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Copyright © Louis Schmier
Date: Mon 12/12/2005 7:40 AM
Random Thought: Just Think About It
It's a crisp dawn. A new day is being born. Each ray of the rising sun is a
magic wand waving today alive. All possibilities are opening up. There's something of a
sacredness to this new day. It's like watching a reenactment of "in the beginning." And
yet, so many people sleep through it, both literally and figuratively. It never dawns on
them--pun intended--to offer it a thankful, tip-of-the-hat "hi there." For me, there is
no overlooking, no taking for granted, no ho-hum, no "just another," no "nothing much,"
and speeding by. No, each dawn is for me an invitation, an inspiration, a consecration,
a witnessing, a revelation, a thanking, a privilege, a hallowing, a freshness, a
beginning, an opening, a newness, and a command to "go forth." Having had cancer will do
that.
Well, I was "hello-ing" this only day I have on the front stoop. No walking for
me for a while. Can't do much else either. I'm under virtual house arrest for a month!
Just resting and recuperating. I had a hernia operation last week that was the result of
my prostatectomy in January. They had to do it, as my surgeon smirked, "the old fashioned
'cut and slash' way" because of the scar tissue inside. To get even with his humor, I
drew a smilely on my groin before the operation. So, now, with a 4 inch line of surgical
stapes, my right groin has the look of a puffed-up zippered pocket. My angelic Susan has
become something of a combined hovering mother hen, loving and caring wife, and inflexible
drill instructor. Achy. Stiff. Bored. When I can do something, it'll take me months to
get back into physical shape. No complaints. I've discovered there are a whole lot of
worse things than receiving proper and needed medical care.
As I leaned against the cold bricks, on the chilling tiles, sipping some freshly
brewed coffice, and thinking about enveloping darkness and sparks of light, I found myself
going back to a conversation I had with someone a few weeks ago at the Lilly conference.
I was hosting a luncheon "presenter round table." One of those professors who had signed
up to sit and chat with me professed how much he cared about students and how he wanted to
do so much for them, but was restricted at his institution's policies. I had met him last
year. He is thoughtful, generous, well-intentioned, and caring. Yet, he, for all his
verbiage, like so many others still served his own self-interest while his serving
interests in students had their limits. I was listening to him defend his decisions and
explain why he couldn't or wouldn't do this or that. "I'd love to, but...." "I really
want to, but...." "I agree with you, but...." "I'd rather teach and put all my energies
into helping students, but...." "I feel a need to, but...." His "buts" sounded as if he
was taking his "butt" out from harm's way in the battle zones on his campus. "It's too
risky to be different. I wouldn't get tenure. Then, I'd lose my job. I'm no saint.
It's purely a practical decision."
I appreciated his position. But, just think about it, the decision isn't so pure,
is it? Think about what he said. Think about the broken connection between his value
system and his actions. Think about the disconnect between him and others around him.
Think about how alone he feels in a too often haughty and unforgiving and inflexible
academic world. Think about how joylessly tinny his words sound. Think about how he
feels his actions are losing their sacramental possibilities. Think about his depth of
distrust and the breadth of his fear and width of his resignation. Think about how he is
literally ''being lived' and is acting out scripts written by others. Think about how
he's unwittingly focusing on himself and putting the students out of focus. Think about
all that draining energy he is using to constantly convince himself he's in the right,
that he can't change the system, and that he can only swallow whatever it handed to him.
Think about how his own feelings and fears quickly became the issue. Think about how
quickly he made his feelings seem so altruistic, how those feelings had eaten at his
reserves of hope, how they had depleted the wellsprings of his commitment, how they had
disoriented his heart and soul, how they had become a civilized distraction, and how they
had drowned out the hard question.
Just think about, then, how this extraordinary person has allowed himself to be
cowered into a going-along-to-get-along dance of "ordinarianism." Think about how
self-interest has a powerful tendency to disable our objectivity and befuddle our ability
to live up to moral principles. And when we think our financial or physical or
professional security is at stake, the best of us are vulnerable to reason-crippling
self-rationalization and self-delusion and self-righteousness. The greater the threat to
our self-interest, the more likely it is that we will slam our minds shut to other
perspectives and defend our positions with ferocity, as if the intensity of our
convictions makes them more valid.
Just think about how he reflects the extent to which our educational culture has
imprisioned the vast majority of its adherents. And, just think about how that may be the
real dumbing down of contemporary education.
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