May 20, 2005
getting the J.O.B. done
Here I am at thirty nine at a point where I thought I’d have done enough by now to protect myself from looking a fool in most situations or at least to have shored up my intellect with a certain degree of education and a certain amount of experience as to be given at least a minimum amount of respect in most situations, or at the very least, in the presence of lazy witless minds, to ward off every attempt at making me look the fool. However it seems that all it still takes is a class room full of lazy witless minds to do just that and more, with apparent ease. These young guns, are PAID to sit in their classes and fail. In failing, they perpetuate the flow of money. Most of these guys have been here in the same class for six years - money for nothing.
Not for THEIR financial gain, did they fail this time, oh no. They know nothing and didn't even try to pass. I tried to help them but how can you help somebody who doesn't want to be helped? These guys were forced to be here, these guys don't want to be here. These poor boys, God bless ‘em, will never know what it means to be free of the grip of sloth, ignorance, and the stupidity of an acculturated unwillingness to know basic things that the rest of us in the whole wide world know. Here, they’ve taken things a step further – they bask in their ignorance, rejoice in it – proud of their ability to not know stuff. It’s a refined art here, the lazier he is, the less he manages to get away with, the more esteem a boy seems to be bestowed.
As for the way I’m left feeling about another interaction with the exasperating, absolutely unmotivated classroomful, I turn to the quotes of others who have the wherewithal to summarize their similar experiences and beyond that find a way to triumph if not only through a simple reconciliation in their own minds of the good thing they have done despite the odds against any good being done at all and against the slip into simple cynicism when once the truth of decades of cultural indoctrination slams your efforts into the “sewers of baser minds” (see quote below) and leaves you feeling, basically, sad:
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." - T.H. White (The once and Future King)
This admonishment I take on myself having finished with yet another batch of "baser minds" who happily and willingly remain in the sewer enjoying their airs of arrogance, ignorance and sloth. I have learnt at least in part why the world wags and what wags it but certainly not the whole. So I will LEARN more, since not only T.H. White's quote, but also my own conviction so unequivically steers me to the simple truth: learning is the the one thing noble left in THIS world still worth persuing.
Yet in the same determined breath of committing to that noble end, there lurks the voice of a jazz musician's caricature, perched in miniature, red, with horns, upon my left shoulder whose learning is of a far different kind than purely academic. Fats Domino's comment following, like Hamlet’s handled skull in the graveyard, is constantly there, reminding of me:“A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D. or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B.” Well, I do have a J.O.B. AND, Fats, I have also some letters behind my name.
If the activity left at the end of the day for us to engage in is to LEARN then that is LEARNING's good use right there and nothing more needs to be accounted for, does it. Perhaps in this light then, Fats’d be better off getting off his “Fats butt”, to LEARN too, along with the lettered focus of his verbal jibe, and all of us who commit to do so, in all the other areas of life. OK, He is already a genius of jazz. But that doesn't mean he should rest on his laurels either, see.
Onwards!
Not for THEIR financial gain, did they fail this time, oh no. They know nothing and didn't even try to pass. I tried to help them but how can you help somebody who doesn't want to be helped? These guys were forced to be here, these guys don't want to be here. These poor boys, God bless ‘em, will never know what it means to be free of the grip of sloth, ignorance, and the stupidity of an acculturated unwillingness to know basic things that the rest of us in the whole wide world know. Here, they’ve taken things a step further – they bask in their ignorance, rejoice in it – proud of their ability to not know stuff. It’s a refined art here, the lazier he is, the less he manages to get away with, the more esteem a boy seems to be bestowed.
As for the way I’m left feeling about another interaction with the exasperating, absolutely unmotivated classroomful, I turn to the quotes of others who have the wherewithal to summarize their similar experiences and beyond that find a way to triumph if not only through a simple reconciliation in their own minds of the good thing they have done despite the odds against any good being done at all and against the slip into simple cynicism when once the truth of decades of cultural indoctrination slams your efforts into the “sewers of baser minds” (see quote below) and leaves you feeling, basically, sad:
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." - T.H. White (The once and Future King)
This admonishment I take on myself having finished with yet another batch of "baser minds" who happily and willingly remain in the sewer enjoying their airs of arrogance, ignorance and sloth. I have learnt at least in part why the world wags and what wags it but certainly not the whole. So I will LEARN more, since not only T.H. White's quote, but also my own conviction so unequivically steers me to the simple truth: learning is the the one thing noble left in THIS world still worth persuing.
Yet in the same determined breath of committing to that noble end, there lurks the voice of a jazz musician's caricature, perched in miniature, red, with horns, upon my left shoulder whose learning is of a far different kind than purely academic. Fats Domino's comment following, like Hamlet’s handled skull in the graveyard, is constantly there, reminding of me:“A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D. or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B.” Well, I do have a J.O.B. AND, Fats, I have also some letters behind my name.
If the activity left at the end of the day for us to engage in is to LEARN then that is LEARNING's good use right there and nothing more needs to be accounted for, does it. Perhaps in this light then, Fats’d be better off getting off his “Fats butt”, to LEARN too, along with the lettered focus of his verbal jibe, and all of us who commit to do so, in all the other areas of life. OK, He is already a genius of jazz. But that doesn't mean he should rest on his laurels either, see.
Onwards!
