Trained as I am in hearing what is behind the question, it is quite obvious that the underlying sentiment is, “Look, I’m simply here because I have to be and I loathe every minute of it. I want to elevate myself only to the lowest rung on the ladder of success and even that without one ounce of effort more than is required. So please, only tell me exactly what I have to remember. Ask me to remember it as soon as possible because it is stored in the shallowest strata of short-term-memory I can find in this vast empty chasm I call a brain. And then let me go my way only to forget I ever darkened the door of this educational inquisition.”
Those of you who are teachers know this is true. Those of you who are not now know what we hear when you ask that question!
Rather than respond by resorting to the first thing that comes to mind, such as “Listen you lazy son of a bitch,” or “bitch” as the case may be, “if you had one jot of imagination or one tittle of passion…..”
And here, of course, I would have to digress and explain the Biblical reference to “jot and tittle” (See Mathew 5:18 where the Hebrew vowel point and punctuation are referenced)……
…….you would know that you are in the presence of greatness. You should be willing to crawl naked over broken glass to hear me say “hello,” let alone tan in my aura as I generously cast these pearls before the swine your hapless parents created in some fit of cousin-on-cousin passion. Everything I say ought to be on the test because it is all of the utmost importance. Space and time alone hinder my having you memorize each utterance word for word. Because I know that for you to do so would improve your prospects in life far beyond your mortal ability to comprehend.”
What I say instead is, “Well, it wasn’t going to be, but since you asked, it will.”
I do this in hopes that the other students will now wait in the parking lot after class and pummel this imbecile on my behalf.
But when I stop to think about it, a fortunate by-product of answering the question in writing, I realize that this politically naïve student is only voicing the sentiments of mankind as a whole. This educational microcosm is merely the stage where players give voice to the ongoing search that drives most people into the arms of religions, jobs, politics, social organizations, hobbies, consumerism, and every other cockamamie scheme they adopt to try and achieve happiness.
Because what is being asked in the bigger picture here is this: “Just tell me the rules. Just let me know what it is I need to do and what the consequences will be if I don’t. Just lay out the plan for me so I have some fucking idea of what is going on in this insane world and put an end to the randomness with which I am besieged on a daily basis. Help me to understand the meaning of life in the simplest possible terms so I can get back to important things like TV and tabloids. Just tell me definitely, once and for all, what’s going to be on the test!!”
That is the “big picture question.”
Why do you think conservative, rule oriented religions are the fastest growing? Why do you think the political party that promises the biggest chicken and the most pot wins the election? Why do you think people are so obsessed with rules at work they will even argue over the negotiation table for the right to impose more? Would anyone ever join a club that had no rules?
We crave rules. We long for black and white. We lust for dualism. It’s either THIS or THAT. “This” will get you one thing and “that” will get you the other. No variables. No if, ands, or buts. Do “this,” get “this.” Do “that” get “that.” It’s the law of the Medes and Persians…….
At which point I would have to stop and explain that these were the irrevocable laws of ancient Persia circa the beginning of time.
……It’s the law of gravity. (No explanation required here.)
We are obsessed with rules and have been since we climbed out of the bat guano. It started with that vicious Babylonian Hammurabi about 2100 BC. Then the code of Moses, God love him, and he apparently did, allowing him to wander for 40 years with absolutely no one to ask for directions. Sparta in ancient Greece produced the next significant set of rules around 900 BC. And Roman law is said to have started with Romulus around 750 BC.
The law of natural selection has made us rule whores and wanting to know what’s
going to be on the test is but one small man-eating manifestation filling the vast pool of angst in which we swim. The genuine crisis in life, however, comes when we discover that the rules which have always been the very foundation of our existence are at best fluid and at worst a complete sham.
This happened the first time to me when I was five or six.
My father was a Southern Baptist minister, a fact you may or may not have encountered in another chapter. But it’s worth repeating.
Needless to say, but essential to write, I was raised in a conservative environment. Cards were forbidden. Dominoes were embraced. What everyone else called a card table we called a “game table,” and dancing was sex standing up. Sex itself, well……that wasn’t going to happen, alone or with a partner, until you were at least a hundred and hopefully Jesus would come by then and put an end to it altogether.
And so it was through this world, the only one I had ever known, that my father, my mother, and I drove in our 1952 Plymouth down a back country road late one night. In the distance we watched a light grow closer, not bright enough for the Second Coming so obviously some sign of civilization. Soon, to our right, slid into view a barn with both large wooden doors swung wide open to reveal a dance resplendent with gingham dresses, be-booted beaus, and a cowboy with a fiddle standing on a hay stack. Cecil B. DeMille could not have staged it better. My father slowed the car, presumably so that we could enjoy the spectacle longer. As I craned in the back seat to take it all in I heard my mother’s southern drawl.
“Isn’t that beautiful?”
And like a California earthquake coming from twenty miles down, I could feel the rumble. Something destructive was on its way to the surface. I could not have articulated it then, but I remember the feeling. Like jumping off a cliff to avoid the devastation. Falling. Floating. Waiting. Yet there is no escape.
“But I thought dancing was wrong,” I ventured from the back seat.
Like grasping at a passing branch in free fall.
Everything hangs in the balance. The car is suspended. The dancers do not move. The fiddler does not play. I am in a chasm with no bottom and no sides.
“Well sweetie,” my mother responded hesitantly, “……………………not all dancing.”
CRASH
I hit the ground and keep right on falling.
Just turn right at the existential crises and follow the road home.
Only one conclusion is possible.
If ONE rule is suspect, then they are ALL suspect.
If ONE rule has some variable, some wiggle room, some uncertainty, some margin for error then they are ALL up for grabs.
There is no black and white.
It’s ALL a judgment call.
And since that’s true, who are WE to make the judgment?
What if WE are wrong?
Then our rules are wrong and we are royally and righteously screwed!
I began the day knowing right from wrong. But all of that suddenly and irrevocably changed. Once upon a time dancing had been evil. But now it seemed a Texas Two Step was beautiful and a pelvic thrust was the move of Satan. What’s next? Sex, drinking, gambling, perversions of all kind? Sometimes evil, sometimes beautiful? It’s a slippery slope to “all things in moderation.”
“……..not all dancing,” indeed!
That’s the “big picture reality.”
And that’s why I don’t rip out the student’s larynx and feed it to him for lunch. Because I know the importance of rules. And I know what it’s like to have them shattered.
“Will this be on the test?”
What I’d like to answer is, “I don’t know. It’s all so arbitrary. Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Take what you are dealt and make the most of it. Learn everything you can and just because no one ever asks you to remember it doesn’t mean it hasn’t done you some good. It sure as hell won’t hurt you. And just because it may not be on THIS test doesn’t mean it won’t be on THAT one. Or even the OTHER one. So like a good Boy Scout, “Be Prepared.” You’re still going to get screwed at some point. But you can hedge your bets with information, with knowledge. A few problems you can avoid altogether. A few more you can mitigate. And this buys you time to build up a little tolerance for the disasters that are unavoidable.”
But saying that wouldn’t help.
Honestly.
I’ve tried.
Mostly for my own amusement.
But it’s a rule that’s true…………..maybe.
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