i had a dream about professor herbert ganse little. apparently (in the dream), he was an old friend of an npr radio host, from elementary school days, and he was giving a talk on some university campus that i just happened to be wandering through. aside from being a wise teacher, i had felt (and heard) that professor little was someone who was a great friend (professor mark taylor had admitted as much once, and he being such a solitary "difficult" figure).

the funny thing is that i don't remember his actual speech. but i remember standing in line to talk to him, and to get his signature (as if professors have those kinds of fans). i recall that the others in the line seemed so young and enthusiastic, probably present students with so much potential within them. i felt myself tired, and perhaps not a bit of a disappointment. i tried recalling bits of what i had learned in his classes (sociology of religion primarily), things like "es gibt" and weber, but like most things, they were just fragments. i was going to tell him that i was a special education teacher, and that i loved what i did (which was true)...

i have had several "masters," people whom i trusted to look into my soul and grant some sort of approval. i have always been found wanting, whether it was taylor, little, or shodo kawabe. i always left these teachers with this feeling of regret, but following the currents and motivations that were hidden within me, and hidden to even myself, in order to become what was appropriate for the moment. for a while now, i thought i had left these masters behind, and found a life that was authentic and real. it's hard for anyone to question your "motivations" or your "search" when you have a wife and kids... but then again, maybe this dream appeared to reveal how much i have been hiding all these years.

professor little always spoke of "drawing out", "unpacking" things. it wasn't enough to give some glib answer. you had to explain it, pull the truth out of yourself like some magician's handkerchief out of your mouth. only then would you understand something of the truth and of yourself.

life is a drawing out. and it never ends. and similarly, i am always a student. there is no hiding from this role, because life is never something that is mastered. i think mastery is the illusion, the idea that things have died within you, and that there is no going forward. i think the takeaway i had from this dream is that i need to stop hiding in the dead forms and roles of my life, and find that pull within me, the pull to know, the pull to explore, the pull to be something more again.

because (all evidence to the contrary) i am still alive.