But this talk sounds like one of ideals alone, because our experiences in education are too often dwarfed and diminished by the oppressive weight of school in our history and memory, and the two are not usually comparable.  We all remember our school days, for better or worse, for all the things we are happy to reflect on and all the rest that is regrettable and remorseful.  Admittedly, it was many things for us: a jail, a jungle, a clubhouse, a society, a testing block, a proving ground, a source of hope, humiliation, humor, and trial.  Now and then you learned something beyond your relationship to your cellmates, but mostly it was just a presence that you did not doubt and knew was futile to resist, and then it ends and you feel like you’ve been held back a decade from living and have to start from scratch.

I almost want to apologize for the morose cynicism that the subject brings out in me, but it is there.  From where I write I can see children from several different schools coming and going.  The older ones stroll lethargically down the sidewalk, chatting to their friends, able to walk home from the neighboring high school, but are still enthralled to it, despite their apathy.  And the little ones who are given away and received at the bustop by parents, with their printed backpacks and abundant spirit, swallowed and spit out by those yellow buses, they still have many years to go.  I feel for them all rather desperately, wishing that they could understand what they do not, and inwardly growl at the passing buses, then have to smile and sigh because I do not mean any hostility to a system that is only what we have made it to be and can yet change, and because I’m trying to do what I can.  And if this course we take to raise adults and teach them self-government and wisdom does not work we will have to acknowledge it and reform it in time.

What I want to ask you now is your own experience.  What do you remember from your school days?  What do you believe was the influence and impact of this?  I am always keen for your insight and dialogue.

To speak openly and honestly, I like my job and it is the best that I have had yet.  I work at a youth library and so am not pressed into labors of any great physical or mental debilitation, the people I work with are pleasant and admirable, the institution I work for has a good and necessary intention, and I am allowed stimulating contact with the public, especially our youth.  But, when you own a strong idea of the task that is your purpose, anything that demands your presence away from this, continuously and at long lengths, is a trial, despite its graces.

It is cancerous for a society, that its people should be compelled to work without purpose.  Everyone is squared away into some occupation, made to hold up the framework of a civilization, for the sake of itself, if not for those very individuals.  When one does not care for what they do, when there is not passion or personal stake there, the effect is a degradation on the influence of the occupation.  The framework is surely, ultimately, imperiled.

However, if many of us are confined to some work that takes more than it gives and aspire still for more, the greater concern is how we got here.  With enough understanding of ourselves and the world we might discover our vocation within it.  That we have to tire and sweat to no end, estranged from a work that is more truly ours and which offers more than the appeasement of basic survival or even contentedness, but enrichment and happiness, means that we never learned our purposes or how to secure them, or that the shackle of economy snaps shut before one anticipates it, in time abolishing further options and the will to pursue them.

The answer is that all of these are in effect.  But, we may yet learn and reform our living, change the education that originates all of this, and refine even the character of our economy and our society altogether.  We may still do something else and it may still be something else.

I seem to have gotten far from my initial thought however.  It is good to daydream and ponder, often because it directs our imagination and reveals to us where we would like to, and perhaps should, go.  So, when you’re at the job, what do you imagine for yourself?  Where do you go?  With enough discussion, my own wishes may become more evident.

Imagine that whatever the grief of the grieving, when a person dies the living must spend their time signing forms, arranging funerals, cleaning house, and worrying over the contents of bank accounts.  It costs something to bury the dead.  Must we add to this cost more than is decently respectful?  How many laws must be passed to tell a person how they may memorialize those close to them?  How far have we truly come if we cannot gracefully help everyone through one of the oldest hardships?

This argument can be taken a step further, or backward, when the healthcare that can prevent death is considered.  It is astonishing that we price the rejuvenation of life.  This is certainly a priceless thing that is asked of those that can give it, and can be given to those that ask it, because our integrity and definition are based on this common aid.  Yet, presently, the sick are doctored and the dead are honored only if they can pay something.  In a state of inalienable rights aren’t some things innately earned, because we would be a much different state were they not unconditionally owed?

Perhaps all of this is to be thought of as naive.  This is just the way things work, mostly because there is no other way.  But is it the way our civilization should work?  It is commonplace to already presume the greatness of our state, but we only may be great according to what we do and the aims we set.  It is a good and commendable thing to create and possess an ideal, which we can never quite rest by until it is met.  Part of that ideal may be the absence of any tax, when people most need fellowship and harmony with the society around them.

For some, the business of life might be embraced to numb oneself to the fact of death, but I believe this is unsuitable, as it would create a greater pain for later, and it is unjust because death must be appreciated to understand life.  At other times, I have found that such a momentous occurence actually escapes one’s focus, whether this is wished for or intended or not, and one begins to laugh and enjoy company and moments as if it were a normal day, then realizing what has happened one feels guilty for not revering the occasion in solemn grief.  Isn’t it an odd certainty that the end of life should be respected by thinking only on the end?  Perhaps being able to secure joy after everything else is the most honorable thing we could do, but still, death, like anything, should be understood.

As I see it, the end to anything is the beginning of its complete significance.  Would we appreciate, as much as we do, the sky if it did not darken, the color of leaves if they did not change, health if we are never sick, and life if there was never death?  Because we might not alway be here, the time that we have and the people that we are is precious, for it will not last.  Life would not be as meaningful to us without death.  I suppose, then, we must contend that death does some good for us, a close death making that lesson unforgettable.

However, this is usually not enough to give us peace.  It is one thing to comprehend death and another to accept how people die.  What incites our most grievous pain is that the people we care deeply for are killed by events that do not seem just.  It is fine to be bothered by apparent injustice, for there is sometimes no better way of acknowledging it.  But there was injustice before our loved ones died and even in the, comparitively, best of ends it would still be there.  To seek and create a just society is primary amongst our goals, and just as any death gives meaning to life, those cruel and merciless deaths give meaning to justice and can urge us on more earnestly to meet this purpose.

Perhaps, for the living, death does not have to stop us, rather it would make all our endeavors more evident and help us forward.

Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: Caesar and Christ

These words of Durant have been echoing around in my head after I learned them not long ago, because it is an evaluation of an old state that seems all too fitting for those in the present, especially the United States.  Some people, mostly historians, though perhaps not, may consider Rome and think of power and glory, fear and respect, complex works and a vast dominion, a marble exterior and feats of legend, and this may or may not be true of the empire, but it is was also a state of people, just people.  People may make great things and they may unmake them.  We can learn to do something, even master it, then forget it or fail to pass it on.

Romans who knew enough of their own culture, in the height of it, and of the past, would have asserted that there had never been anything quite like their home, nothing so magnificent or honorable.  Other civilizations had rose and receded, and there was some pity in this, but here is Rome thriving, the envy of history and its only concern need be what to do with the rest of the world.  Perhaps, even when it did begin to decline, this was seen as momentary and a fall would be unthinkable.  But eventually it happened.

Is it impossible that America could falter and diminish completely?  No.  And perhaps the unyielding certainty that this could not be is part of the problem.  Doubt will show us what lacks soundness.  Nearing the end of 2008 we are also approaching the close of what may be known as the Bush Decade, for there is no better point with which to define it by, certainly for America and possibly for the world.  Because of his faults, Bush, and his so-called Doctrine, which has been supported and enacted by other politicians and public figures, actually helps to clarify which disciplines do not work and what initiatives are to be avoided.  Getting lost can serve as an opportunity to re-orient yourself, but without a memory of this and learning from it you are sure to mire yourself one day and even fall.

Rome ceased because its people were unable to maintain the state that they had hoped for.  Had they changed they would have ended differently or not ended at all.  If America follows the many great civilizations that have been, into defeat and dim remembrance, or never reaches the caliber that they have set, it is because of the actions and the certainties that we kept to.  Our darkest hour could be the prime moment of illumination.  Instead of being another chapter in history to ponder, America, or at least the ideas that ideally represent it, could be the beginning of something more lasting.  Well, there’s still time yet, surely.  I leave you with another quote, from someone before Durant but even closer to his own nation.

“If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

Thomas Jefferson

I never got completely what I looked for, but I did get samples of it, enough to offer experience.  And time went by, furthering the experience, endeavors, and trials that would craft what I meant to seek from life.  I came to a point where the purpose I couldn’t ignore was a vocation and the people I needed were people in general, not any one person.  I wished to contain myself in the workings of the world, not in the confines of romance.  Looking back, I see passionate youth, willing to do so much, but unaware of itself and the significance of everything around it, so that the only available end becomes the arms of another and the little world that this grants.  With this, it would be easy to tuck oneself away and close off what couldn’t be faced.

I tend to think that if I had gotten what I wanted in youth, it would have been harder to make the solitary journery necessary to learn what I could and should do, the travel of which speaks more of adulthood.  When some context has so much to offer and incite in us, there is no one that should be isolated from this.  And yet after having come so far, there is still that call for an individual and intimate complementation that has not utterly died out.  Nor do I believe it must be deafened and not answered.  It is an interesting crossroads, having surpassed a desire but not being completely free from it, finding control in what you understand of things, but knowing it is not enough.  Surely a life requires many things not one, or almost the same thing in many forms, and the balance that would ensure accord.  I’ll do what I must, for myself.

And now I wonder, where are you on this road?  Which of us has someone to share history with and which do not?  What have been the hardships that come in either instances?  What have been the gifts?

The merit over whether an individual may lead and govern is to be decided by celebrity.  In appearance, what can they say they will do for us, what can they say about themselves, what can they say that we desire to hear?  Who can they be for us on stage, in front of the crowd; how have they excited us?  Who do they seem to be and, by God, is that American flag pin in plain sight on their lapel??  A piece of plastic, the judgment for capacity!

Sadly, but honestly, this is not a recent circumstance, not for America, not for nations, not for people.  Often, we are swayed by captivation, by the belief someone instills in us of their power, purity, keenness, and innate tendency to do everything but what the lesser, former leaders have done and precisely what we wish could be done.  Having no better rationale, we are left with the more convenient, impulsive means of decision, being popularity, the force of appeal.  Showmanship gives the appearance of statesmanship, and is all that is necessary for the politician and all which we’ll measure by.

This is worth decrying because the process gives us incapable governors that are not committed to or effective in their duty.  A revised rationale is needed.  We cannot go by what seems to be most pressing now that never was before, nor the gratification of a single speech or the quality of a smile.  To elect those for governance we must determine what is required to ensure the harmony of civilization.  This is all that we must weigh candidacy against.  So this is what I ask of you to consider, what is necessary for just government?

Without deliberating at all, one might become certain that there are problems that diminish us and keep us from that which we would be best to have, and one would be right.  Yet when we do deliberate, we begin to make some bold assessment of the problem, attempting to define and describe it.  Such an endeavor is sought so that resolution will be discovered.  And with this we may be able to live by the world, and not merely die by it.  So, here are questions that I never let go and which I pose to you.  What are our problems? What limits us from the prosperity that should be ours?  What do you think?

For me, it was an exceptional point of research, but it also gave form to a discipline, characteristic, and purpose that had been mine though was largely undefined.  In this way, I was also thankful to find an affinity with the many philosophers that Durant presents:

“There is a pleasure in philosophy, and a lure even in the mirages of metaphysics, which every student feels until the coarse necessities of physical existence drag him from the heights of thought into the mart of economic strife and gain.  Most of us have known some golden days in the June of life when philosophy was in fact what Plato calls it, “that dear delight”; when the love of a modestly elusive Truth seemed more glorious, incomparably, than the lust for the ways of the flesh and the dross of the world…’To be a philosopher,’ said Thoreau,’ is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.’  We may be sure that if we can but find wisdom, all things else will be added unto us.  ’Seek ye first the good things of the mind,’ Bacon admonishes us,’ and the rest will either be supplied or its loss not be felt.’  Truth will not make us rich, but will make us free.”

If any of that passage made you smile and nod then I recommend this book to you.  And further I urge you to remember this blog.  A few more quotes from this book I’d like to share:

“The world is neither with us or against us; it is but raw materials in our hands, and can be heaven or hell according to what we are.”

“Perhaps we shall some day be strong enough and clear enough in soul to see the shining beauty of even the darkest truth.”

Firstly, he is a masterful writer and if I feel I now know something of this subject and am certain of a relation to it, I have him to thank.  But I may wait to talk about the book itself in another post.  Instead, what was most important about this reading was that I discovered a characteristic of myself that had always been prominent and a school to which I may already belong.  Since my youth, I knew that I had strong scientific leanings, that I wished to analyse all things in order to accurately comprehend their nature.  But now I come to realize there has also been this aspect of philosophy in my frame of thought, driving my wish to synthesize every part in nature and understand the whole of it.  Especially as I have been drawn to armchair contemplation and not meticulous laboratory work, I might say the capacity and passion for philosophy is more dominant in me.  But all this time, I had not known it, nor the thoughts of past philosophers which share so many similarities to my own.  It is a great day when a definition of yourself becomes more secure and familiar and when you find a community that shares and rejoices in your common purpose.

So, as it turns out, I was looking in the right place for thoughts on knowledge and its meaning.  There is the whole discipline of epistemology, but I am not completely sure how relevant it all is.  Surely, we may only establish knowledge by way of the senses.  Even if we have only lately certified this, if there can only be sensory fact then this is just what we’ll have to work with and, with this, we do not know that we will not come by the true and total way of things.  Do we really question whether we actually know anything?  True, we can be mistaken but can we not arrive at a fundamental knowledge, if all it must do for us, if all that matters, is that it be soundly coordinated with our sense of everything else?  For the most part it seems that there is knowledge and it is important, but the matter most at stake is the extent of this importance.  This extent and its consequence are worth an arduous consideration.

I surely have more to say but I look forward to your thoughts and the discussion that may be the fruit of this.