and he cried, "help me, would you? help me find a way out, would you?"
but they all walked around the pit, heads turned away, ears deaf to him.
and who could blame them?
it was he who had dug the trap. and what's more, they all knew: his dark secret eyes held the power of a gorgon; his voice could summon forth fatal maledictions and unfortunate storms; and his touch could roll heads as easily as dice. even if they could see that behind all of these things, he was a kind and well-intentioned soul, they dared not approach: they were all too afraid.
and so, he was alone in the pit, in the center of a crowd that drifted around him like an uncertain river. and in time, his voice grew hoarse, and he gave up calling altogether, and the reaching out slowly turned into a reaching in. and it was not a pleasant reaching in. for his hands, as i've said, even the figurative ones, were viciously cruel in shape, and what they touched, they cut and scarred and bled deep. every face of innocence that healed over his heart like a scab, he peeled off again, so that the raw edges could feel the air, and feeling could flow again, flow and pulse like an angry red star and its wavering corona. and when the sensation dulled, and the scabs stopped forming, and the bloody feelings stopped being deceived into emerging again, only then did he stop everything, both the reaching out and the reaching in.
and that is when he turned into the stone of the world, and its deepest and most secret heart. a thing frozen and unknowing, secrets buried within secrets, darkness tumbled over in darkness.
and for a time, he knew a measure of peace, or, to be more precise, he didn't know anything... didn't know anything at all.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
misunderstanding.
a loss of motivation.
the doors are swinging constantly, like shifting reeds in a restless eddy.
the difference between the possible and impossible is only a matter of time, and in a matter of time, the span to freedom is gone again.
one fish of two has imbibed this truth, and sits back, back, back watching with unclosing eyes the way of this world, laughing resignedly, desperately, at it all. the other fish, tied to its twin by an invisible cord, sleeplessly monitors the shifts of the current, always pushing forward, always pushing forwards, for a way out.
neither has an absolutely convincing argument that it knows the universe.
and so, it continues, a stillness and a motion, a drift and a flutter... the fish all the while little suspecting the whirlpool forming around this inconstant but constant struggle may find its source in their own irreconcilability.
---
"little baby's eyes, eyes, eyes."
---
you should respect all aspects of yourself, if at all possible. a person, unfortunately, is rarely a unified thing. a person is a constant working out of shifting forces. like dreams, we work out something presentable to the eyes and the mind, a narrative that, even in a very rudimentary sense, can be discerned and followed. but ultimately, honestly, none of it really makes sense, and the more authentic we are, the more we come to understand this fact.
i think the more honest we are, the more we realize how impossible it is to be honest...
why do we call an adult "an adult"? it is because the adult is adulterated, impure. not necessarily because the adult "becomes" impure (although some may argue this point, particularly some daoists), but because understanding and knowledge of the way of the world has, let us say, become more complex, subtle, and "mature."
the difference between what a child sees and what an adult sees is not the difference of right and wrong, but of simple and complex. we would like to maintain the force or verve or passion of the good and the true in the child, but it is the adult appreciation of the complexities that tempers our full or one-sided advocacy of anything. "that would be idealistic..."
---
i have been thinking of things in terms of pressure gradients. things like hope and passion (and even the social collective effervescence) operate according to the dictates of pressure. if the walls of circumstance, like the walls of a balloon, say, suddenly withdraw, and we are "given too much space," then hope/passion/motivation tend to diminish. as dr. mcdougall would say, there is a negative correlation (inverse relationship) between the amount of "space/freedom/ease" and the intensity of hope/passion/motivation. if circumstances become pressing (but not CRUSHING), then hope/passion/motivation take on a commensurate, even desperate, force, working towards particular ends...
this would be the apparent perspective on these things. and yet, i feel, taijiquan person that i would like to be, that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressureless force... with a kind of ease in my heart and mind, to have the capacity to allow hope and love to flow in vague but effective ways...
a loss of motivation.
the doors are swinging constantly, like shifting reeds in a restless eddy.
the difference between the possible and impossible is only a matter of time, and in a matter of time, the span to freedom is gone again.
one fish of two has imbibed this truth, and sits back, back, back watching with unclosing eyes the way of this world, laughing resignedly, desperately, at it all. the other fish, tied to its twin by an invisible cord, sleeplessly monitors the shifts of the current, always pushing forward, always pushing forwards, for a way out.
neither has an absolutely convincing argument that it knows the universe.
and so, it continues, a stillness and a motion, a drift and a flutter... the fish all the while little suspecting the whirlpool forming around this inconstant but constant struggle may find its source in their own irreconcilability.
---
"little baby's eyes, eyes, eyes."
---
you should respect all aspects of yourself, if at all possible. a person, unfortunately, is rarely a unified thing. a person is a constant working out of shifting forces. like dreams, we work out something presentable to the eyes and the mind, a narrative that, even in a very rudimentary sense, can be discerned and followed. but ultimately, honestly, none of it really makes sense, and the more authentic we are, the more we come to understand this fact.
i think the more honest we are, the more we realize how impossible it is to be honest...
why do we call an adult "an adult"? it is because the adult is adulterated, impure. not necessarily because the adult "becomes" impure (although some may argue this point, particularly some daoists), but because understanding and knowledge of the way of the world has, let us say, become more complex, subtle, and "mature."
the difference between what a child sees and what an adult sees is not the difference of right and wrong, but of simple and complex. we would like to maintain the force or verve or passion of the good and the true in the child, but it is the adult appreciation of the complexities that tempers our full or one-sided advocacy of anything. "that would be idealistic..."
---
i have been thinking of things in terms of pressure gradients. things like hope and passion (and even the social collective effervescence) operate according to the dictates of pressure. if the walls of circumstance, like the walls of a balloon, say, suddenly withdraw, and we are "given too much space," then hope/passion/motivation tend to diminish. as dr. mcdougall would say, there is a negative correlation (inverse relationship) between the amount of "space/freedom/ease" and the intensity of hope/passion/motivation. if circumstances become pressing (but not CRUSHING), then hope/passion/motivation take on a commensurate, even desperate, force, working towards particular ends...
this would be the apparent perspective on these things. and yet, i feel, taijiquan person that i would like to be, that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressureless force... with a kind of ease in my heart and mind, to have the capacity to allow hope and love to flow in vague but effective ways...
Monday, September 28, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
hopeless musings
if a gen ed teacher doesn't want to work with a specific child (for various reasons), then he will paint the child's performance in consistently negative terms, and possibly not work to construct real solutions (i.e., "she's hopeless... i think your child should be pulled out of my class... she's too much to handle, she shouldn't be MY responsibility."). if the same teacher thinks that that same child has nowhere else to go (i.e, "the buck stops here") and he has to make the best of a perhaps nonideal situation, then he will be far more invested in working on a solution.
what i'm trying to say is: hopelessness (of escape) is the authentic crucible for the creation of hope. hope (as escapism, as some vague "other person, other answer somewhere out there") is abdication, and true hopelessness.
***
as an educator, i've realized that the biggest tool i have to work with is hope. hope is what i have to cultivate within me, and it is what i have to ignite my students with: hope that they can do something challenging, hope that they aren't limited to what people say they are, hope that their lives can be fulfilling and that they are in control of its direction.
like water, or any medium that functions to pass from areas of high concentration to lower concentration, hope is most effective when "pressurized" and then released in specific streams, to specific purpose. when hope is vague and diffuse, then it is like the faintest of drizzles: you can't feel it, and it might as well be not raining...
in order to "pressurize" hope, a person HAS to accept a certain amount of responsibility for the moment. and it's not an "active responsibility" (or it doesn't have to be). it's more of an openness, a realization that you are connected with everything, and that the suffering of one (particularly with regards to the feeling of hopelessness) is intimately tied to YOUR suffering. once you accept this responsibility, then you really have no choice but to help the person who is ostensibly "hopeless."
that's why it is never "good practice" to describe a student as "hopeless." to do so is to cut the tether or lifeline from the student. to do so is to say as much about your power and passion as an educator as it is to say anything about the student.
there is always hope. there must be. the work of an educator, again, is to deal in hope. it's not to fill a student's head with such-and-such information to pass the hsa test; it's not even to make him/her an "independent" or "complex thinker." i mean that it is this, and it isn't. these things are just the branches, the leaves. the real root we need to nourish is the child's hope: hope in the self, hope in the teacher, hope in all relationships, hope in the world, hope for a place in that world.
***
i'm a parent as well as a teacher. i once mused that, in order for parents to be good parents, and teachers to be good teachers, parents must be more like teachers, and teachers must be more like parents. just so i'm not misconstrued:
"parents must be more like teachers": i think that parents are, ultimately, the child's teachers. unfortunately, i think that some parents are not fully aware or conscious that they are playing this role. especially when it comes to academics, many parents (including me, unfortunately) tend to think that the child will "figure things out" independently, or at least eventually at school ("that's what the teachers are paid for"). in other words, parents don't take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for the performance of their child.
this is one thing i have realized. you can't necessarily count on the child to "realize" things on their time table. i was once a heavy proponent for what is called the constructivist model of education, the "if you build it, then the child will learn" philosophy. i still believe in many of its tenets, but i don't hold to it exclusively any more. sure, you can surround a child with great books to read and art supplies and whatever, but there are many children who will NOT spontaneously develop an interest in literature or painting or whatever just because the materials are there. SOMEONE has to explicitly teach, and yes, at times PUSH the child to do something, to learn something. as we often mentioned in religion class, "nothing gives," i.e., nothing happens on its own.
you also can't rely on the school or teachers. heck, they are overworked and underpaid. how are they supposed to know the specific needs of your child, and address them one on one? they CAN'T. if they are good teachers, then they may be better at this, but they only have a small amount of time with your child. ultimately, you as the parent are responsible for this. the parent is, IN A VERY REAL SENSE, a child's first and primary teacher. accept the role. embody the role.
parents should know what a child's strengths and weaknesses are, and do as much as possible to bolster those weaknesses... whether it is "encouraging" reading, restricting access to mind numbing television or nintendo dsi or wii, etc.
okay. "teachers should be more like parents." i debated this one for a while. at one interview, i carefully delineated the two roles, basically saying that teachers don't and shouldn't share the same sort of responsibility that parents do. now, i realize that things aren't and shouldn't be so clear cut. teachers ARE the student's parents- in the context of school, and for the period of the school day. (oftentimes beyond).
it would be nice and convenient if the work of a teacher were limited to passing on the curriculum. i suppose in higher education, this is the case, and it is as it should be, because we are presumably dealing with responsible adults. but in truth, no matter what we are teaching, we can never limit what we teach to the syllabus. we are dealing with people. we are, in essence, responsible for people, in the same way that parents are "tied to" their children. our students, and the performance of our students, represent us, just as much as they represent their parents.
if teachers truly feel this (often painful) responsibility, then they may despair (like many parents do), but they will be far more invested in making the child a better person (they HAVE to). but then again, this makes a great teacher: someone who REALLY cares for the child, who advocates for him/her, etc.
the sign of a poor teacher, or at least one who is nonideal for a child, who will not ultimately help a child grow, is one that throws up his hands and says, "i give up on this child... she is just plain stupid/unfocused/incorrigible. her test results shouldn't reflect upon my performance. she is just a bad seed. she is... HOPELESS."
***
here's another piece of advice: when you communicate bad news that is potentially damaging to a person's self-esteem (criticism), as much as possible, you should always sandwich it in positive statements. you should also be sensitive to timing, to setting, etc. also, if you do have a criticism, you should offer a possible solution. otherwise, you leave the recipient feeling wounded and hopeless...
i wish a few layoffs would have been delivered with more sensitivity...
what i'm trying to say is: hopelessness (of escape) is the authentic crucible for the creation of hope. hope (as escapism, as some vague "other person, other answer somewhere out there") is abdication, and true hopelessness.
***
as an educator, i've realized that the biggest tool i have to work with is hope. hope is what i have to cultivate within me, and it is what i have to ignite my students with: hope that they can do something challenging, hope that they aren't limited to what people say they are, hope that their lives can be fulfilling and that they are in control of its direction.
like water, or any medium that functions to pass from areas of high concentration to lower concentration, hope is most effective when "pressurized" and then released in specific streams, to specific purpose. when hope is vague and diffuse, then it is like the faintest of drizzles: you can't feel it, and it might as well be not raining...
in order to "pressurize" hope, a person HAS to accept a certain amount of responsibility for the moment. and it's not an "active responsibility" (or it doesn't have to be). it's more of an openness, a realization that you are connected with everything, and that the suffering of one (particularly with regards to the feeling of hopelessness) is intimately tied to YOUR suffering. once you accept this responsibility, then you really have no choice but to help the person who is ostensibly "hopeless."
that's why it is never "good practice" to describe a student as "hopeless." to do so is to cut the tether or lifeline from the student. to do so is to say as much about your power and passion as an educator as it is to say anything about the student.
there is always hope. there must be. the work of an educator, again, is to deal in hope. it's not to fill a student's head with such-and-such information to pass the hsa test; it's not even to make him/her an "independent" or "complex thinker." i mean that it is this, and it isn't. these things are just the branches, the leaves. the real root we need to nourish is the child's hope: hope in the self, hope in the teacher, hope in all relationships, hope in the world, hope for a place in that world.
***
i'm a parent as well as a teacher. i once mused that, in order for parents to be good parents, and teachers to be good teachers, parents must be more like teachers, and teachers must be more like parents. just so i'm not misconstrued:
"parents must be more like teachers": i think that parents are, ultimately, the child's teachers. unfortunately, i think that some parents are not fully aware or conscious that they are playing this role. especially when it comes to academics, many parents (including me, unfortunately) tend to think that the child will "figure things out" independently, or at least eventually at school ("that's what the teachers are paid for"). in other words, parents don't take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for the performance of their child.
this is one thing i have realized. you can't necessarily count on the child to "realize" things on their time table. i was once a heavy proponent for what is called the constructivist model of education, the "if you build it, then the child will learn" philosophy. i still believe in many of its tenets, but i don't hold to it exclusively any more. sure, you can surround a child with great books to read and art supplies and whatever, but there are many children who will NOT spontaneously develop an interest in literature or painting or whatever just because the materials are there. SOMEONE has to explicitly teach, and yes, at times PUSH the child to do something, to learn something. as we often mentioned in religion class, "nothing gives," i.e., nothing happens on its own.
you also can't rely on the school or teachers. heck, they are overworked and underpaid. how are they supposed to know the specific needs of your child, and address them one on one? they CAN'T. if they are good teachers, then they may be better at this, but they only have a small amount of time with your child. ultimately, you as the parent are responsible for this. the parent is, IN A VERY REAL SENSE, a child's first and primary teacher. accept the role. embody the role.
parents should know what a child's strengths and weaknesses are, and do as much as possible to bolster those weaknesses... whether it is "encouraging" reading, restricting access to mind numbing television or nintendo dsi or wii, etc.
okay. "teachers should be more like parents." i debated this one for a while. at one interview, i carefully delineated the two roles, basically saying that teachers don't and shouldn't share the same sort of responsibility that parents do. now, i realize that things aren't and shouldn't be so clear cut. teachers ARE the student's parents- in the context of school, and for the period of the school day. (oftentimes beyond).
it would be nice and convenient if the work of a teacher were limited to passing on the curriculum. i suppose in higher education, this is the case, and it is as it should be, because we are presumably dealing with responsible adults. but in truth, no matter what we are teaching, we can never limit what we teach to the syllabus. we are dealing with people. we are, in essence, responsible for people, in the same way that parents are "tied to" their children. our students, and the performance of our students, represent us, just as much as they represent their parents.
if teachers truly feel this (often painful) responsibility, then they may despair (like many parents do), but they will be far more invested in making the child a better person (they HAVE to). but then again, this makes a great teacher: someone who REALLY cares for the child, who advocates for him/her, etc.
the sign of a poor teacher, or at least one who is nonideal for a child, who will not ultimately help a child grow, is one that throws up his hands and says, "i give up on this child... she is just plain stupid/unfocused/incorrigible. her test results shouldn't reflect upon my performance. she is just a bad seed. she is... HOPELESS."
***
here's another piece of advice: when you communicate bad news that is potentially damaging to a person's self-esteem (criticism), as much as possible, you should always sandwich it in positive statements. you should also be sensitive to timing, to setting, etc. also, if you do have a criticism, you should offer a possible solution. otherwise, you leave the recipient feeling wounded and hopeless...
i wish a few layoffs would have been delivered with more sensitivity...
Thursday, September 17, 2009
preparing the space
there is a voice in the weariness and despair. it calls you to return, and to die (both are the same thing). you can't resurrect yourself without surrendering completely and senselessly first. the phoenix must be immolated without a trace before its ashes can remember how to return to life...
the world is not only productive and positivistic, much as we would like it to be. in fact, in its truest sense, the world and the real is precisely what resists us, resists all of our efforts at sequestration, at control ( i believe that one of the best definitions of "the real" is found in its resistance)... to surrender, on the one hand, can appear to be the gesture of abdication and failure (which it often is), but it can also be the most beautiful and effective thing in the world... to spread oneself upon the winds of fate.
yes, i believe in fate. perhaps it's a cop-out. i like to think of it more as a survival mechanism. if i didn't believe in fate, then i would never give myself over to the chance that perhaps the world is larger than i am, and works by rules and whims that have little to do with what i would will. if i didn't believe in fate, then i couldn't accept god, or love, or any of the greater swells and ebbs of the universe...
right now, despite my best efforts to make my life a "productive force," i keep returning to this truth of truths, the lie within all truths, that there is nothing underlying this edifice we have built, and we are all subject to the tides and the storms. i cannot concentrate, there is no will left to resist the wind of the world. i am a useless thing, a scarecrow blown away, fragmenting and tossed... beautifully mad and dizzy upon dreams that have nowhere to "go to," dreams that are merely the surging blindly, attempted resolutions of unresolvable conflicts...
***
distract. attention slack.
the world hangs loose
in an empty noose.
the world is not only productive and positivistic, much as we would like it to be. in fact, in its truest sense, the world and the real is precisely what resists us, resists all of our efforts at sequestration, at control ( i believe that one of the best definitions of "the real" is found in its resistance)... to surrender, on the one hand, can appear to be the gesture of abdication and failure (which it often is), but it can also be the most beautiful and effective thing in the world... to spread oneself upon the winds of fate.
yes, i believe in fate. perhaps it's a cop-out. i like to think of it more as a survival mechanism. if i didn't believe in fate, then i would never give myself over to the chance that perhaps the world is larger than i am, and works by rules and whims that have little to do with what i would will. if i didn't believe in fate, then i couldn't accept god, or love, or any of the greater swells and ebbs of the universe...
right now, despite my best efforts to make my life a "productive force," i keep returning to this truth of truths, the lie within all truths, that there is nothing underlying this edifice we have built, and we are all subject to the tides and the storms. i cannot concentrate, there is no will left to resist the wind of the world. i am a useless thing, a scarecrow blown away, fragmenting and tossed... beautifully mad and dizzy upon dreams that have nowhere to "go to," dreams that are merely the surging blindly, attempted resolutions of unresolvable conflicts...
***
distract. attention slack.
the world hangs loose
in an empty noose.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
the wind is sliding through the leaves of trees behind my house, pulling them with whispers. at times, it touches the flat glass windowpanes, with a strange tapping sound. objectively, the noise is caused by the glass rattling gently in its housing, but quite honestly, it seems sometimes as though someone or something were gently knock-knocking with a cold ephemeral fingertip. i half expect to look at the window, and see some floating cloud-like face gazing in upon me...
i can't sleep. i was exhausted earlier, and collapsed at around 9 or 10... but now i am awake, and can't sink back into dead dreams... i walked over to the kids' rooms, stirred them in their dreams with whispers of "i love you," and wrapped their blankets around their shifting bodies like clouds... i think love, especially parental love, is like that: a soft and warm enveloping, especially when your eyes are closed and you aren't aware... i wish such love would come back to me, encase me like another womb, so i can dream the lightning and mist of some wonderful stratosphere again- instead of being the only waking soul in a cold and window-rattled house...
***
i speak to my grandmother, as i speak to god, in these empty moments, and in the moments that seem to drag and pull at me with an insistent despair. sometimes, many times, i feel so inadequate. my past, a disappointment, and the future, a long "green mile" of imprisonment and futility... i am filled with good intentions, and perhaps my grandma saw that in me, and believed in that within me... but now i am on my own, and good intentions count for little if they do not bear fruit. there is nothing worse than a broken promise...
so i speak to grandmother, and god, and i talk about my feelings, just as i would on hot afternoons, across from her at her dining table, with some aloha iced tea sweating in a can, and some unagi over stale rice that she hadn't eaten... funny. i believe in ghosts more than most people, but the spirits of ancestors never speak to me as they do others, never fill me with comfort or teach me lessons... or maybe i'm just too blind and stupid to see...
***
the morning paper is slapping on the pavements of nearby houses... i really must sleep.
i wish, at times, i could end these empty moments... or, failing that, make them last forever, without time interrupting with each new glaring tomorrow...
i can't sleep. i was exhausted earlier, and collapsed at around 9 or 10... but now i am awake, and can't sink back into dead dreams... i walked over to the kids' rooms, stirred them in their dreams with whispers of "i love you," and wrapped their blankets around their shifting bodies like clouds... i think love, especially parental love, is like that: a soft and warm enveloping, especially when your eyes are closed and you aren't aware... i wish such love would come back to me, encase me like another womb, so i can dream the lightning and mist of some wonderful stratosphere again- instead of being the only waking soul in a cold and window-rattled house...
***
i speak to my grandmother, as i speak to god, in these empty moments, and in the moments that seem to drag and pull at me with an insistent despair. sometimes, many times, i feel so inadequate. my past, a disappointment, and the future, a long "green mile" of imprisonment and futility... i am filled with good intentions, and perhaps my grandma saw that in me, and believed in that within me... but now i am on my own, and good intentions count for little if they do not bear fruit. there is nothing worse than a broken promise...
so i speak to grandmother, and god, and i talk about my feelings, just as i would on hot afternoons, across from her at her dining table, with some aloha iced tea sweating in a can, and some unagi over stale rice that she hadn't eaten... funny. i believe in ghosts more than most people, but the spirits of ancestors never speak to me as they do others, never fill me with comfort or teach me lessons... or maybe i'm just too blind and stupid to see...
***
the morning paper is slapping on the pavements of nearby houses... i really must sleep.
i wish, at times, i could end these empty moments... or, failing that, make them last forever, without time interrupting with each new glaring tomorrow...
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