It's a DJ Wonderful Life

A week or so before last Christmas, as first semester neared its end, I battled exhaustion, as is sometimes the season to do in education. But despite my own end-of-term deflation, like most teachers, I also faced the relentless and somewhat irksome lethargy of my students, whose behavior clearly communicated, whether done well or not, I wish only to be done. I can understand this. I was a student myself once upon a time. You begin to wish desperately to inhabit some future version of yourself who’s already finished and presently celebrates total freedom from the commitment of scholarship and the demands that compel you, day by day, to sustain your energies as you traverse a certain span of growth and learning, though to many, it’s merely a span of accountability; whether we grow or learn is often a matter of intentionality, or even circumstance. The fact remains, most high school students lack the foresight that would prevent their delving solely toward the most immediate satisfaction and the “cheapest,” least edifying path to completion. So often we prefer ease over gain. A great many of my students would honestly rather sit and multiply single-digit numbers to get an A and claim they’ve learned Precalculus than to embrace the challenge of doing so in fact. It’s human nature, I suppose. It certainly takes an open,
unselfish, far-sighted mind to think otherwise.

Pondering these curious cultural agonies, I sat down to clear my mind after a long day of teaching. But instead of listening to music or simply putting my head down on my desk and closing my eyes for ten minutes, I reached for a copy of Emerson’s essays. And as I perused the table of contents, the topic of prudence caught my eye, and his reflections returned my attention to ideas I realized I’ve learned to ignore quite effectively, particularly with respect to the complacency that tends to direct our industry, not on a large scale, as would concern broad, long-term goals, but on a short-term scale, next to which the vision and span of life is like an endless road, a succession of years so numerous, we can hardly conceive of their ending. Of course, this is the state in which we live the majority of our lives. Day-to-day, even minute-by-minute, how I choose to spend my time is too often directed by some interior law of apathy, blindness, or impatience. It is, not surprisingly, similar to how my students often think, and I see in myself a refracted manifestation of their value structure and the contingent lack of maturity that would otherwise govern my thinking if not for having spent a few more choices and a few more years accruing, I hope, a modicum of wisdom.

Emerson calls prudence “the virtue of the senses,” or “the art of securing a present well-being,” which provides a way of exploring motivation. He muses on for some time, occasionally waxing so poetical as to seem disjointed and cryptic. But often enough he hits a fantastic stride of statements that resonate clearly and poignantly. The world of the senses, Emerson argues, has a symbolic character, which is revealed by three degrees of proficiency in the knowledge of the world: one living to the utility of the symbol, exalting health and wealth as a final good; one living to the beauty of the symbol, as poets, artists, scientists, and so on; and one living to the beauty of the thing signified, which represents true wisdom. He says, “The first class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not offer to build houses and barns thereon, reverencing the splendor of the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny” (Emerson, 158). These thoughts resuscitated my mind and drew me into a state of sober introspection. In a subsequent section, he adds, “Cultivated men always feel and speak so as if a great fortune, the achievement of a civil or social measure, great personal influence, a graceful and commanding address, had their value as proofs of the energy of the spirit. If a man lose his balance and immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may be a good wheel or a pin, but he is not a cultivated man” (Emerson, 159). To what extent would my life, as I have lived it to this point, reflect such cultivation or rather address the true beauty of these existential symbols and the spiritual perception he describes?

This thread of contemplation gained momentum a few weeks later as I sat attempting to write a resolution on New Year’s Eve, which quickly took a sharp introspective turn, of course, almost certainly propelled by the Emerson I had been trying to digest those few previous weeks. Before I knew it, I had written a dozen or so resolutions, everything from starting and ending the day with prayer and reading for pleasure each day to more typical self-improvement efforts like getting more sleep and biking to work three times a week. But what really stood out and clearly seemed to require my attention the most seriously was something quite simple and more a matter of temperament than habit, which will, I would think, make it the more challenging to command. I’m talking about panic.

I work at a school where things move quickly. In addition to the five core subjects, having each student enrolled in a Bible class and the commitment to a morning meeting time that allows for weekly worship and a variety of school assemblies is an endeavor that benefits from a six-day cycle in which each class meets only five times and a daily schedule in which individual classes meet for only 47 minutes. What’s more, until only a few years ago, the passing time between classes was a mere three minutes, instead of the current five. Of course, limited instruction time at Oaks Christian requires both efficiency and flexibility to ensure that the scope of the curriculum and the demands of student learning are adequately met. The class period doesn’t seem to lend itself to the type of lesson in which a student’s thought, even an incorrect thought, which any seasoned teacher can confirm often yields the greatest understanding, is allowed the time to linger as it should. Often I find myself moving nimbly from one concept to the next, hardly allowing the kids the requisite time to digest a new idea. What’s more, I find it a macrocosm of my own life, both professional and personal.

I’m referring to something too many of us have come to regard as a day in the life, par for the course, what we all simply expect as Americans and members of a global society. I’m talking about that sense of urgency that governs our lives and demands of us a constant attention to task, often causing us to be so agenda-driven that some of us scarcely understand what to do with a break. Indeed, many people devote huge portions of personal time to making sure things don’t “fall apart” at work. For teachers, this means making sure lesson plans and grading are completed with some degree of timeliness. We take working lunches, use personal time and evenings to do nothing but chores and errands, and so remain in a state of constant anxiousness, the panic button perennially pressed in order to sustain the awareness of task and responsibility, awareness without respite, without relief, as if the face we wear and the manner we affect were the button-down version of a self who is each moment a frenetic mess, being constantly eroded. It’s a life that slowly kills you as you consistently bear the weight of a demand that can never be fully met.

The answer, I believe, lies in the intentionality of taking a sensible breakfast, the time to retreat, get centered, and restore a sense of purpose and vision, to renew what is green and golden in the enthusiasm that drives us to excel. Like a ship without a pilot, when persistently enslaved by tasks and agendas, we lose that vision and that zeal, and all that’s left is the burden of it. But what do you do when there seems more to be done than there is time to do it? You simply face the challenge to choose well with the time you have in order to minimize the default of responsibility and the trust that family members, friends, colleagues, and supervisors have placed in you. You face it, of course, and limit the perfection of which you might deem yourself capable. For a perfectionist, however, this is far easier said than done. I find myself at such a crossroads, a recovering perfectionist, if you will. I believe I’ve finally reached the point beyond which my continued efforts will only destroy and make a waste of my potential, as opposed to doing it justice by a prudent execution and temperance of will. How I feel replete with Emerson’s thoughts now, as I face the new semester, realizing that my task is not to scale new heights and sacrifice even more time and energy on the altar of excellence, but rather to live peaceably within its pursuit.

As I entered 2011, the temperature of my mind and the opportunity for personal growth and change found their fires stoked by a variety of new musical territories, from the brushstrokes of Beethoven, whose string quartets I’m only just now discovering in all their Everestine glory, to the wild and vigorous wings of the latest Chemical Brothers opus, Further. So DJ wonderful and full of electric zeal, their pulsating and melodic world has inspired a rapturous rampage of spirited optimism that makes me want to throw my cell phone on the ground and stomp it to an electronic pulp, grab a pair of sunglasses and commit some happy misdemeanor, embrace what William Least Heat-Moon in Blue Highways called living the “jeopardy of circumstance,” truly pacing out the spirit of Vince Guaraldi’s jazz gem “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” For me, it is not just a question of dignity, but of survival. I could go a lot crazy later if I don’t go at least a little crazy now. I find myself with daydreams of unplugging every appliance in my place and living like a castaway for a week, or jumping in the car and just driving, let the highways of America unfold as they will, till I land on some forgotten island of the world and take a job in a diner somewhere, a colorful little dive run by a guy named Joe, who shares some intriguing vignette each night before I amble home. Or grab onto a passing fire truck and hitch a ride to some marvelous emergency, where lives hang in the balance, and a man hands me a hammer or an axe and tells me to follow him into the fray. Hell yeah! I can hear Bernard Herrmann’s pounding, percussive score to North by Northwest throughout the day, as I dare demand a splash of intrepidity in an otherwise ordinary, task-infused life. But you know, all I really want is the time to dream it all up.

Of course, the balance between personal health and personal responsibility is precisely what a mature person is asked to pursue, bringing to bear the wisdom that reminds us not let our individuality and creative strife go too far. A little revolution every now and then works wonders for the heart and the mind, but a healthy dose of self-control works wonders for the spirit too. It’s the sobriety of that moment that allows one to transcend the youthful bedlam of liberality. Balance is hard. We are a species of extremes. We are Shakespearean, or rather, Shakespeare was very human, and captured something so elemental in our nature that every word rings true. We love rapturously one moment and crash our hopes and fears upon a seaside cliff the next, vehemently swearing off that very same love once driven mad by jealousy or betrayal. Goodness, I think I’ve just described the plot of at least half of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. What an adventure it is to ride the waves shaken to life by passion and portent.

So at length, I find myself seeking balance above all, tranquility in temperance, serenity in self-control. There’s contentment to be found in everyday tasks, to be sure. As the author of Ecclesiastes says in Chapter 5, verses 18 and 19, “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.” But in turn, we should not commit ourselves to our toil at the expense of clarity, forfeit sensibility and lose our claim to some semblance of personhood. Rather I seek now a vigorous and blatant attack of mindless pragmatism in favor of discernment and a focused attention to the beauty of what material achievement signifies. I learned a little from Emerson the past two months, as I did from a pinch of electronica. While I pace myself from here to there, and let the DJ frenzies of Chemical Thom and Chemical Ed spin my thoughts into a splendid spiritual berserk, I suppose I should be careful what I wish for, from deserted islands to burning buildings, and that ferocious fantasy that always begins with a piercing look and a running leap into a nest of villains. I think the part of me that still feels about eight years old and wearing a cape probably needs a day in the sun. I might not throw my cell phone against a wall or smash it to bloody bits, but not quite caring if I did somehow seems a good place to start.

Work Cited

• Emerson, Ralph Waldo.  Emerson's Essays.  Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1926.