Obstacles and teachers
The problem with expressing my epiphanies is that they are founded on such fundamental concepts it's hard to phrase them in a way that captures the significance of how I've mapped them. I am all feeling transcendent and magical and then I get blank faces and "yeah, so?" in response. Well, the one I had the other night sprang from this quote that has been rattling around my noggin for a couple weeks now.
Perhaps a person gains by accumulating obstacles. The more obstacles set up to prevent happiness from appearing, the greater the shock when it does appear, just as the rebound of a spring will be all the more powerful the greater the pressure that has been exerted to compress it.. Care must be taken, however, to select large obstacles, for only those of sufficient scope and scale have the capacity to lift us out of context and force life to appear in an entirely new and unexpected light. For example, should you litter the floor and tabletops of your room with small objects, they constitute clutter that frustrates you and leaves you irritable; the petty is mean. Cursing, you step around the objects, pick them up, knock them aside. Should you, on the other hand, encounter in your room a nine-thousand-pound granite boulder, the surprise it evokes, the extreme steps that must be taken to deal with it, compel you to see with new eyes. And if the boulder is more special, if it has been painted or carved in some mysterious way, you may find that it possesses an extraordinary and supernatural presence that enchants you, and in coping with it - as it blocks your path to the bathroom - leaves you feeling extraordinary and supernatural too. Difficulties illuminate existence, but they must be fresh and of high quality.
-Tom Robbins
I've been thinking a lot about how to be a good parent lately. Because I'm lieutenant to a parent, second-in-command in the daily life of two children 4 and 6 years old. I discuss parenting strategies and life philosophies with Adrienne, their mom, pretty much on the daily. One of our talks led me to the realization that being a good parent, or teacher, or friend, or helper of any kind, means not just supporting someone when their obstacles are too great, but it also means adding to their problems if their obstacles are too small. I know you're thinking "well, yeah, of course." Shut the hell up. I suspect that most people in whatever helpful role they have with anyone else tends to go too far in one direction or the other, and I think it has to do with love.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
-Corinthians, verse whatever
Most of this quote is great, there are three flaws.
- "love is kind"
Um, no it isn't. No love that I know of it kind, actually. It is possible to BE kind WHILE in love, and being lovING is similar to being kind. But LOVE itself the condition, the syndrome is brutal, demanding, and unrelenting. Eros anyway. But love among friends and family also can easily involve unkindness. There's even a term for it: tough love. It means loving someone enough to deprive them of whatever is causing their downfall. - "rejoices in the truth" pfft. Only if that truth is GOOD. This one is the topic for a whole nother post.
- "always protects"
first of all: no. Second of all: hell no. This is untrue and also morally disturbing. Protection as an imperative implies lack of faith in their ability to protect themselves. It's inherently disrespectful and unnecessarily burdening. Love (to me) means a desire for another's prosperity, not a duty to prevent its loss.
Of course there are other interpretations of love, but I'm talking about widespread cultural views here. At least half of all weddings I've attended have read that passage.
I think it's easy to love someone enough that you only want to give them things, and hate taking things away. I think it's easy to fall into a role of an opponent too, where you show your love mostly by providing challenges.
"The only teacher worth a damn is the enemy" -- Mazer Rackham, Enders Game
I think there may be some gender role relevance to those slopes. But as psychological androgyny is the optimal condition, we should strive to be centered. You can be a nuturer and an opponent. And I think that because sometimes you HAVE to be, it's easy to forget that you should be. Optimal growth comes from positive and negative motivators.
"Have you ever seen someone running incredibly fast? You ask yourself: "Are they running towards something, or away from something?" The answer is always both" -- Dollhouse
So the truest skill of any teacher, is the ability to gauge capability and resilliance, to know if the obstacles a student faces are heavy enough to make them sweat, but not crush them.