Why I should have gotten my proverbial ass kicked in grad school...

(...even though it wouldn't have done a bit of good:):):)...)

We just got an email from a counselor about a kid we've been dealing with...

This kid isn't doing anything in class...and the parents are angry with the teachers because he's making bad grades, right now...

And the parents have been threatening some kind of punitive action from the district if we don't fix it...

When the only thing to fix...is that this kid needs to start doing his work...

And the whole thing...how much the teachers care, despite all their faults...how little the kid and the family have done and how much they've demanded...

And most of all...how hard it is for the parents to just face up to the fact that this kid is failing...and not even trying...just burns my ass...

And the whole thing has led to a new rethinking on my part of my experience in grad school...

I was a really brilliant student in grad school...I think most people would agree...

But I was also a young man...who made an awful lot of mistakes...in relationships with professors...as a person...and as a student...

I was not this kid...I tried with all my heart and soul, really...quite different than this kid, really...the truth was and is that my sights were far higher than any of my fellow grad students and many if not all of my professors...

But I was also a little shit, too...I was definitely no angel...and I fucked up a lot...

And when we're shitheads...we...like this kid...need people to be honest with us...and we need to be honest with ourselves...

Now...like this kid's family...an awful lot of people spend a lot of time avoiding being honest with ourselves...and letting others be honest with us...

And...a lot of times...we just don't know why or what we've fucked up...

But the one more important fuck up than any other in those situations...

Is bullying our way through issues, like this family is doing...so we can avoid our own shortcomings...

Which is what is so popular and yet so fruitless these days...

And the biggest shortcoming of all being avoiding a more honest conversation...

What is wrong with us, I wonder all the time...that we so desperately avoid being honest with ourselves and with each other?...what is it that we think that it serves?...

I'm guilty of it, too...I have the easier conversations, first, generally...and the harder conversations after the easier conversations have been expended...

But I don't avoid the hard conversations in the way that most people do...at least not generally, I don't think...I generally encourage them...even the hardest conversations...as much as I feel safe to...

There's many tough conversations that I've tried to have with people that I've not been able to have...

But one thing that I realized out of this situation at school...and just being responsible for kids, generally...

Is that though I wish that I, first and foremost, and my grad school professors, secondarily, had handled my situation in grad school better...

They had plenty of reason to be pissed at what a shithead I was being, at the time...something I wasn't able to say at the time...because it's easier to be honest with myself about it as I watch kids do it all the time...

My advisor was kind of a shithead, too...in a very different way...and I definitely was beyond tired of having him ride me all the time...

But I understand, better, now, the real limitations that he and I and all of us were facing...and that I and these teachers face today...

And I just don't have any bad feelings about the situation, anymore...

And the big lesson I'm learning about life...

The much bigger lesson to be learned for life...

Is that no matter how much the bad shit in life sucks...which it often does...

And no matter how much the struggle in life...

Really what matters...more than anything else...in the big picture...in life...and in my life, as much as for people, generally...

Is the learning...

Really...

Because all the other stuff people want in life...the money...the power...the sex...the drugs...the fancy vacations...the big houses...the fame...the popularity...

Whatever...

All the other stuff is just foolish if it comes at the expense of the learning...

I would, in a million years, rather have the toughest life...with groundedness and wisdom and the learning that make these possible...

Than an easier life...where I have all of those rewards -- the money, the power, the sex, the drugs, the fancy vacations, the big houses, the fame, the popularity -- with too little purpose...

Fairly or unfairly, this was my impression of Brandi's mother-in-law when I first met her...

And I just could hardly live with myself if I lived like that...

And I certainly would feel like quite the shithead when I met a woman better than me if I were to choose this path...

And know in my heart that having the self-respect that comes with being honest with yourself...and being with a woman that I really respect...

Is far more important than any reward I could ever get in life...

I don't understand, really, why people would live different than that...

Except...that like these parents...they are desperately avoiding an honest evaluation of themselves and others about who they are...

And what a sad life to live, really...

And what I know for sure, now, about the world...

Is that the only way it works through its problems...

Is if and when it decides to get honest with itself...no matter what the mitigating circumstances...

And it's the only way that we will grow...as individuals...and as a culture...

That we start getting more honest...with ourselves...and with each other...

And everything else is just bullshit...and will remain so...until we face the things we don't like to face...

Many if not most of the ways that we bullshit ourselves and one another have to do with how punishments and punitive means of dealing with problems just complicate them and lead to suppression of more honest assessments of life...

But in the biggest picture...as individuals...and as a culture...and for the lot of humanity...

Being honest with ourselves and others is the only and most important thing that really matters in life...

And those who don't believe this...are those who have just gotten too lost in their own excuses and their own less than honest and often blatantly dishonest self-concepts...and consequent relationship with and outlook on the world...

I've got IEP paperwork to finish up...

Have a good night, everyone...

Love,
Ben