parresia

"I'll take the quiet life,

"I'll take the quiet life, with no alarms and no surprises." You can have your white picket fences, and carbon monoxide. I look around this million dollar computer lab, everyone so diligently typing away, staring intently into the screen (not really noticing the distorted vision that results), and I just can't get myself to begin my own work. I'm thirsty as a consequence of my super-sodium-saturated dinner to the point that my lips hurt and my mouth feels stale. On this point I did try to remedy the problem, I scoured the premises for a water fountain, only to find three locked doors (behind which I know there was nice cold water) and one poor excuse for a fountain that had water pressure so low one would have to suck on the spout to drink (I'm not thirsty enough to contract hepititus). So here I sit, with a zit quickly forming on my upper lip.
It's nights like tonight I wonder why I was chosen to be born in this period of life. I wonder why I couldn't have been born during the great Roman Era, born into the aristocracy, merely having to hone my debate skills in the symposium in order to "earn my keep." Why could I have not sat under the feet of Plato, spending years doing little more than reading, writing, and arguing. Or better yet, if this current century is indeed my home, I could have been born to a plantation owner finding my days filled with excursions to hunt deer, reading by a lake lit only by my lantern and the moon, then returning home to be with the Mrs. Sometimes I think nature and nature lovers are not as crazy as I often chide them for. What is wrong with wanting to live among God's wild creation? Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about a life of asceticism, rather I'm talking about the complete opposite: life of complete integration...being among, rather than being "among." In the city, things happen at lighting pace; my presence is merely circumstancial (I could go or leave and nothing would change), in nature my presence would also be merely circumstancial, but the difference is that in nature my life would not NEED be anything more; (I could go or leave and everything would change). In the city my presence is supposed to make a difference.
So has the hours of traffic finally gotten to me? No. I've hated traffic for years now, but that isn't it. It's the false pretense I dislike. We're under the pretense that city life is where it's at, that to really be a shaker and mover you must live in the city (which for many pragmatic reasons seems to be true), but yet I know that ultimately it is anything BUT true on account that I know my Saviour, and I know the complete irrelevance of my residence. I know that life properly carried out is to bring glory to God. One need not live in the city to do such. One need not attend the university. One need not hunt deer either, I know this.

The law of undulation. Yes, peaks and troughs. The thinking above is certainly a trough, not THE trough, but merely a trough. If not for the valleys, there would be no peaks.

"Empty and irrelevant thoughts occurred to him, as they invariably do during spells of tedious waiting." ~~the author

So what am I waiting for, the stroke of midnight? No. Midnight will come and go all too soon, and I'll be the same person-- I promise. I'm waiting for something that isn't going to happen. Here it is: as education ought to be one would be studying those things that interest him; he would be engaged at numerous levels with the subject matter (all of which could be taking place outside of a classroom). What do I mean? Consider an example. When I was eighteen or thereabout I became extremely interested in church history and the reformation. I began acquiring books on the topic, talking with educated friends about the subject, listening to tapes, attending lectures, even volunteering for a reformation organization just so I could be around the subject. I was educating myself. I had motive/drive/desire/interest and more. It is this same desire that I am striving to find here and now as I sit here in front of the computer watching the others either pretend or actually fulfilling their own interests. This "desire" that I had with the Reformation I want to find in the topics I am studying now. For the life of me I cannot seem to find anything even close. This is what I was referring to above: this is the thing that I am looking for that I am not going to find.

And indeed this is one of the greatest ills of public education, and one could argue American education in general. So what I am faced with is this. I could write a mediocre paper (which I did for the midterm paper) and earn a B for a grade. This would be "going along with the program" doing the right thing, but I wouldn't be learing anything (at least noticeably) of value. It may seem mere laziness, but I know I would learn so much more from just fulfilling my immediate desire which is to read The Author. I would learn so much more. I would learn so much more, spending the day in front of a lake (after a long hike uphill), eating a sandwich reading St. Paul. Wouldn't I? One could even grieve the lake, and simply sit near a tree, in a taxi, near a phone booth--I don't care-- in the middle of central park (with all the hustle and bustle meters away) and still learn more, and be the better having read St. Paul. Could he not?

Instead I'm to write a paper on the meta-theory behind Frege's "puzzle" which is anything but interesting, and anything but applicable to my life, other than being able to sound smart at the next family gathering.

So, I am able to add this to the list of hurdles that I want to address as an educator. There needs to be a want to learn in order for learning to take place.

When this is all over, I'll feel so much better.
May God grant me the discipline to get through this without permanently ruining my thus hard-fought grade point average. Would a grade point average matter if I were sitting in front of a moonlit lake in southern Kentucky eating roast muttin?

"at some times I'm very impatient, and at others it's as though I were altogether blind."

Posted by jeremy stock at December 13, 2000 12:21 AM