Category: Emotion

This Just In…

Featured Photo Credit (Edited): Steve Buissinne on Pixabay

Emotions are an authentic human response – at least that’s what people say when they agree with those emotions. If it really is true, that would mean emotions are just as authentic a response when people disagree.

Probably just a handful of posts on this blog fall into the ‘rant’ category although Hey! that includes the one that started it all.

So at least the following emotions don’t lack precedent.

This Just In…

A lead on the morning news one past winter about heavy snow: “Great for skiers, bad for drivers.”

The past year, the past decade, and longer, you’ll have noticed an unquestionably gradual and ceaseless severity of weather effects, here and around the world. Heat domes, atmospheric rivers, bombs and cyclones, vortices and hurricanes and typhoons. You may also have seen news reporting that characterises the planetary climate as the enemy of motorists at the same time as it’s the victim of greenhouse gases, not to mention the harbinger of far worse to come.

From one TV news story: dozens of vehicles, some halted, some helplessly sliding, all paralysed by snow… enough to bring any motorist to tears. I’m almost paraphrasing the anchor’s light-hearted sympathy.

Each flake imperils the “unprepared” driver, who seems to risk the same foolhardy decision year upon year – though, let’s grant, it’s hard to know every circumstance. Let’s also grant that no enemy threatens winter driving quite like the reckless shitheads who lord their superior winter confidence over every other fool and sage behind the wheel: “Go home!” shouts the DB passenger of a white Eff-150 as they showboat past every stranded car they can scorn. “Go home,” as if they could. If you’re keeping score, weather thus far is not the enemy.

Someone far wiser than me will surely be explaining by now that Enemy Bad Weather is simply an affectation of our Harried Rat Race by the Charm of Morning News.

Could be… or could be the augury of addled brains, muddled thinking, and the subtle catalyst of still more unpredictable beliefs and behaviours yet to come, the kind that take decades to manifest before they’re detectable. Did you also know, you can pretty much say “shit” on TV now, and “eff” puns too. Still, as helpful as it would be, it’s hard to know for sure how long it might take culture to change as detectably as it took the climate. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Anyway… what’s to come of having reached millions upon millions of people, for whom a daily wish for good suitable weather competes with a daily war against undesirable bad weather… and all this, maybe – but, then again, maybe not – aside from an existential fight to “save the planet” while also chasing ambitions of travel and leisure and global what-not… sorry, by the way, all that was a question: ‘What’s to come of it all’?

Well, back to the news… literally the next story: “Massive overnight snowfall is the perfect storm for local ski resort!” which of course is code for ‘financial windfall’, which of course is not one but two weather metaphors to keep things light in an offhand way that says, “Have you got your shit together?”

And this from a few weeks earlier: “… forecasts predicting a risk of frost.” I can remember in the past hearing a “chance” of frost. These days, though, it’s a “risk.” A “risk” of frost. Frost.

One bleak headline even pits nature against nature although, sure enough, the frost in that story is mere backdrop for the Science that saves vulnerable naked vineyards, which of course is code for ‘commercial investment’. Granted, a belligerent “cold snap” isn’t exactly Daniel Plainview, or even Cobra Commander, but this story, with its closing remarks about “the silver bullet” – especially up against severe 60° temperature swings – betrays little beyond concern for our wine.

And exactly how do our priorities measure up with our frivolities – or, sorry, is that no longer a distinction? Anyway, I’m told we don’t use upmarket words like “frivolities” because too much Inside Baseball gets us too deep in the weeds… a risk of losing the audience, you know – must be that eff-word thing again.

Same week, same newscast… multiple winter tornadoes: “destructive” and “devastating.” A few weeks prior… once-a-century local flooding that restores a lake upon the flood plain, at the cost of homes, livestock, and livelihoods. Two weeks later… winter wildfires: “frightening” and “deadly.” In truth, all of these were terrible and damaging events – and all preceded the catastrophes of Lahaina and Los Angeles by two and three years’ time.

Against these events, and their human cost, rate this post as little more than a callous, self-absorbed tantrum.

Then rate the incoherence of news outlets, as they forewarn “Icy danger!” while smirking at “Snowy fun!” – nothing seems amiss? News outlets that prosecute seasonal war against the bitter “risk” of frost, and a cold-hearted enemy known only as “snow”… then broadcast the roar of trucks and ploughs and blowers, and hail those diesel heroes who salt and clear our roadways for the very traffic that helps to pollute and push our climate – and us – toward severe and unquestionable doom…

Against all this we might ask whether the recasting of “Global Warming” as “Climate Change” instead might have been, “Global Just Pleasantly Wintry-slash-Summery Enough Everywhere All the Time in the Place I Live – but, I mean, not too hot, and not too cold, and not too rainy, but not so dry… especially for, like, Vacation – but, other than that, yeah no, totally! yes! Save the Planet and all because, like – are you kidding me? – look what we’ve done, I mean, it’s just awful.”

Which brings us to one last cringe-worthy critique – this one not a headline but a slogan: “We’re killing the planet.”

Is there really no better statement to replace this ridiculous assertion of self-importance self-impotence? … no statement that captures the human species’ relatively momentary historical insignificance in contrast to the vast entirety of the planet??? … its perpetual environment, its magnetic and gravitational forces, its eons of solar formation and space-time existence at 4.5 billion-with-a-‘b’ billion years, it’s out-and-out gargantuan volume, mass, and physical composition – really? We think we are killing that?

Imagine that dolly shot from [ latest streaming dystopian holocaust ] with all the shrubs and weeds reasserting themselves through twisted concrete rubble, as the sun shines down once more. And, let’s rant – er, let’s grant – that we have reached a point where I could hardly blame the Planet for preferring to sustain life without us – except, of course, the planet has no preference because the planet is no enemy. It’s a planet.

A.I. Image Credit: Jack Drafahl on Pixabay

So… sorry, not sorry: we are not killing the planet.

And looking back on our 0.007% share of its history, there isn’t a soul alive or dead who could boast otherwise. Flipside, for those who have been keeping score: consider in return the number of people over our centuries upon centuries upon centuries of history who have been affected – killed or otherwise – by the Planet’s natural geological activity… at worst, we’re a nuisance upon its face.

“We’re killing the planet.” Does nothing in this statement betray the same hubris that caused all our problems in the first place? Rest assured, the Planet will see to us and be just fine long after we’re gone.

If we’re killing anything, it’s hope of our own tolerable survival as planetary inhabitants so, yeah no, we do face real urgency to get behind a perspective that fears an existential threat because it fears the planet – which, by the way, is one last subtle play on eff-words.

As for the influence we continue to inflict upon the face of the Planet, we’re all of us indisputably reckless shitheads for our collective failed stewardship. And any triage of priorities and frivolities – of enjoyment and antagonism, danger and fun – will confirm that these are not the planet’s response to all our spewed contaminants – these are our response(s). If you have been keeping score, by now you’ll surely see: the enemy is us.

We imperil only ourselves.

“Pogo” by Walt Kelly

Home At Last

Featured Photo Credit by Esther Merbt from Pixabay [edited]

Have you ever had this sensation?

You’re about to walk someplace, maybe as a young child, maybe with a parent or sibling, feeling absolutely glum, maybe even dismal, because “… it’s so far away!… we’ll have to walk so long!… it’s going to take forever!” The whole way there, it takes ages, like one long walking wait.

But once you finally get there and do your thing, and leave again for home, the walk back feels nowhere near as long, or daunting. I remember one explanation was that we encounter all the same things on the way home in reverse order – a fence, a tree, a crack in the sidewalk. Obviously, we reach them sooner in reverse, but they seem to arrive more quickly because they’re fresher memories. Then, before you know it, there we are again, home at last.

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

… yeah, who knows. But I do know I’ve had that sensation plenty of times where the journey back felt way faster, and home nowhere near so forever-far away, than when we first set out.

Another explanation is that, when we first set out, a whole adventure lies ahead, and our imaginations have room to breathe and explore the unknown. This one rings true both directions, there and back, which is actually why I don’t buy it… if it’s such an adventure, then why all the dread and pre-walk fatigue and wishing we’re already finally finally there? Why do things one way feel like forever, but the other way seem so quick?

I got to wondering all this after another idea… how looking forward to the future can seem so far away, compared to looking back at the past, which can feel like just yesterday.

Photo Credit by Nati from Pexels

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right: the past really is just yesterday. But I mean the distant past, which can feel so recent, particularly as we get older. There we are one day, when suddenly – whoosh – it’s all behind us. All sorts of thoughts arise, looking back… ‘it just goes so quickly’… ‘if I could do it all over again’… ‘I wish I knew then what I know now’… all those thoughts, and emotions too, which we sometimes call ‘regret’ or sometimes we call ‘wisdom’, and which only arrive as we look back from where we came.

As we look forward, “…ages from now” or “…in a few thousand years,” the future just seems so forever-far away, though there’s also a reverse effect… say, when some local business tries to invent tradition by leaning on – wow – a whole “quarter century.” No question, time scales in the hundreds and thousands consume lifetimes. Yet I’ve also had days as an adult when even “… next month” felt like the distant future. Days like that, looking back at fleeting life, I might happily wish I really was back walking to some faraway place with a parent or sibling – then, at least, I’d be looking forward not to the weight of ages but only to the walk back home.

The Measure of Our Own

Featured Image Credit: Alberto Ramírez Sobrino on Pexels

How many of you, I wonder, wear shoes that fit. No need to raise hands, but just now consider, “Yes or No… I’m wearing shoes that fit.”

As you consider this about yourself, ask as well whether you’re thinking not solely of your shoes but also of your feet.

This is an illustration of the way to think as a teacher: keeping two ideas in mind at the same time. For most teachers, there’s typically even three or more ideas to keep in mind, but two will do for now, or perhaps better just to say, “For now, more than one.”

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

(F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1936, “The Crack-Up”)

And why say anything at all? Because suspending our judgment helps prevent leaping to conclusions, which inescapably leaves someone out, and leaving someone out is anathema to teachers, literally the opposite of good teaching. Leaving people out is politics.

Reflective thinking, in short, means judgment suspended during further inquiry; and suspense is likely to be somewhat painful… the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur. To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry ― these are the essentials of thinking.

(John Dewey, 1910, p. 13, ‘How We Think’)

The point to stress, beyond keeping in mind more than one idea at a time, is the sense of what we value – that sense of what ‘fits’ – which is to say no longer simply the shoes or the feet contained inside them, but what most appropriately suits in their coming together. In assessing ‘appropriate’ value, that sense of what ‘fits’, we weigh more than any single consideration – even when we don’t recognise them all: we lump more than one consideration together and treat them as ‘one’ consideration, like a kind of rational shorthand. When asked about the fit of our shoes, we may think shoes, we may think feet, or we may think distinctly both at once. The point to stress is that shorthand is subtle enough to go undetected.

Image Credit: Erin Li on Pexels

The point to heed is that talk about ‘fit’ is talk about more than just the assessment of our satisfaction or frustration – our emotions. Any satisfaction or frustration we feel about the fit of our shoes will have arisen from that pair of shoes, now bought and paid for – and buyer beware! So as we feel those emotions, let’s heed how they arise from an empirical objectivity: “I paid $200 for these blasted things – and look at these blisters!”

Money, foot care, bandaids, a trip to the pharmacy, maybe a trip back to the shoe store… even if tangentially, then still no less materially, all these considerations plus how-many-others will factor in to our satisfaction or frustration, our emotional approval or disapproval, of the fit of our shoes – what better measure or evidence, what better empirical objectivity, for assessing the fit of our shoes than a blister on the back of our heel?

The fit of shoes is a congruous match-up of size and shape, the shoes and the feet that wear them. It’s something any good sales person comes to learn over time: as much as you must know your product – available in these shapes and sizes – you must also come to know people because customers also come in all imaginable shapes and sizes, and unimaginable ones, too – did you know the same person might have two differently sized feet? What on earth to do then!

Image Credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

In the same way we might consider feet while we consider the fit of shoes, let’s now put on our teacher hats and consider what makes an appropriate learning environment for young people. For starters, count how many things we’re now bringing to consideration… at the very least, I count two:

• learning environments, and
• young people

… and what else?

I’m sure we would all share similar feelings about the fit of a poor learning environment for young people. So, as we put on those teacher hats and consider what makes for an appropriate learning environment for young people, zero-in on that word, ‘appropriate’, and ask yourself what informs it… its prescription, its sense of value. Ask yourself, “Beyond what I value, what I say ‘fits’, what is my source of that value?”

Image Credit: Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

I’m pretty sure we could eventually reach some consensus on the empirical objectivity of an appropriate learning environment for young people although I hesitate to suggest what that consensus might actually be. But while we decided, what exactly would account for our initial reactions? What would we lump together in shorthand, and why that, and what could we factor in to more considered measure, and why that?

It’s as if to say of young people and learning environments, both at once, that each one doesn’t just stir its own reaction within us; rather, together they prompt a reaction from us, on account of something about each one of them, something not just worthy but something that warrants our appreciation: young people, for instance, evoke from us emotions like humility and compassion, on account of their vulnerability; and learning environments provoke emotions of respect and approval, on account of their helpfulness.

Image Credit: CDC on Unsplash

So ask yourself… what empirical objectivity arises from this combination of young people on the one hand and learning environments on the other: in their coming together, what is it that makes us so certain? And beyond mere nature, how do we measure – how do we know – what’s most appropriate… almost as if to ask, “What does each one deserve?” And, in between ‘what each one deserves’, how do we not simply describe but also account for what’s most ‘appropriate’?

Before blisters and complaining and asking for our money back, before even spending as much as one thin dime, how do we know if the shoe fits?