
Is it right?
Those I love,
Those from sight,
Will know that I--
This quasi-flight--
Will treasure them?
All we did,
And all we might . . .
No matter now.
It is time to go.
To locate West.
There I'll know.
My heart tells me so,
To locate West.
And there I'll go.
No light matter,
This fall's decision.
Uproot again;
Repair division.
Europe was it
For almost 25.
A place to be,
But now it's thrive.
And thrive I will,
'Cause will will help,
In times of good
And those others . . .
Dreams I've had.
More I would.
Change of place?
More I could.
I'll see spring,
Mountains 'gain.
Hope's eternal.
Each day again.
Is it possible?
Is it right?
Those I love,
Those from sight,
Will know that I--
This quasi-flight--
Will treasure them?
All we did,
And all we might . . .
No matter now.
It is time to go.
To locate West.
There I'll know.
Xmas 00
I accompanied my mother the last time she went to the dining room. She seemed relieved to be able to ride the elevator and go down for dinner. "You know, I was afraid my body was falling apart." Young inside, fiercely independent. That was the last time she had dinner with her contemporaries in her hometown in Marin, January 1995. She died that spring as I boarded a train to Graz.
My father died at about my age, on the highway from Napa to Vallejo. In his pocket, he had financial security. He had worked hard for this, hardly a measure of his greatness. He and my mother were thinking about a country home in the Alexander Valley. Never got there, never retired. I returned from Germany in 1975 to say good bye.
My parents supported me in Boulder, years which I forever treasure. There, personal and intellectual things changed me profoundly--I found love, children, idealism, poetry. I grew up much too fast then, but the lessons and themes woven into my life are inextricably still me. Though I have set aside these from time to time--having to work and survive the excuse--they pop out of secret places, as they must. And thus again, as I think of you
Through these threads, I find hope and tender remembrance of those dearest and our happy times.
In 1999, I returned again to the US, this time on the suspicion that I needed to be close to loved ones. Believing lease-end's near, I left my personal dream for others and health, and for me. Christmas that year was simple and modest; 2000 brought work and the repairs necessary for heart and pocketbook. I have been able to visit loved ones. It has been sweet, and refreshing.
I have traveled almost a full circle now, just a few miles from Marin. I feel young inside, independent. And I am looking forward to retreat from the world to treasure first loves. Back, closer to the dream. (Better for me to appreciate America from a distance.)
I live in Healdsburg now. I am able to smell the smells of the California countryside, the hills and valleys in fog--the Pacific and San Francisco not far away-- deep and plentiful cool air in the rain. I am a mile from the entrance to the Alexander Valley. With my spirit rich in life's lessons and recurrent themes, I have the security and strength I need. And I thank my parents and life for the gifts come closer and together. They strangely give a sense of meaning and purpose in a circular logic I cannot escape, and don't want to.
I am sorry I cannot be with you this holiday season, or take you with me where the journey may lead next. But you are forever close in my heart. May these moments bring us closer and remember the good and happiness and beauty that keep us ever young and living strong against what would discourage lesser spirits.
My father died at about my age, on the highway from Napa to Vallejo. In his pocket, he had financial security. He had worked hard for this, hardly a measure of his greatness. He and my mother were thinking about a country home in the Alexander Valley. Never got there, never retired. I returned from Germany in 1975 to say good bye.
My parents supported me in Boulder, years which I forever treasure. There, personal and intellectual things changed me profoundly--I found love, children, idealism, poetry. I grew up much too fast then, but the lessons and themes woven into my life are inextricably still me. Though I have set aside these from time to time--having to work and survive the excuse--they pop out of secret places, as they must. And thus again, as I think of you
Through these threads, I find hope and tender remembrance of those dearest and our happy times.
In 1999, I returned again to the US, this time on the suspicion that I needed to be close to loved ones. Believing lease-end's near, I left my personal dream for others and health, and for me. Christmas that year was simple and modest; 2000 brought work and the repairs necessary for heart and pocketbook. I have been able to visit loved ones. It has been sweet, and refreshing.
I have traveled almost a full circle now, just a few miles from Marin. I feel young inside, independent. And I am looking forward to retreat from the world to treasure first loves. Back, closer to the dream. (Better for me to appreciate America from a distance.)
I live in Healdsburg now. I am able to smell the smells of the California countryside, the hills and valleys in fog--the Pacific and San Francisco not far away-- deep and plentiful cool air in the rain. I am a mile from the entrance to the Alexander Valley. With my spirit rich in life's lessons and recurrent themes, I have the security and strength I need. And I thank my parents and life for the gifts come closer and together. They strangely give a sense of meaning and purpose in a circular logic I cannot escape, and don't want to.
I am sorry I cannot be with you this holiday season, or take you with me where the journey may lead next. But you are forever close in my heart. May these moments bring us closer and remember the good and happiness and beauty that keep us ever young and living strong against what would discourage lesser spirits.
Xmas 99
Of the big three--truth, beauty, and the good--beauty has uplifted me the most. Beauty first, but always along with truth--knowledge--and the good--right action. This the unique soup that has nourished me. When I saw beauty attended by partly hidden truth and the promise of everything right, this has sufficed, even in the face of my most important questions: Is there a G/god? and is there an other side?
I lead myself away from beauty by the daily matters of practical reality. These have taken an inordinately prominent position in my life. Unless we are vigilant, persistent, devoted. Beauty has been too elusive to this preoccupied soul. Artists are so lucky.
Beauty continues for me as physical and spiritual. Would that it were different. On certain days I am a monk, compassionate and active in the experience of souls meeting. On others I am a sensualist immersed in the people, places, and particulars of this phenomenal existence. Experience. Existence. These the travels of my divided ways as I have wandered about the map of human faith and hope and dreams.
I have come to accept my errors of the flesh and my foolish ideals. They are both me--to see and appreciate, for example, a woman inside and out. I am both; I can only surrender to what is, not how a part of me or someone else would have just so.
I am a romantic. As a child and young adult, medieval stories and courtly love bred me. In my renaissance, language and humanist ways ushered in an adulthood I have hardly coped with well, nor was I prepared for. Then I lost all for many years; neither beauty, nor truth, certainly not goodness saved my soul. Then life arrested me, and I am in a rebirth, now ten years in labor.
I harken back to where I have been, the wastelands and the promise. Oh, other important things happened along the way, but they make for too long a tale of seeming rationalizations.
The important thing is today. My love for you would be to share some of the beauty I have--from the romance, the renaissance, the romantic. Here are my current favorites that reflect this life. The real truth, most beautiful, and the best. Haunting lyrics and lines and words, melodies to suffice in the face of mortal matters, our questions, and the life we live to the fullest that we might realize our own truth, beauty, and goodness before the next adventure and quest begin.
I lead myself away from beauty by the daily matters of practical reality. These have taken an inordinately prominent position in my life. Unless we are vigilant, persistent, devoted. Beauty has been too elusive to this preoccupied soul. Artists are so lucky.
Beauty continues for me as physical and spiritual. Would that it were different. On certain days I am a monk, compassionate and active in the experience of souls meeting. On others I am a sensualist immersed in the people, places, and particulars of this phenomenal existence. Experience. Existence. These the travels of my divided ways as I have wandered about the map of human faith and hope and dreams.
I have come to accept my errors of the flesh and my foolish ideals. They are both me--to see and appreciate, for example, a woman inside and out. I am both; I can only surrender to what is, not how a part of me or someone else would have just so.
I am a romantic. As a child and young adult, medieval stories and courtly love bred me. In my renaissance, language and humanist ways ushered in an adulthood I have hardly coped with well, nor was I prepared for. Then I lost all for many years; neither beauty, nor truth, certainly not goodness saved my soul. Then life arrested me, and I am in a rebirth, now ten years in labor.
I harken back to where I have been, the wastelands and the promise. Oh, other important things happened along the way, but they make for too long a tale of seeming rationalizations.
The important thing is today. My love for you would be to share some of the beauty I have--from the romance, the renaissance, the romantic. Here are my current favorites that reflect this life. The real truth, most beautiful, and the best. Haunting lyrics and lines and words, melodies to suffice in the face of mortal matters, our questions, and the life we live to the fullest that we might realize our own truth, beauty, and goodness before the next adventure and quest begin.
Xmas 93
Christmas 1993
For my part I cannot end the year without writing . . . and sharing a few thoughts with you, one of a small number of very special people.
This year has been one of turmoil with moments of relative calm, and some healing. And I have shared parts or all of me with you under what have been for me very special and extraordinary circumstances. Many have seen how very human and frail I am. Others have witnessed glimpses of what I can be like in happier times. A few have looked into my unconscious and have not laughed. A couple I have let touch my soul. Some just touched it anyway--permission I granted without your asking. And I am glad for this, all of this.
I am not who I was nor am I who I will be. I am not where I was, nor will I be here for very long. I appreciate mental, emotional, and physical health much more than I ever did. I delicately balance myself every day on an edge between correspondent sanity and the deepest abyss, the abyss I thought in former times was reserved for others.
I appreciate and am coming to acknowledge the light that draws me to my true self. Some have said I have touched them in some way. For this I am glad too. It has been my mission to live again, and the way of that mission has been love which I have tried to express, however awkwardly. Some have been startled by my directness. "I love you" is not casual talk, and you did not take it casually, I know. But the light heals, even if we are apart. The light is still there for us, one more chance.
I have shed tears and been mortally wounded by the pain I have witnessed that others bear. This has not served me as well as it should since the counterbalance has been missing in my life, and I must admit is still missing.
I have taken refuge in my studies, my own company, my monastic ways. The death to rebirth process has not seen itself through to fulfillment. Re-birthing is hard stuff, particularly for mythical types such as I find that I am. Harder than anything I have ever done or contemplated. And the pain has been hell itself. I wish no one--not anyone--such pain as I have experienced, as I have caused.
I pray that what I call the cosmos will embrace all of us. I can no longer read newspapers or watch TV. The suffering and ignorance and lack of compassion are so difficult to view, to know about. I have used the word excruciating, and have come to a personal conclusion that crucifixions are salvation if there is but faith and hope. Would that salvation could be without such trials. They are sufferable and transcendent as we allow ourselves to be embraced by others, by faith and hope. We each have our own ghosts and demons, our own challenges, our own sadnesses which defy comparison--this I believe. May I gather myself to move better and beyond mine. I will, as best I can. Herein is my forgiveness of others. I am coming to forgive myself and feel the embrace.
St. Francis has been guiding me. I have not given up on him. I trust he will not give up on me. Perhaps like Francis, I have had altered states of consciousness, and they have led me to slow shifts in perception and belief. The consequences of this I already feel. But I do not care that I do not care about what my culture has presented as value. I admit I am finding difficulty with the "fit." I am not closed to all the possibilities, nor do I aspire to be closed. But I know what I know, even though I cannot prove or explain. I find myself on the outside of the worldly flow, but my perspective says that only some things matter. And non-things matter the most.
Through all of this and more, you have been there, or you were there at an important moment. I have not forgotten. I am thankful. And I love you for the help you have given me. May I be there at some moment or moments when you have as great a need as I for comfort, understanding, and love. The next year is another, but today will never come again. I am sorry for the lost days. But in view of this day and these moments, I treasure in just thinking about you.
I trust this letter finds you well and at peace with infinite moments of joy that embrace you, and that you can embrace.
For my part I cannot end the year without writing . . . and sharing a few thoughts with you, one of a small number of very special people.
This year has been one of turmoil with moments of relative calm, and some healing. And I have shared parts or all of me with you under what have been for me very special and extraordinary circumstances. Many have seen how very human and frail I am. Others have witnessed glimpses of what I can be like in happier times. A few have looked into my unconscious and have not laughed. A couple I have let touch my soul. Some just touched it anyway--permission I granted without your asking. And I am glad for this, all of this.
I am not who I was nor am I who I will be. I am not where I was, nor will I be here for very long. I appreciate mental, emotional, and physical health much more than I ever did. I delicately balance myself every day on an edge between correspondent sanity and the deepest abyss, the abyss I thought in former times was reserved for others.
I appreciate and am coming to acknowledge the light that draws me to my true self. Some have said I have touched them in some way. For this I am glad too. It has been my mission to live again, and the way of that mission has been love which I have tried to express, however awkwardly. Some have been startled by my directness. "I love you" is not casual talk, and you did not take it casually, I know. But the light heals, even if we are apart. The light is still there for us, one more chance.
I have shed tears and been mortally wounded by the pain I have witnessed that others bear. This has not served me as well as it should since the counterbalance has been missing in my life, and I must admit is still missing.
I have taken refuge in my studies, my own company, my monastic ways. The death to rebirth process has not seen itself through to fulfillment. Re-birthing is hard stuff, particularly for mythical types such as I find that I am. Harder than anything I have ever done or contemplated. And the pain has been hell itself. I wish no one--not anyone--such pain as I have experienced, as I have caused.
I pray that what I call the cosmos will embrace all of us. I can no longer read newspapers or watch TV. The suffering and ignorance and lack of compassion are so difficult to view, to know about. I have used the word excruciating, and have come to a personal conclusion that crucifixions are salvation if there is but faith and hope. Would that salvation could be without such trials. They are sufferable and transcendent as we allow ourselves to be embraced by others, by faith and hope. We each have our own ghosts and demons, our own challenges, our own sadnesses which defy comparison--this I believe. May I gather myself to move better and beyond mine. I will, as best I can. Herein is my forgiveness of others. I am coming to forgive myself and feel the embrace.
St. Francis has been guiding me. I have not given up on him. I trust he will not give up on me. Perhaps like Francis, I have had altered states of consciousness, and they have led me to slow shifts in perception and belief. The consequences of this I already feel. But I do not care that I do not care about what my culture has presented as value. I admit I am finding difficulty with the "fit." I am not closed to all the possibilities, nor do I aspire to be closed. But I know what I know, even though I cannot prove or explain. I find myself on the outside of the worldly flow, but my perspective says that only some things matter. And non-things matter the most.
Through all of this and more, you have been there, or you were there at an important moment. I have not forgotten. I am thankful. And I love you for the help you have given me. May I be there at some moment or moments when you have as great a need as I for comfort, understanding, and love. The next year is another, but today will never come again. I am sorry for the lost days. But in view of this day and these moments, I treasure in just thinking about you.
I trust this letter finds you well and at peace with infinite moments of joy that embrace you, and that you can embrace.
June 27, 2007
In the beginning
Noema (noematic), that to which we orient ourselves; it is the object referent of noesis, the noetic act.
Noesis, the interpretive act directed to an intentional object, the noema (or the noematic object).
Noematics, in this context, what is externalized, exposing understanding, albeit partial and a temporary negotiation.
Noesis, the interpretive act directed to an intentional object, the noema (or the noematic object).
Noematics, in this context, what is externalized, exposing understanding, albeit partial and a temporary negotiation.
June 26, 2007
Humanizing teaching and learning
I tried to end my teaching career by disclosing who I am and what I believe in and what I thought was happening to students in the system in which I supposedly teach. The result was an extraordinary outpouring of words and thoughts and sentiments from students asked to respond to my retirement. They responded to the different disclosures, each, apparently according to their interests and personalities. I had an insight into individuals and what they were about, more so than in two years of teaching them as other.
My object has been to create learning experiences which were evocative, but they were not, except at this end. It is ironic that as I try to end my teaching career, at least in the Czech system, I find one silver bullet for engaging students in feeling and writing about that.
My object has been to create learning experiences which were evocative, but they were not, except at this end. It is ironic that as I try to end my teaching career, at least in the Czech system, I find one silver bullet for engaging students in feeling and writing about that.
PRB
[This listening/reading was given to two classes in a course called PRB. It produced the best student writing in six years of teaching English in the Czech Republic. I should have done something like this much, much earlier. But what did I know? I was trying to deliver the best content I could consistent with the syllabi and norms I knew about and sensed where I taught. Sometimes it is just best to follow your gut.]
PRB, a course abbreviation. Probable Reality--Bearable? Possible Realities Bothersome? I am not sure.
Today is my last day of teaching. I think forever. And next week, Monday, is my daughter\'s birthday. May 30. I think in honor of these occasions, my last classes today should somehow be remarkable, or I should fess up and disclose why PRB, or what the real PRB is.
Honesty, truthfulness, integrity, thoughtfulness, vulnerability, humanity, responsibility, meaning. Ideals and therefore values. Bothersome in that in this environment, this schooling--not education--they are irrelevant, and therefore, I am. Possible reality one. But my last chances today can be to live these values, and let students know at least in part why they, at least some, have had such a difficult time with me! I hope in living these values today, I can bear it.
First, let me thank you for inviting me this week to your party to mark the end of term. By the time I realized, it was past the time to show up, I was on my way to bed. I noted the invitation with care and significance when it was given to me, but my own vulnerability always prevents me from joining groups of treasured young people. So my forgetfulness was really a conscious decision not to participate. Truth.
In 1991, Tara, my daughter died. Informal groups, perhaps especially with young people, are impossible for me to bear. The sadness is overwhelming, and since my near-death almost a year after hers, experiencing strong emotions . . . well, I cannot allow it. Not yet. Maybe never again. With her death, I die a little each day. It is not something you want to show or share with other people.
So now you have my excuse for my not joining you plus my apology. I am truly sorry I did not and cannot participate. And I thank you for past invitations.
What has this got to do with our last class, and school, and English, and your education? A lot, I think. Just start with what you now know. Our classes have not been really about the important stuff. Should school be about important stuff, truth, vulnerability, meaning? In short, it should. And this dissonance has brought me to this point, that I no longer want to try to teach. It doesn\'t work. But more importantly, it is not, at least in this environment, this school, this country and culture, with and by me, now and here about important stuff. And I believe it should be.
PRB has been my last compromise. I merely check to see if you are sitting there and have handed in your assignments. If these things, you get credit for the course.
School. It is a place where you show up and produce a few things and get some kind of sanction that something changed you. But the only changes I see in the different students and years of study is that you can cope better and better with the system. Learning, and God forbid, getting educated are beyond probability, beyond even possibility. This is the reality I see, and I may be wrong. Reality may be, probably is, different. But we have to go on what we believe we know.
Education is a good thing. I believe in it. I believe in learning to enrich your life. I do not believe in school to make you rich. I am wrong, at least a minority voice, in this belief. It is bothersome to me that schools have sold out to practical realities. But that is as it is, and you will do well to take advantage of what school has to offer you.
Education is a bad thing. Having had a ton of it, formal and informal (in school and outside of school), I believe this. The wonderful textures and colors and nuances and insights now possible for me make for possible and probable realities impossible otherwise for me to experience. So, I hope that you can get an education here.
These richer dimensions, however, will make for dissonances so great as to separate you out from others; and if you need others like you, or those with whom you can communicate and feel something akin, well, forget it. Education will make you more alone, more alienated, more different. Place this together with your other losses and sadnesses and you have it sometimes unbearable.
You have two subjects you focus on here. English and something else. English, for the most part, is a skill to acquire so you can get along better using the current world language. Practical reality--making a living--has placed my language into prominence, because everybody else wants but doesn\'t need a lot of what the dominant cultures and countries (i.e., English speaking) have. So, you are not really just getting English but a whole range of cultural bits and pieces. But the language by itself is useful, I admit. Continue to go after it; it will serve you well.
Your second subject, let\'s call it the substantive one--not just a skill to acquire to get along in the world--must be teaching you something about, well, school or education. In my case, my language has allowed me to find the sense and nonsense of things. It has also allowed me to enjoy the best of life, and I include in that our brief association here at this university. My schooling and education have given me the qualitative difference. I am blessed, and cursed, with what I can know and do.
What does the other subject you study teach you, let\'s say, about school? Civics. What does civics say about the schooling you are experiencing? Information systems. What does this subject have to say about what school is? Any dissonances? Any joys?
Again, your second subject is really English. Your primary subject is not this practical thing called a language. It is what you study in your own language, or what you use English to know more about. What you are devoting your time to, other than English and what is in English, must help you by giving you information and knowledge about the world. Maybe it even helps you understand it through that lens.
What do you know now or understand about your university experience when you let mathematics, physics, chemistry, civics, psychology, Czech history and literature, etc., talk to you and make sense or nonsense for you?
What is all this now about? PRB, probabilities, Kevin\'s daughter, this question. Just that.
If this class, just for this day, is about what is important to you and what you believe in and what you are spending your time doing, wouldn\'t it be a pretty good idea to say, or find out, what good all your time and maybe effort is producing?
Education is for life. Will your or other lives be better in some way because of what you are studying here? Let\'s try to begin to answer that important question.
Here is my answer for me. This is my last day of teaching. I have found it has become more than bothersome. It is unbearable. The realities I see for you and for me here are not the best. And if I can make a change for the better, for me and for you, I need to get out of the way of your education, or at least your schooling. Doing teaching the way the students and culture expect of me here is too great a force for me to guide to what I believe are better, more important outcomes.
It is kind of like this. Students need not witness nor experience the effects of my frustration, my irrelevant values, my realities . . . my botheredness. It is not in your best interests. And I am happy for the decision, and happy for you. I have confidence in you that you will do best with what you choose to do. Maybe it is like the parent who lets his child go, and lets her experience the wonder of her possibilities and her realities wherever she is.
I will miss you, miss you more than you can possibly know.
After you try to answer your question about your primary subject and give me something I can touch and read to remember you by, that will be the end of class today.
May 27, 2005
PRB, a course abbreviation. Probable Reality--Bearable? Possible Realities Bothersome? I am not sure.
Today is my last day of teaching. I think forever. And next week, Monday, is my daughter\'s birthday. May 30. I think in honor of these occasions, my last classes today should somehow be remarkable, or I should fess up and disclose why PRB, or what the real PRB is.
Honesty, truthfulness, integrity, thoughtfulness, vulnerability, humanity, responsibility, meaning. Ideals and therefore values. Bothersome in that in this environment, this schooling--not education--they are irrelevant, and therefore, I am. Possible reality one. But my last chances today can be to live these values, and let students know at least in part why they, at least some, have had such a difficult time with me! I hope in living these values today, I can bear it.
First, let me thank you for inviting me this week to your party to mark the end of term. By the time I realized, it was past the time to show up, I was on my way to bed. I noted the invitation with care and significance when it was given to me, but my own vulnerability always prevents me from joining groups of treasured young people. So my forgetfulness was really a conscious decision not to participate. Truth.
In 1991, Tara, my daughter died. Informal groups, perhaps especially with young people, are impossible for me to bear. The sadness is overwhelming, and since my near-death almost a year after hers, experiencing strong emotions . . . well, I cannot allow it. Not yet. Maybe never again. With her death, I die a little each day. It is not something you want to show or share with other people.
So now you have my excuse for my not joining you plus my apology. I am truly sorry I did not and cannot participate. And I thank you for past invitations.
What has this got to do with our last class, and school, and English, and your education? A lot, I think. Just start with what you now know. Our classes have not been really about the important stuff. Should school be about important stuff, truth, vulnerability, meaning? In short, it should. And this dissonance has brought me to this point, that I no longer want to try to teach. It doesn\'t work. But more importantly, it is not, at least in this environment, this school, this country and culture, with and by me, now and here about important stuff. And I believe it should be.
PRB has been my last compromise. I merely check to see if you are sitting there and have handed in your assignments. If these things, you get credit for the course.
School. It is a place where you show up and produce a few things and get some kind of sanction that something changed you. But the only changes I see in the different students and years of study is that you can cope better and better with the system. Learning, and God forbid, getting educated are beyond probability, beyond even possibility. This is the reality I see, and I may be wrong. Reality may be, probably is, different. But we have to go on what we believe we know.
Education is a good thing. I believe in it. I believe in learning to enrich your life. I do not believe in school to make you rich. I am wrong, at least a minority voice, in this belief. It is bothersome to me that schools have sold out to practical realities. But that is as it is, and you will do well to take advantage of what school has to offer you.
Education is a bad thing. Having had a ton of it, formal and informal (in school and outside of school), I believe this. The wonderful textures and colors and nuances and insights now possible for me make for possible and probable realities impossible otherwise for me to experience. So, I hope that you can get an education here.
These richer dimensions, however, will make for dissonances so great as to separate you out from others; and if you need others like you, or those with whom you can communicate and feel something akin, well, forget it. Education will make you more alone, more alienated, more different. Place this together with your other losses and sadnesses and you have it sometimes unbearable.
You have two subjects you focus on here. English and something else. English, for the most part, is a skill to acquire so you can get along better using the current world language. Practical reality--making a living--has placed my language into prominence, because everybody else wants but doesn\'t need a lot of what the dominant cultures and countries (i.e., English speaking) have. So, you are not really just getting English but a whole range of cultural bits and pieces. But the language by itself is useful, I admit. Continue to go after it; it will serve you well.
Your second subject, let\'s call it the substantive one--not just a skill to acquire to get along in the world--must be teaching you something about, well, school or education. In my case, my language has allowed me to find the sense and nonsense of things. It has also allowed me to enjoy the best of life, and I include in that our brief association here at this university. My schooling and education have given me the qualitative difference. I am blessed, and cursed, with what I can know and do.
What does the other subject you study teach you, let\'s say, about school? Civics. What does civics say about the schooling you are experiencing? Information systems. What does this subject have to say about what school is? Any dissonances? Any joys?
Again, your second subject is really English. Your primary subject is not this practical thing called a language. It is what you study in your own language, or what you use English to know more about. What you are devoting your time to, other than English and what is in English, must help you by giving you information and knowledge about the world. Maybe it even helps you understand it through that lens.
What do you know now or understand about your university experience when you let mathematics, physics, chemistry, civics, psychology, Czech history and literature, etc., talk to you and make sense or nonsense for you?
What is all this now about? PRB, probabilities, Kevin\'s daughter, this question. Just that.
If this class, just for this day, is about what is important to you and what you believe in and what you are spending your time doing, wouldn\'t it be a pretty good idea to say, or find out, what good all your time and maybe effort is producing?
Education is for life. Will your or other lives be better in some way because of what you are studying here? Let\'s try to begin to answer that important question.
Here is my answer for me. This is my last day of teaching. I have found it has become more than bothersome. It is unbearable. The realities I see for you and for me here are not the best. And if I can make a change for the better, for me and for you, I need to get out of the way of your education, or at least your schooling. Doing teaching the way the students and culture expect of me here is too great a force for me to guide to what I believe are better, more important outcomes.
It is kind of like this. Students need not witness nor experience the effects of my frustration, my irrelevant values, my realities . . . my botheredness. It is not in your best interests. And I am happy for the decision, and happy for you. I have confidence in you that you will do best with what you choose to do. Maybe it is like the parent who lets his child go, and lets her experience the wonder of her possibilities and her realities wherever she is.
I will miss you, miss you more than you can possibly know.
After you try to answer your question about your primary subject and give me something I can touch and read to remember you by, that will be the end of class today.
May 27, 2005
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