Surely reality can’t be all that difficult. Then try to explain it to me: it is not so easy is it? All of us are faced with the same fundamental realization that I, and I alone, am seeing the world through my eyes: an absurdly simplistic statement but one fraught with complications and misunderstandings. The other day I was hurriedly driving my scooter down one of our main thoroughfares. The trees, shrubs, scooters, and cars seemed to whisk by. Much like life, there was little time for reflection: I was on my way to a destination, I having designated its importance. Then, something overcame me and the words of Baltasar Gracian (2) sprang to mind: “All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.” I slowed my trajectory, pulled to the side of the boulevard, and stopped.
Work, work, and more work: then maybe, just maybe, you will be free!
I recently pulled my scooter, my motocha, up to a gas pump. An insouciant young man mumbled the requisite questions and began to fill my gas tank. I asked him a first and then a second time how he was. The request finally sparkled something in him. He stared at me with psychotic intensity. “I am fine!” he responded in clear and precise English “Why?” This happened to be one of those moments that the answer was readily at hand. “It is such a beautiful day and you don’t look happy,” I replied. He intently focused on me, finished his task, said nothing, and walked away. As I drove down the street, I felt an acute sense of failure. I had been completely unsuccessful in conveying even a morsel of joy to that young man. My standard insecurities lashed at me: “Here you are the ‘great teacher’ and you cannot make one unhappy boy smile?” The answer, of course, is that nothing is wrong with you as an educator. The pedagogue cannot change a person’s mood or attitude: only the self can do that.
Continue reading Work, work, and more work: then maybe, just maybe, you will be free!
Let us talk about reality: what is the really real?
The new year or rather the new semester has begun. I always find this time in the teaching schedule to be very exciting. Much like walking in a field of newly blossoming flowers on a spring day, there is a fresh group of expectant students eagerly perusing you with their inquisitive eyes. What can you “teach” them; what “pearls of wisdom’’ will spring from your lips? There are, sadly, none to be had: the “kids” know everything. Their hands hold the cell phone, the thunderbolt of Zeus, capable of creating or destroying all (1): In offering this implement, the Cyclopes (2) made Zeus almighty: he received the power of the gods. But, and it is a big but, he knew how to use this force: according to Hesiod, (3) he could “shatter mountains and kill Titans.” Our young charges, for the most part, don’t have this skill. How do you deal with infinity without training and experience? You don’t because you can’t.
Continue reading Let us talk about reality: what is the really real?
Where is that peace that everyone is talking about?
Have you ever had this experience? You ask a friend how they are doing and nine times out of ten you will hear: “I am so tired!” Being the ever solicitous type you will ask, “Why is that?” Then you get the canned, or clichéd response, “I am so busy!” Gosh! Then you think to yourself. “Well, I am busy too. In fact, everyone is busy. Why are these people complaining?” In short, they are complaining because they have not accessed their personal peace. Many individuals state that their life goals are “peace and happiness.” These are not goals; these are realities that exist inside every human being. The drug addict or the alcoholic uses substances to realize short-term artificial pleasure, causing untold harm to his limited time in this dimension: as Kozma Prutkov, the pen name used by A. K. Tolstoy, (1) tells us.”If you want to be happy, be (in the present).” The past is gone, the future is imminent, we only have now. To get in this state, however, requires that ill-thought-of word: work. You must spend daily time in reflection, study or prayer: hopefully all three.
Continue reading Where is that peace that everyone is talking about?
I feel overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do?
Have you ever had a litany of undesirable experiences? You feel as if your mind is a reservoir of thoughts and emotion – filled to capacity after a heart-rending, traumatic typhoon. Something very, very distressing has just happened and you don’t know if the psychological dam is going to break: can it hold? For many, the answer is no: the subsequent descent into failure is the response. This disappointing life does not have to take the form of a derelict in the streets begging for his existence. It can take the form of wage slavery: acquiescence.
Continue reading I feel overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do?
You have to keep an open mind!
I often remind myself that the way I see the world is a product of who I am and how I am. It is not, necessarily, the way other people see the world. Now that is a bit of an understatement, isn’t it? We have this concept that we labor on: “Don’t be a wage slave, a career is a must” (DBAWageslave.com). To this end, the other day a young professional, a doctor I believe, remarked, “But all of us are wage slaves, aren’t we?” This is quite true in the literal sense. Unless we come from the “moneyed classes,” (1) we all need to earn a living. We must find a way to “Put bread on our table,” as my father used to say. The statement the young doctor presented is literally true, all of us, in effect, must sell our time for money. The meaning is in the quality of the action. If your time is more precious than life itself, you cannot sell it. It is the only commodity that has real and irreplaceable value. Once you spend it or give it, the gift is gone forever.
It is time to slow down: isn’t it?
I recently spent time on a tea farm in southern Assam. It couldn’t correctly be called a tea estate for it had more of the human touch associated with mixed farming (1) than with the raw cotton extraction of a southern antebellum (2) plantation. The pace of life was uncorrupted by a dearth of cell phones, tablets, laptops and the like. Now, I am the first one to admit that I am a romantic at heart. I only see what I see through my experiences and my education. That being said, I couldn’t see the pain that we historically read about (3) in agricultural workers’ eyes: maybe it was there, but safely sequestered away from the few onlookers. I somehow don’t think so. What I saw was a form of ecstasy, a kind of peace. I must say it was very attractive. Like all of us, as I have said before, I am occupied, busy you might say, with the things that I deem important: my family, my students, our DBA project (DBAWageslave.com), and Regal (regalenglish.com), our training company. I spend little time reflecting on the “now,” even though it is the only space that I truly occupy. When I walked amongst the tea bushes, however, I was taken away to a more primitive time, an epoch that had, literally, slowed down.
Smell the flowers: you planted them.
When I was young, we were always told to hurry up and mature. That romantic view of an imaginative childhood, the one educators tell us we must return to, was fleeting at best. (1) Grow up: life is short! Study, study and yet more study: get that degree! Now, get a job – any job. You must make money to save, save, save. Why? To have a good life after you retire, of course: sound familiar? There is a list of false assumptions here. The one I particularly enjoy, “Life is short!” Whoever created this chestnut has obviously never lived life. Life is extremely long: it goes on and on and on. This is especially troubling for those of us who make a life altering mistake: education, career, marriage, lifestyle, etc.
Comportment: is it really that important?
It is a great dilemma which appears when you are least prepared: am I a body or am I a being? And the corollary: if I am alive, how do I look in the physical world? To me, this became a part of my reality when I was around twelve years old. I had the first “slow dance” of my life with Donna Redding. To this day, I remember everything about the dance: I remember the scent of her perfume, I remember the song — Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell, and I remember her touch. She was the first girl that I had ever held, other than my mother. Everything seemed to “pop and sparkle.” Something was wrong, or something was right: I wasn’t sure which sensation was correct. I went home and looked in the mirror: for the first time I was a corporeal being – terrifying – now what? Everything seemed to take on surreal overtones. Where should I sit in the hierarchy of bodies? Was I handsome, beautiful, dashing – kind of a Robin Hood like character – or did I end up at the other end – pedestrian, mundane or, worst of all, ordinary? A quick analysis gave me the answer: God was having a bad day when he created me! I recall the wave of revulsion and disgust that overwhelmed me. Why me: why did I have this physique – why me? This feeling of dissatisfaction stayed with me for quite a number of years. It was expunged by the affections of a young woman who told me I was “really good looking.” I realized in that instant that if I could fool one person, I could fool thousands. The attraction I expressed began from within. The other person’s perception was their own, only their own. I was free to be me, whatever that meant.
This week: take your little piece of joy!
We are all busy people. If not, you are either dead or retired: many pundits claim either state mirrors the other. “It’s prompted the claim that we need a fundamental rethink of the way we live and work. Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, professors at the London Business School have done just that in a book: The 100 Year Life (ISBN 978 14729 301 70). They argue that if turning 100 becomes normal, then we have to discard our idea of a traditional ‘three-stage life,’ one in which education is followed by work and then retirement. If our working life becomes a seven-decade long affair, then we cannot rely on a single period of education to prepare us for it. Instead, they argue, we will need to constantly retrain and reinvent ourselves to stay ahead of technology and the demand for changing skill sets. It is a daunting proposal, and one that would pile the pressure on all of us to ‘age well’: to stay robust and healthy in order to remain a productive member of the workforce.” (1)