A realization to bring me calm...
After sleeping off some depression about my shitty-ass week...and ranting to Melissa for a couple hours about how fuckin' arrogant my colleagues are for trying to humble me without better ideas...
I came to a really calming realization, tonight...that, hopefully, will give me some perspective in my first year teaching...
My freshman year of forensics at Wichita State...I had been a hotshot high school competitor...who couldn't even place, hardly, or break into elimination rounds, my first semester...it was really depressing...I was constantly thinking about quitting...or whatever...and it was really difficult to deal with for someone who had been successful for several years up until that point...
And I was the new kid...and my friends, as a part of including me, also picked on me, quite a bit...and it used to rile me quite a bit...largely because I wanted to be taken seriously...
My losing streak changed the last tournament of my freshman year...when I won first place speaker sweeps at Arizona State University...and my college speech and debate career finally got on track...
And I was frustrated, largely, because I took speech and debate so goddamned seriously...which paid off by my senior year...when I was one of the top speakers in the nation...
The perspective I got tonight...is that the reason why my frustrations with this first year are so frustrating me...
Is because I take it so seriously...because I want to be a great teacher...not a good teacher...not an ok teacher...and certainly not a mediocre teacher...
I want to a great teacher...I want to be one of the greatest teachers who ever lived...that's how I live my life...I want to be the greatest...always...as much as possible...
And I'm frustrated...because I take this job more seriously than most people take this job or any job, frankly...and so I have more serious emotions around it, as a consequence...my highs are higher...and my lows are lower...my anger is deeper...and so is my depression, when I feel it, like tonight...
The perspective I got tonight is that I take this stuff more seriously than all the folks I'm dealing with...
It's like being a parent or a teacher and watching your kids make all kinds of bad choices...although...as I said, today, it's more complicated...it's like having the average kids bully the smart kids into agreeing with their answers, even when they're wrong because they're too fuckin' immature to deal with being wrong all on their own...
And teachers and all kinds of adults are always trying to get me to be wrong with them...for the same reason that the drunk or the pothead always wants you to drink with him or smoke up with him...
Because they're too fuckin' chickenshit to be wrong on their own...
Well I'm not playing ball...and that's probably going to piss some people off...but too fuckin' bad...I'm an individual who has my own virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, understandings and mistakes...
And you are your own person...and I'll do what I can to support you...and work with you, constructively...and I'll forgive your fuck-ups...
But ultimately...each person is responsible for themselves...
And there is no other literal way around that one...we are clearly affected by one another, emotionally...but someone's got to have the courage to take us to higher ground on that one, clearly...because we won't get there if they don't...
And the worst part about threatening me with every fuckin' thing under the sun to get me there...
Is that I'm not scared of anything anymore...I will deal with whatever people throw at me, from now on...
Because the biggest virtue that I have...that other people lack is...
...courage...
And the great thing about courage...real courage...is that it can't be beaten out of you...
No matter how much someone tries...
To the contrary...
The more people try...the more courage I get...the stronger I get...and the more I ignore your dumbass...and lose respect for you, in the meantime...
I take this stuff more seriously than most people do...
And I get frustrated with just how much people who don't take themselves or the stakes or the thinking about either as seriously as I do...make so many decisions that they clearly don't think nearly enough about...
It's an adolescent conceit...that you don't need to think very hard about the things in life that matter...
And I get frustrated that adolescents run this world, much of the time...
But...big people always win out...
Because they're big people...and because they're thinking...
And because adolescents...don't know what the fuck they're doing...
And soon enough...their vices catch up with them...
And virtue -- the virtue of serious thought and the virtue of the courage involved with sharing even unpopular ideas, especially when they're right -- leads the way...
I just gotta be patient, right now...
If the people I was disagreeing with had a serious counterpoint, right now, I would be listening to it...but the truth is that they don't...what they have is a lot of groupthink...which gets us in all kinds of trouble, as George Orwell and, more recently, Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, remind us of...
And sooner or later...it catches up with people...
It's just that, much of the time...sooner can't come too soon...and later seems far too long down the road...
But virtue and vice eventually catch up with all of us...
Because one, in moderation, nurtures us...and the other, in extremes, is self-destructive and, often, destructive of others...
I have a long time to become a better teacher...I'll keep working on it...
In the meantime...things will be a little shitty...while my kids and my colleagues try on their newly accessed and openly-expressed vices...
But...sooner or later...it will catch up with them...
And we'll all be stronger for them being able to more openly express them...
So that we can all have the experience of being more fully accepted...for our smallness...as well as for our greatness...
I better try to get some sleep...
Have a good day, everyone...
Love,
Ben
