This is Just a Post For Me, to Recenter the Journey at Mid-Life, and to Doodle Out Meaning at this Point...Halfway Mark (If I Am Lucky)

Childhood was about discovery. Picking up a baseball bat, learning to ride a bike, mastering reading in elementary school, falling in love with math.

Middle school and junior high was about being an idiot...losing a focus, questioning purpose in everything, not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel. Being stupid.

High school was about tmaking up for stupidity at the junior high...rechanneling the work ethic for the good, getting my license and finding new territory for freedom, a groove with academics, and more importantl,y learning to work, make money, and to have a way to finance next steps.

College was bliss, a social bonanza of everything, travel, learning more than I knew was possible, and developing a personality for writing, reflection, critical insight, and purpose. Rebirth to the billionth degree.

Grad school was perfunctory. You want to teach. Learn the game. Do as the bureaucracy says. Move on.

Teaching was heaven...absolute chaos, impossible, yet beyond rewarding. I definitely learned more from students than I ever taught them. Brown School was nirvana. The mission, one of a kind, but fragile when the wrong people arrive. I internalized what was possible, and carry the vision into everything I do now. I captured the bliss...preserved it...and use it as fuel.

The doctorate was intense...nothing like I ever thought it would be, but I learned of ram horns, aiming even higher, naming a philosophy that could be put in action....reading even more...in awe of the rigor and intensity of research. Overjoyed I made it through (cried like a baby when the reality hit. Life changing, indeed.

Working in higher education is an absolute conundrum...becoming part of a system that needs to be blown up, rebuilt, and started all over again (this, of course, would benefit K-12 schools, too, as they need absolute revolution, as well). It is a harbor of dysfunction, the pinnacle of hypocrisy, and the safe-haven for inept nincompoops. It is also a corporation that feeds off social hierarchies, racist and classist traditions, and "eugenics" (the farce that it is). The castle has thick, well-crafted walls to protect itself from reality, allowing those inside to spew gibberish without repercussion with little to no action, but words. Then, of course, there's the administration.

Perhaps adulthood is simply the revelation that you work hard to prove one's self in a system, only to realize the system is really pathetic for almost everyone. It owns us. It traps us. And I see it destroy people over and over again. It's wrong. It's illogical. Yet, it persists.

I suppose my character flaw in life is that I want to believe in good, ethics, justice, and hope, even when I realize I'll be swimming up stream all the way. I have my heroes and icons, and I wonder sometimes, "How did they maintain integrity while all around them were those that operate in the opposite way?" 

Humor and joy. They've always been at the epicenter of all I do, but then you get addicted to mortgages, food on the table, familiarity, and the demon that is, "You're older now. How about retirement?"

In the end, it's always been about good relationships with awesome people...my friends, the boys, family. And working with incredible teachers and scholars. They are few, but there are excellent people out there. Role models. Decent human being. I hate the days when you come to the realization that they are anomalies and not norms...the uglier, grosser, indecent kind are more ubiquitous. 

But the system...the quandary of people caught in this system, and the ease it has to destroy us, maintain inequities, ride on unwarranted egos, and drive on power-hungry quests. I don't think I'll ever get it. Nor do I think I ever want to. I have memories of parents, my own included, as they got older in their work and would bring home the bullshit of their jobs. They, like me, only wanted decency. The system, though, uses, abuses, and disregards those that do the work.

So, I return to the importance of humor and joy...what is most important. Then, I ask, "Why be part of something that works so diligently against both?"

Oh, Jessica Early...I hear you. If only there was a National Writing Project University. True. But I'd match that with the beautiful philosophy of the Brown School...both, as locations, that represent all I know that is possible in the Universe. 

If only...If only.

I want to create that space. I'm tired of being underneath the idiocy of stupid practices, dumb decision-making, inhuman priorities for dollar signs and mirages, and spiritual hypocrisy. I've experienced bliss, know joy, and desire optimism. When the systems begins to turn us into their ugly, I have to turn my back to protect what I value most.

The good.