Rediscovering my innocence

Something's happened for me, here, recently. I'm recapturing my innocence, I think. I've been facing up to a lot of my less noble qualities, lately. My jadedness about some things, especially love and teaching and policy and politics and just more noble efforts, generally. My self-centered attitude toward too many things in my life. Sex in particular.

The world of porn is full of recreational fantasy. But, lately, I've started to face just how far its taken me from more innocent and equitable attitudes toward sex and love in my past. There's nothing wrong with porn, necessarily. And it can be a fun outlet for both single people and couples looking for recreational sexual release without all of the dangers of casual sex or the uniformity or repression of one's own passions and turn-ons or experiences of a less risque sex life.

But the truth is that more loving and equitable sex is the norm I want in my life. I know from my longest committed relationship that lots of kinky sex is, perhaps, a warning sign that something is not right. That people in a relationship are, perhaps, not feeling as loving toward one another and the sex is just a manifestation of that fact. I know from the beginning of that same relationship and my first really serious relationship and sexual relationship that loving sex as a norm is a sign of just how well things are going in the relationship. That is the feeling I want for life with a partner. And all of the cynicism to the contrary on that just leave me a little skeptical that cynical advice should be trusted. Cynicism is almost always based in a reality. But it is, generally, a reality that cynics have resigned themselves to and lost track of the consequences for that resignation and the fatalism that animates it in their lives.

Lately, I've really started to face this loss of innocence in my life and started to reembrace a lot of personal ideals, as much as political ideals, that animated my younger days of learning and exploring the world. Sex is one place where I've explored this. Money and education are two others. I want some level of independent wealth, so I'm not dependent on any job or pension for income or retirement. And I do want the option of a life of independent writing and teaching if I am not happy in a school or university job. But I'm not as jaded about the need to be so competitive in this arena, though I'm fairly confident that I can make quite a bit of money in my lifetime, assuming that I live to a ripe age. And I want an educational experience that is good for both my learning and which helps young people from a broad range of backgrounds. My experience at Eisenhower seriously jaded me about doing work with kids and folks from less advantaged backgrounds since it meant getting shit on regularly by people whom have been jaded for a long time much more seriously than anything I've been experiencing. That is something on my heart I will have to deal with to reclaim some of my younger idealism: the jadedness that I have absorbed out of my experiences at Eisenhower.

But I am realizing, today, that there is nothing quite as nice as living a life out of a more genuine and decent heart and mind. Everything else in life is just one long rationalization for what shitheads we've become. And I just have no interest in rationalizing that because life seems kind of wasted when any of us are always rationalizing what shitheads we've become instead of just facing up to what shitheads we've become.

The nice thing about having jaded folks reject you is that you don't have to live a life trying to pander to or figure out or otherwise rationalize the jadedness. You are free to find a life where jadedness isn't so prevalent, and leave more cynical folks to their own devices. I do see, now, how far the cynical among us will go to rationalize their cynicism. But I'm letting go of my own cynicism about the idea that virtue doesn't pay or that jadedness is more honest or decent or genuine than it really is.

There really is no replacement for a life where you know you can trust your own outlook on life because it is not centered or seriously informed by jadedness. And there really is nothing worse in the world than not being able to trust yourself and others not being able to trust you, for real, because you've allowed your jadedness to substantially inform your worldview.

I don't want to live of life where I am constantly trying to justify my jadedness to my children, as so many adults that I met and knew growing up. It's an unhappy way to live. And I don't want it for my life, like so many of the adults I encountered in my life. I want something better.

And being honest about it with yourself and the pain and disappointment it represents and how it sits on your heart and the role it plays in distorting your worldview and informing bad choices on your part is the most important thing that a person can do to face up to its tragic consequences in their life.

The assistant principal I've written about who didn't seem to care about kids more genuinely suffered with this kind of jadedness and pain on her heart, I'm pretty clear. As did my principal and most of the teachers and administrators I've worked with. It's sad to see teachers with this on their hearts because it is a field where you would most expect idealism to animate their efforts and where it is most needed. But a jaded teaching population very much holds the same pain of disappointment and hurt and the fear that comes with it from lives that have been treated just as shabbily as anyone else and advocates many of the same jaded policies and holds onto more cynical ideas about life and people that keeps all that cynicism and jadedness in place.

That's as much the reality check for me that I want to rediscover my own innocence as any insight into my own psyche: I don't want to end up as unhappy as so many adults seem to end up or to lose track of just how unhappy I've become because I've just been unhappy for so long.

And I want a woman in my life who feels the same or is moving in that direction so that we can have a family that is more genuinely committed to our children's welfare and not just our fear and pain and disappointment with the world in the name of our children's welfare. I saw too much of that rationalization at Eisenhower. It made me very sad to watch adults live their lives like this and for kids to try to grow up amidst it.

I don't want that for myself or for my own children. I don't really want it for any children or any adult. But I must say that many adults, more than children, seem to rally for the very policies which will most entrench that unhappiness in their lives. They may not realize that is what they are doing, much of the time. They may believe it is for noble purposes. But, generally, the people who are responsible for this jaded, cynical, too often ignoble, cowardly, and stupid world we live in is: us.

And I, for one, do not want that in my life no matter how much others may try to justify or rationalize it.

I want something better.

Love,
Ben