Impotence (Social, not Physical)

Driving down Western today, kid asleep in the back seat, I'm contemplating the idea of having a "place." "Being someone." And the satisfaction of being a cog in the machine.

How do you ignite a revolution? Charisma, certainly -- something I've always had trouble with. Well, likability more than "charisma." I'd be a good cult leader, I'm told. That being said, sitting in a room with me -- I've also been informed -- is a bit like sitting across from the Grand Inquisitor. Perhaps my real-life luck is an arcane artifact of having been Torquemada in a former life. Who knows?

Nonetheless, I contemplate the improbable here as I think about making a "difference." What that means, what it implies. Commitment, certainly, of the full-time variety. Does it come with daycare?

One of my standard composition assignments for my students is to ask them to write an essay "What is a hero?" I give them a bit of Superman and MLK and a handful of other things to read, we discuss it for a couple of weeks, and inevitably I get two kinds of essays: "My uncle took care of us kids" and "Firefighters are heroes." I don't doubt the personal validity of both of these types of positions. But every year, I try to push them to think beyond our supposed valorized citizens: teachers, police, firefighters. (I should also mention that, for heroes, their actual, real-world "celebration" (i.e. paycheck) is pretty poor.) I've noticed that hero status has an inverse relationship with income. I always thought Spider-Man should get a percentage of his merchandising, but that's just me, I guess. (Could have happened if Joe Q hadn't f'd up JMS's plotline...anyway...)

Is it more ethical to be on the edge of bankruptcy but committed to a "cause," or is there a way to do good and be solvent simultaneously? How do we create a system that rewards ethical behavior (and the inverse, of course)?

In the mean time, I'm once again working for free, publishing student work at my own time and expense...but it's always impressive to see your name in print, so the effort (while without pay and without substantial social or personal benefit) will help someone. When the book gets published to Amazon (I hope they figure out how to do this), I'll drop the link.

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Talk About Tomorrow

Truth be told, I'm not sure what the point of blogging is. It's still an ugly word, just aesthetically unpleasing. I've never been terribly good with journals, but I think this space is going to be used to find a voice and work out a philosophy.

Once upon a time (well, it was a few weeks ago), I knew for certain that the classroom was where I was meant to be. Thanks to the collapse of the economic system in California, that may or may not be a possibility. Certainly the next several months, maybe even several years, will be challenging. No one knows exactly what the shape of higher education will be when this shake-up has shook-up, and from the rubble will we find a better scholasticism with an emphasis on the pursuit of wisdom or will it be the for-profit model where the goal is to reach but not exceed minimum competency.

Cliche as this is, the world is changing quickly, and often not for the better. One of my favorite little stanzas in contemporary poetry is from "Strawberry Fields." It goes:

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me."

And that's the thing. It really does matter quite a bit to me. That "eyes closed misunderstanding" thing is really the problem, and I am constantly fighting to undermine it. Finding and maintaining an identity in the face of an overwhelming drift towards conformity requires a kind of intransigence that borders on belligerence, which can be vexing at times (both for me and my associates). I don't know that there is a satisfactory answer, but I'm going to try to work towards a solution.

The plan, here, is to progress into various topics, ideas, and concepts that help to address the complexities of the relevant issues. Maybe someone will see it. Probably not. There are a lot of blogs out there with bigger popular venues than this one will probably have. I'm not entirely sure what the final form of this will take, but that's part of the project.

So, this is the plan: Educate, elucidate, emancipate.

Of course, it's how we do it that's the hard part.

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Test

This is the first post. I'll be back.