For several days, I have been fixated on the phrases "race to the top" and "win the future." I've been pondering how little these phrases resonate for me, how absolutely dissonant they are with my personal life experience. How is this top defined? What do you do when you reach it? Who gives or receives the high-five? What happens to the losers of the race? Why do we not want everyone to reach this imaginary peak?
And, once we arrive at this metaphorical top, where else is there to go, except down?
First phrase questioned, now for the second. How do you win an abstract, noncount noun? Is this a compulsory round, or do we have a choice whether or not to participate in the future game? Again, if there are winners, there must be losers. Does time stop for losers, and no future manifests itself in the space-time continuum? The mathematics and physics of future-winning must be extremely advanced.
Frankly, "winning the future" is a totally nonsensical phrase. I still can't get over its repetition, or that it was supposed to be inspiring.
Imagining life to be a game is an insidious concept. It undermines our ability to take seriously the work of creating a livable, sustainable, compassionate, and cooperative world. Game is another word for competition. Competition, by definition requires adversaries, winners, and losers. Depending upon the nature of the competition, friendly or cut-throat, winning at any cost is a possibility. Doing what it takes comes into play. Advantages are sought. Cheating may occur. Chance might be involved, or handicaps awarded.
Is life a shell game, zero-sum game, fair game, or the only game in town? Who establishes the rules of the game? Is it a game of skill? A gamble? Will there be bluffs? Is it a long shot?
Metaphor is a useful story-teller's tool. It can elucidate an idea and capture the spirit of an abstraction, reducing complex notions to digestible nuggets. But the Game of Life metaphor works mainly in the context of literature, and is not best used to organize the nation's efforts to lift people from poverty, build infrastructure, and educate our populace.
Play is a useful tool in the development of creativity and problem-solving skills. But life is not all play. When children go hungry, families are homeless, bridges collapse, illiteracy and innumeracy reign supreme, and endless wars absorb all the hard work of a nation, playing a game is not the answer. I think we've already won the race to nowhere.
Showing posts with label story telling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story telling. Show all posts
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The Golden Rule, From Atop a Great Big Soapbox
This morning I woke up feeling particularly sensitive to absurdity. I apply my "doing is becoming" philosophy to all, as once you see significance in anything, you see it in everything. The first few news stories I reflected upon today made me climb atop a great big soapbox. Here's the result:
When you hear the phrase "new normal," you should realize you and your family are being sold lies based on fear and private greed. It's your money. It's your quality of life. If you held the actual cash in your hand, how would you spend it? Would you continue to kill children whose only crime was to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time? Would you continue to send your neighbors' children into harm's way to intervene in a power struggle, or fight against tribal people, thousands of miles away from your home? Would you give it all and promise more to the fattest guy in the biggest house at the end of the street? Or would you provide clean water, food, clothing, medicine, housing, jobs, libraries, art, learning opportunities (insert what makes your life meaningful and livable here) to yourself and your immediate family?
What you would provide to your family is what you should extend to the collective family of humanity. It's very simple. It's the basic rule of every spiritual and ethical tradition known to mankind. This rule doesn't specify "others whom are just like you." It says very plainly and clearly, "Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you." Just plain "others." All others, no exceptions.
Why do you give up agency just because the dollars flow unseen from your electronic paycheck to a paid representative of the people and a treasurer far away? Why do you let them scare you with their tales of woe? Why do you believe the world will end if we don't do as legislatures and corporations say we must? If they got us into this mess by misspending our money, why do we trust them with the solution? In a democratic republic, it is the hired (elected) person's duty to be responsive to their constituents' actual needs, not to sell their version of reality to us and collect their fee. Stop listening to opinion makers, and start reflecting and crafting your own ideas. Share those ideas with others, especially your paid representative. If they are unresponsive, vote them out of office. It's a beautifully simple system. All it requires is that you author your own life. Care. Share. Act. Cooperate and collaborate to build a livable world. You will be enriched by it personally, and the globe will be a lot more welcoming.
So take a few minutes to reflect:
How many of us wake up each day and say we need to drop a bomb on someone to keep going?
How many of us wake up and say "I must eat"?
The answers are so obvious when you drop the news cycle rhetoric.
What are your actual needs? Do you think there is a person on earth whose real human needs are any different?
Humans are storytellers by nature, always seeing meaning, but sometimes we forget who's telling the tale. You are accountable for the narrative you live. Choose well.
When you hear the phrase "new normal," you should realize you and your family are being sold lies based on fear and private greed. It's your money. It's your quality of life. If you held the actual cash in your hand, how would you spend it? Would you continue to kill children whose only crime was to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time? Would you continue to send your neighbors' children into harm's way to intervene in a power struggle, or fight against tribal people, thousands of miles away from your home? Would you give it all and promise more to the fattest guy in the biggest house at the end of the street? Or would you provide clean water, food, clothing, medicine, housing, jobs, libraries, art, learning opportunities (insert what makes your life meaningful and livable here) to yourself and your immediate family?
What you would provide to your family is what you should extend to the collective family of humanity. It's very simple. It's the basic rule of every spiritual and ethical tradition known to mankind. This rule doesn't specify "others whom are just like you." It says very plainly and clearly, "Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you." Just plain "others." All others, no exceptions.
Why do you give up agency just because the dollars flow unseen from your electronic paycheck to a paid representative of the people and a treasurer far away? Why do you let them scare you with their tales of woe? Why do you believe the world will end if we don't do as legislatures and corporations say we must? If they got us into this mess by misspending our money, why do we trust them with the solution? In a democratic republic, it is the hired (elected) person's duty to be responsive to their constituents' actual needs, not to sell their version of reality to us and collect their fee. Stop listening to opinion makers, and start reflecting and crafting your own ideas. Share those ideas with others, especially your paid representative. If they are unresponsive, vote them out of office. It's a beautifully simple system. All it requires is that you author your own life. Care. Share. Act. Cooperate and collaborate to build a livable world. You will be enriched by it personally, and the globe will be a lot more welcoming.
So take a few minutes to reflect:
How many of us wake up each day and say we need to drop a bomb on someone to keep going?
How many of us wake up and say "I must eat"?
The answers are so obvious when you drop the news cycle rhetoric.
What are your actual needs? Do you think there is a person on earth whose real human needs are any different?
Humans are storytellers by nature, always seeing meaning, but sometimes we forget who's telling the tale. You are accountable for the narrative you live. Choose well.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Lessons in Compassion
Maya began attending theater camp last week. It runs 6 1/2 hours per weekday, with an hour lunch break included. While she has had many busy days filled with multiple activities in her nine years, including several half-day camps, and even a one-week, all-day split location camp last summer, this is probably the most "school-like" environment she has ever experienced.
Long hours. No control over the timing of breaks. The randomness of classmates. Running from one building to the next, with little time to spare. The "3 strikes" method of discipline. Crankiness setting in by the end of the day. Homework when you have rehearsals in the evening.
Compassion is something I am hard at work on deepening in myself. I am always trying to feel more for the general human experience. As a parent, it is natural to aid your child's development of empathy. After her first comment about the length of the day, I noted she only had to do this for three weeks. Most kids do this all year long. Some have even longer days, with before and after school care.
This, it seems, really made her pause.
She continues to talk about it.
For three years Maya has been attending a multiplicity of "after-school" programs, like ballet lessons, acting, and modern dance. She is a very serious student, with laser-like focus on the task at hand. While she enjoys meeting kids, and making friends that share interests, she doesn't like to socialize during class.
After class, she has endless tales of woe regarding the demeanor of some of the students. "They won't listen." "They try to talk to me while I'm listening." "They have to go to the bathroom all the time." Analysis ensues. "Why do YOU think these students behave this way?" I ask. We have endless conversations about kids not having much power, parents who mean well, but perhaps don't choose activities that best suit the child, family problems, and what it's like to be powerless and maybe a little bored all day long.
Maya has always seemed to grasp the point of these conversations: Everyone has a story. Every story has an internal logic. Internal logic is not always in tune with external logic, as it is part of a narrative told from only one perspective. Unless we know someone very well, we are only witnessing the actions of the tale, not the motivations.
Sometimes to amuse ourselves, but also as an exercise in empathy, we create stories for all the poor drivers on the road. Sometimes they are bathroom related. Other times they are tales of woe, like the death of pets, driving home from a funeral, or going to a hospital. Maybe they are so excited to see a loved one after a long separation they JUST CAN'T WAIT TO GET THERE!
But somehow, after all these talks, all these mental exercises, I think at age 9 Maya is really finally internalizing this empathetic process. She honestly feels deeply for the unique circumstances of her peers at theater camp.
Conversely, she is also coming to understand how extraordinary our ordinary family's choices are. She's the only one in this particular peer group who doesn't share a narrative. That story powerfully shapes who these kids will become. Will they continue to be reactive? Will they become passive-aggressive? Or just plain passive or aggressive? Hyper-competitive? How many will use this daily, year-after-year experience as a springboard to authenticity, true authorship of their narrative?
Maya is learning that as a family, we may at times have limited funds, limited experience, limited knowledge, and limited power, but we have limitless dreams, fearlessness, and creativity. We believe we can always rewrite the narrative of our lives to avoid overwhelming powerlessness and to stave off boredom. Many people continue to see our home schooling as swimming upstream, a Quixotic adventure. But to me, impossible is just a degree of difficulty. I hope those kids that feel they face the impossible each day will find their true voices and sing.
Long hours. No control over the timing of breaks. The randomness of classmates. Running from one building to the next, with little time to spare. The "3 strikes" method of discipline. Crankiness setting in by the end of the day. Homework when you have rehearsals in the evening.
Compassion is something I am hard at work on deepening in myself. I am always trying to feel more for the general human experience. As a parent, it is natural to aid your child's development of empathy. After her first comment about the length of the day, I noted she only had to do this for three weeks. Most kids do this all year long. Some have even longer days, with before and after school care.
This, it seems, really made her pause.
She continues to talk about it.
For three years Maya has been attending a multiplicity of "after-school" programs, like ballet lessons, acting, and modern dance. She is a very serious student, with laser-like focus on the task at hand. While she enjoys meeting kids, and making friends that share interests, she doesn't like to socialize during class.
After class, she has endless tales of woe regarding the demeanor of some of the students. "They won't listen." "They try to talk to me while I'm listening." "They have to go to the bathroom all the time." Analysis ensues. "Why do YOU think these students behave this way?" I ask. We have endless conversations about kids not having much power, parents who mean well, but perhaps don't choose activities that best suit the child, family problems, and what it's like to be powerless and maybe a little bored all day long.
Maya has always seemed to grasp the point of these conversations: Everyone has a story. Every story has an internal logic. Internal logic is not always in tune with external logic, as it is part of a narrative told from only one perspective. Unless we know someone very well, we are only witnessing the actions of the tale, not the motivations.
Sometimes to amuse ourselves, but also as an exercise in empathy, we create stories for all the poor drivers on the road. Sometimes they are bathroom related. Other times they are tales of woe, like the death of pets, driving home from a funeral, or going to a hospital. Maybe they are so excited to see a loved one after a long separation they JUST CAN'T WAIT TO GET THERE!
But somehow, after all these talks, all these mental exercises, I think at age 9 Maya is really finally internalizing this empathetic process. She honestly feels deeply for the unique circumstances of her peers at theater camp.
Conversely, she is also coming to understand how extraordinary our ordinary family's choices are. She's the only one in this particular peer group who doesn't share a narrative. That story powerfully shapes who these kids will become. Will they continue to be reactive? Will they become passive-aggressive? Or just plain passive or aggressive? Hyper-competitive? How many will use this daily, year-after-year experience as a springboard to authenticity, true authorship of their narrative?
Maya is learning that as a family, we may at times have limited funds, limited experience, limited knowledge, and limited power, but we have limitless dreams, fearlessness, and creativity. We believe we can always rewrite the narrative of our lives to avoid overwhelming powerlessness and to stave off boredom. Many people continue to see our home schooling as swimming upstream, a Quixotic adventure. But to me, impossible is just a degree of difficulty. I hope those kids that feel they face the impossible each day will find their true voices and sing.
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