What Direction? A Noble Life... (AVA's virgin blog)
What Direction? A Noble Life...
In response to the bloggin' of a close comrade I am compelled to write about the best profession or experience one could have.
It is possible to go off to college and upon your (alleged) first time away from home be forced to share a room with an individual that would either be a source of social well-being or completely suck the enormity of dorm life out of the residence hall experience.
Then find yourself, if not at a historically black college or university, thrust into classrooms filled with students who absolutely believe that HBCU's should not exist because white universities do not exist. (for those not of African descent, replace HBCU's with any latina or asian frat or sorority)
If one is able to overcome such subtle 'isms' in their first, second and third years of college then by the fourth they are scrambling to find a job or reason to give their parents to allow them to move back home albeit with student loans looming over their heads and an affinity for eating three to five meals per day.
The truth is, that the college experience does not prepare students to truly figure out what it is they want to do-but it does provide a few good incentives, tools if you will, for getting to that "Aha!" moment in adulthood. Reading and writing a thesis never hurt anyone.
A few scantily worked months after my own graduation came another personal graduation. This one a complete surprise-the morning of September 11, 2001-to be exact, minutes before the event I was laid out on the living room floor watching Cosby re-runs in an effort to prepare myself for the afternoon run to my part-time job as a hostess(so much for that degree)
In an instant I became dispensable, human, able to be hurt and all the other words short of Webster's ability to convey that of a sugar cube in a rainstorm.
It was at this point that so many of us realized that life was precious and too short and only to be lived once and so on and so forth.
The truth is that for those of us who had no clue what we would end up doing we jumped on the bandwagon...in fact we jumped on any bandwagon and have been riding along every since.
We've been riding along with the comforts of steady paychecks able to provide monetary stashes that support "lifestyles." These lifestyles have seen the rise from single checking accounts to savings and mutual funds, from Nine West to Siegerson Morrison (ladies:)
We've worked in positions of power that can be duly credited to our prestigious degrees and the wonderful oak frames that house them. We maintain bouts of ardor and jealousy from the generation directly above us who harbor hatred at the ability to casually date from a pool both twice as old and half as young as we are, think about marriage, marry and 55 hours later-divorce and then marry again.
We, my friends have not been affected by a damn thing!In fact, the very thought of this affectedness is scary to anyone who may have to venture out too late in the night to find that trendy nightclub we've been hearing about. The thought of having seen or been on the other side of the track is not having rode the IRT line at the precise time that high-schoolers infuse the iron horses we actually pay for.
I recently read, re-read and recommended Blindness, by Jose Saramago, to several of my fellow-straphangin' friends. I do believe only one has read it...folks please believe me when I say I have more than one friend.
Handed to me by my sister, Blindness rarely left my hands. I read it in a week and suggested that my former roommate do the same. Albeit she is a former mate/friend so the intensity of subject matter obviously did not make its mark as intended.
However, Blindness is a book. It is a book that makes you proud to be a reader and able to appreciate phrasing, punctuation and descriptive analysis.
As I read I was proud of my ability to ingest cadence and tone-oooh, such a bibliopile at heart!!
Really folks, the novel can and it does compel one to figure it all out in case you have not already.
STOP-what I am about to disclose is bits and pieces of this poignant work-you can: A-go and read the book and return to this blog or B: read on, read on and then disagree with me later!
Saramago explicitly details the perils of human compassion by presenting several characters who suddenly find themselves blind in a town where eventually, everyone goes blind. Picture complete chaos, anger, fear, doubt, selfishness, boorishness, compassion, and the loss of sight. You soon find that the question turns from"What would I do??" and becomes "What character would I not want to be?"
Knowing now what I know about people, the book in great detail outlines all personalities that we have or will come in contact with eventually, I have figured out what to do with my life.
Simply put- I'll have to live it. To live it simply with out fuss or fragmentation. Mediocrity, excellence and failure- all symptoms of life and life lived. What I won't do is expect less of myself, yet as I get older it gets harder not to expect less of anyone else. That is unless they've read Blindness.
No matter what I do, someone can see me, hear me or feel me as I go about my daily duties. It is because these duties are conducted in a civil manner that denotes appropriateness and consideration and requests nothing less from those I interact with.
Forget the profession and relish the idea that only what you are and what you prove to be in times of great blindess or despair (tsunami) is truly the noblest job you will ever have to do.
In response to the bloggin' of a close comrade I am compelled to write about the best profession or experience one could have.
It is possible to go off to college and upon your (alleged) first time away from home be forced to share a room with an individual that would either be a source of social well-being or completely suck the enormity of dorm life out of the residence hall experience.
Then find yourself, if not at a historically black college or university, thrust into classrooms filled with students who absolutely believe that HBCU's should not exist because white universities do not exist. (for those not of African descent, replace HBCU's with any latina or asian frat or sorority)
If one is able to overcome such subtle 'isms' in their first, second and third years of college then by the fourth they are scrambling to find a job or reason to give their parents to allow them to move back home albeit with student loans looming over their heads and an affinity for eating three to five meals per day.
The truth is, that the college experience does not prepare students to truly figure out what it is they want to do-but it does provide a few good incentives, tools if you will, for getting to that "Aha!" moment in adulthood. Reading and writing a thesis never hurt anyone.
A few scantily worked months after my own graduation came another personal graduation. This one a complete surprise-the morning of September 11, 2001-to be exact, minutes before the event I was laid out on the living room floor watching Cosby re-runs in an effort to prepare myself for the afternoon run to my part-time job as a hostess(so much for that degree)
In an instant I became dispensable, human, able to be hurt and all the other words short of Webster's ability to convey that of a sugar cube in a rainstorm.
It was at this point that so many of us realized that life was precious and too short and only to be lived once and so on and so forth.
The truth is that for those of us who had no clue what we would end up doing we jumped on the bandwagon...in fact we jumped on any bandwagon and have been riding along every since.
We've been riding along with the comforts of steady paychecks able to provide monetary stashes that support "lifestyles." These lifestyles have seen the rise from single checking accounts to savings and mutual funds, from Nine West to Siegerson Morrison (ladies:)
We've worked in positions of power that can be duly credited to our prestigious degrees and the wonderful oak frames that house them. We maintain bouts of ardor and jealousy from the generation directly above us who harbor hatred at the ability to casually date from a pool both twice as old and half as young as we are, think about marriage, marry and 55 hours later-divorce and then marry again.
We, my friends have not been affected by a damn thing!In fact, the very thought of this affectedness is scary to anyone who may have to venture out too late in the night to find that trendy nightclub we've been hearing about. The thought of having seen or been on the other side of the track is not having rode the IRT line at the precise time that high-schoolers infuse the iron horses we actually pay for.
I recently read, re-read and recommended Blindness, by Jose Saramago, to several of my fellow-straphangin' friends. I do believe only one has read it...folks please believe me when I say I have more than one friend.
Handed to me by my sister, Blindness rarely left my hands. I read it in a week and suggested that my former roommate do the same. Albeit she is a former mate/friend so the intensity of subject matter obviously did not make its mark as intended.
However, Blindness is a book. It is a book that makes you proud to be a reader and able to appreciate phrasing, punctuation and descriptive analysis.
As I read I was proud of my ability to ingest cadence and tone-oooh, such a bibliopile at heart!!
Really folks, the novel can and it does compel one to figure it all out in case you have not already.
STOP-what I am about to disclose is bits and pieces of this poignant work-you can: A-go and read the book and return to this blog or B: read on, read on and then disagree with me later!
Saramago explicitly details the perils of human compassion by presenting several characters who suddenly find themselves blind in a town where eventually, everyone goes blind. Picture complete chaos, anger, fear, doubt, selfishness, boorishness, compassion, and the loss of sight. You soon find that the question turns from"What would I do??" and becomes "What character would I not want to be?"
Knowing now what I know about people, the book in great detail outlines all personalities that we have or will come in contact with eventually, I have figured out what to do with my life.
Simply put- I'll have to live it. To live it simply with out fuss or fragmentation. Mediocrity, excellence and failure- all symptoms of life and life lived. What I won't do is expect less of myself, yet as I get older it gets harder not to expect less of anyone else. That is unless they've read Blindness.
No matter what I do, someone can see me, hear me or feel me as I go about my daily duties. It is because these duties are conducted in a civil manner that denotes appropriateness and consideration and requests nothing less from those I interact with.
Forget the profession and relish the idea that only what you are and what you prove to be in times of great blindess or despair (tsunami) is truly the noblest job you will ever have to do.
posted by natty nerd at 1:00 AM
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