August 15, 2004
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Topic: Self-imposed limitations
There’s a million things I can do with my life. Why did I choose a path that requires me to go 100% alone, writing a book, trying to expose the ills of higher education in America?
Today, I grew very, very lonely. I still had one good friend, Ori, an Israeli, over my house. But, as my other 6 friends left for the airport at 4am, I was suddenly in a mourning period of having my friends stripped away from me. I forced myself to sleep part of the afternoon away to get past the sorrow that was overwhelming me. I thought to myself how weak I was for a person who tries to have all the answers in life, but, despite having figured a few things out in my life, I still yearn for human affection, and while I think I’ve done a good thing to not yearn for money, status, and power in my life, I think human affection is not something I will give up looking for. While I am feeling much better now, I think it’s important to occassionally get depressed, to dwell on the past, and to cry for memories of people and experiences.
I’m kind of stuck on the book project for a moment, since I’m still spending time with friends from camp. My ideal scenario would be me getting an hour with the executive director of expeditionary learning outward bound, www.elob.org to explain myself and my ideas. I haven’t done the networking just yet, but outward bound has both the philosophy and the infrastructure (instructors, money, programs, experience, etc) to create the types of programs I want to create, whether they be gap year programs to help high school graduates mature, or college courses that give students real life skills and adventurous experiences, or even an entire college dedicated to education through experience. So…i’m a little overwhelmed by the prospect of having the solutions to some or our societies large education and lifestyle problems, but still being a connection or 2 from being able to translate ideas into realities, which is really what my whole book is about. Patience Dan…patience.
Comments (1)
I found a book in the library that you think you might like. It’s called The Heart of Learning, by Steven Glazer, about sprirituality in education, or the lack of it. I’m reading it and really liking it. It grew out of a conference on education in 1999 (I think) and consists of a series of essays, including ones by Gatto and the Dalai Lama. Very interesting and thought provoking.
One thing that has stuck with me so far is something that Parker Palmer (a Quaker, “writer, and traveling teacher who works independently on issues in education, spirituality, and social change”) says about his bouts with depression. A “therapist and spiritual guide said to him, “You seem to keep imaging your depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Why don’t you try imaging it as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it is safe to stand?”
The idea being that we in this society tend to be too lofty and abstract, wanting to understand and control everything, so that we become disconnected from ourselves, from those around us, and from the very ground we stand on. Depression, therefore, becomes not an enemy but a friend, keeping us in touch with what really matters: listening to our hearts and to the hearts of those around us.