Facing ourselves...or not...

I think I'm finally beginning to understand hypocrisy and adulthood...
We had a really great trip to watch the play, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, today...it's a great story...and a great play...about the insanity of witchhunts in Puritan colonial America...and it was a really great opportunity to hang out with the kids in a more unstructured setting...

Many of the kids are really beginning to respond to me...even as I have many situations, still, where I'm not connecting with kids like I want to and I don't why, always...much of it is likely a quite reasonable suspicion of adults and authority figures on kids' parts that I not only shared, as a kid and even as an adult, still...but which I totally understand given how arbitrary many adults -- who are very much in good faith -- can be with kids...

And I guess I'm just understanding it all better, now, from so many different angles...

Adults want kids to not only grow up...but to not always be pushing their buttons and the envelopes of their more limited patience, in the moment...which leads to all kinds of reactions to kids and their behavior that is often both in kids' best interests...but also a way for adults to deal with their feelings, in the moment, as well...

And adults...live kids...like all people...are not perfect...

And they're doing their best given limited understanding...

Just like kids...

Just like everyone...

It's why our focus should be on ways of dealing with behavior that deal with immediate issues and dangers...but are not damaging, long term, to anyone...not only because it gives people time to understand, better, their mistakes...

But because it creates room for everyone to understand the overall context for why authority relationships are not functioning adequately...

Why does terrorism tend to spring, more often and more dangerously, out of more authoritarian cultures?...in all likelihood as both a reaction to authority...but also as an angry and unreasoned means of trying to enforcing moral or political or whatever codes or rules or norms or agendas that terrorists see as being handled incopetently by authoritarian regimes within their culture...

Or...as in the case of Chechen rebels...as a means of fighting for self-determination from what they believe and often is -- in the case of Russia -- the overbearing hand of more autocratic government...trying to solve problems, ineffectively and often oblivious to their ineffectiveness so stuck are they are poor assumptions about reality, with force...that would be better handled with more thought than with more force...

I'm beginning to see the really tricky issue with authority, though...

You have authority figures that need space to act adequately to deal with immediate situations and to maintain some order with limited understandings of reality and limited emotional resources...patience, namely...and a cool enough head...and some confidence and trust that their efforts will not be blithely ignored by those they are excercising authority with...

On the other hand...you have citizens...or students...or what have you...also with limited understandings of reality...and limited emotional resources...namely, patience...who are subject to that authority...

And the latter are suspicious, for good reason, of the former, because the former has the power to limit their freedom...a power that those without authority don't really have over people with authority, except in really bureaucratic, passive-aggressive kinds of ways...

When...really...what people need...in addition to a larger perspective on life...and more patience, as a consequence...

Is communication lines...and relationships...to vent their frustrations...openly and honestly...with each other...

Our team at school is getting better at that...and are getting stronger, together, as a consequence...

We do have a math team lead who is given to a lot of hyperbole, which is not constructive...

But we're all getting better...

And the reason for using the least possible necessary force...or the least possible necessary aggression...

Is that force shuts down communication...sometimes...temporarily...sometimes more long term...

In the case of my mom and her dad...it was more permanent...though that was a relationship that was both of their responsibilities...

There are so many places in my life where lack of communication is the first most fundamental issue around why there is still lingering frustrations between me and someone else...

And many of those situations are either compounded because of that person is or has been an authority figure in my life...

Or compounded by authority issues, generally...

Do you realize how much communication and understanding overwrought authority reaps in our lives?...

A lot...on so many issues I can hardly even count them...

In fact...if I were to name the number one reason why many areas of life where there is not enough understanding lack it...it would be because of overwrought authority creating a lot of secrecy and repression of honest communication and feedback...and an awful lot of confusion, as a consequence...

That is definitely the case between kids and adults, I think...and teachers and students, generally...

My professors often had no clue what I was up to, in my program...in great part, because I did not feel comfortable approaching them about much of my work...

But also because of lack of patience for a more long term and engaged conversation...that would have led to more openness and communication and understanding...

It's so frustrating to me...that after millenia of progress from more openness and freedom and understanding and empathy and communication and sharing of one another...

That people would perpetually resist progress in that direction...

All to satisfy more foolish fears...borne of ignorance...more than of reason...

Ignorance that would be better alleviated by more openness and freedom and communication and understanding and exchange...than by trying to beat the shit out of problems...which is a perpetually popular and perpetually stupid solution:):):)LOL:):):)...

In fact...what really frustrates me...

Is that we are perpetually looking to authority to solve our problems...

And never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever...

...satisfied with the solutions they deliver up...

...or with whomever we elect or authorize or have to live with to exercise that authority...

It's insanely dysfunctional...

And we've got to face it if we're actually going to make some real, substantial progress on it...

Which progress would seriously open up so many million opportunities that I'm sure none of us are completely aware of, now...

But which we perpetually stand in the way of...stubbornly standing by solutions and decisions and choices and policies...that clearly don't work...to anyone with open eyes...

Government is, as a general rule, rather than the exception, stuck in this situation, right now...

And we can deny it...or face it...

Ultimately...those are our only two choices with something as serious with this problem...

I would definitely recommend facing it, for those still not convinced of the need to do so...

But I'm understanding, today, better, the real trick of making the transition from a world obsessed with rules...

To a world based, more...on conscience...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben