The Dash

Heard a rather good sermon this morning. Yes, yes, I actually remember it. Unfortunately, early Sunday mornings aren’t always the best time to listen to an often less than charismatic speaker tell you about the meaning of life, especially after a busy or exciting Saturday night. OK, ok, I am not proud of it. But it is the reality.

But this morning, the speaker was good. One thing he mentioned which struck a chord with me is the idea of the dash. You know, the inscription on gravestones that the person was born on a certain day and died on another. The important bit is really the dash. The little mark stands for all the things we do in our short time here on earth. The other 2 are really just insignificant dates.

So what have we done in our dash? It is a sobering thought. We all live our lives. Surely it must all mean something. I know some will strongly disagree with me, but I do believe that every thing that happens to us means something. It is not all random. There must be a larger design. Otherwise life will be unbearably pointless and I would be share Hamlet’s thoughts on why should be endure the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. So when my father contracted a serious illness which made him homebound from the time I was 8 years old till his death a few years ago, I believe it was so that my sisters and I got to know him better as a father as he was never around before that, always at work. It was also very close to the time when my grandmother who looked after us at home got ill and could no longer take care of us. So he took over the role at home. Financially, as a family, we were very stretched, relying on my mother’s pay cheque. But it made me more self sufficient and I am proud of the fact that I put myself through University locally and abroad through part time jobs and scholarships. And it wasn’t that tough either. Things worked out nicely at the right times. A terrible personal tragedy also happened to me as a young man and I am sure I would not have been able to handle it if I do not have a firm belief that it has a purpose. I can’t say I am entirely sure what the purpose is, but I am sure it taught me more about mortality and responsibility for one’s actions.

So where does all this leave my dash? On a selfish level, then I am satisfied. I am comfortable. I have built a decent life with a good job, good family, good friends. Sure, I sometimes wish I am more accomplished, but all in all, I am a happy camper. But I think I am superficial and not a good enough steward of the advantages I have been given.

Let’s start with the easy bit. At work, I guess I do some meaningful things. I appreciate the kind words from colleages and students through the years about my contact with them. But I always have the sense that I am not as effective as I think I am sometimes. I said in an earlier post that once I think I no longer make any difference to anyone and just “getting the job done”, I will move on. I am seriously considering this. A good friend once asked me why I am spending my life working with people who don’t really need me. She asked why I work with young people who already have so much. There are so many people to need someone to care a lot more. I have enjoyed my time in school so much that I was blind to this until recently. I care a great deal about my students and I am happy that I made some of them feel a bit better about themselves. But there are a lot more needs out there. It will surely make me less comfortable, but I think life can’t be about staying in our comfort zones.

I am also rather selfish about my “me” time. I had a talk with a very diligent colleague who shared with me that she has very little “me” time for herself. Much of her time is devoted to school work and her family. I couldn’t handle that. I need my “me” time. Nothing wrong with that. But I think I could do with less. I could spend more time helping others, not for any gain except to help others. Heck, I spent my Sunday afternoon at the Gap. How superficial is that?! The Gap! That’s a nice metaphor. I have too many gaps in my dash. I have spent larger portions of my life up to now pursuing personal material desires. I have travelled half the world, I have a whole library of books I will never complete reading, I have loads of DVDs and CDs I will never finish watching or listening to on my large LCD TV and home entertainment system, I have a cupboard full of clothes and shoes which far exceed any logical need, I drive a ridiculously overpriced car when a more modest one would meet my needs fine. All these things make me happy. That’s why I am superficial.

I am about at the mid point of my life. I need to move beyond these worldly pursuits. My dash must defined by more than just all these. They have been great. But they have been selfish. I need to do something about my dash.

By the way, the dash is actually based on a famous inspirational poem by Linda Ellis. Check it out. It is easily found on the web. Even You Tube has an inspirational video based on it.

 

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Toad work

As a young JC student in ancient history, a pair of poems I loved was Philip Larkin’s Toads and Toads revisited. The 2 poems present 2 perspectives on work. On the one hand, we all resent the soul draining work day that begins immediately with that horrible shrill of the alarm clock. On the other hand, we acknowledge that work is actaully very much part of our lives and partly gives it purpose and meaning. We often don’t appreciate one until we lose it. So when we are working, we all love holidays and breaks away from it. Especially meaningful for me now and many teachers and students back from the June break.

I loved the break, even if I didn’t get to be away from work the whole time. 2 weeks in Eastern Europe was wonderful. So I appreciated it. To do things I always I wanted to do was great! More on this another time. But as much as I felt horrible having to wake up at 5 am in the morning to prepare for work, I am quite sure I will miss it all when I don’t have to do it anymore. We have all heard stories of people who die very soon after retirement. I am not surprised. I think I agree with Blake about the contraries of life. One is made more significant through the opposite. You know, work and play, pleasure and pain, etc.

So I think as much as I loved the break to travel, I think if I stopped work, I would not appreciate all of it so much. Oddly I can’t imagine retirement.

On another note, hopefully all of you got some off to do things you don’t get to do at other times, even if it means spending an afternoon doing totally nothing. Here’s to a good start to yet another term. And for those of you who want to read the 2 poems, here they are:

Toads

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losers, loblolly-men, louts-
They don't end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets - and yet
No one actually _starves_.

Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney
My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.

I don't say, one bodies the other
One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,
When you have both.



Toads Revisited


Walking around in the park
Should feel better than work:
The lake, the sunshine,
The grass to lie on,

Blurred playground noises
Beyond black-stockinged nurses -
Not a bad place to be.
Yet it doesn't suit me.

Being one of the men
You meet of an afternoon:
Palsied old step-takers,
Hare-eyed clerks with the jitters,

Waxed-fleshed out-patients
Still vague from accidents,
And characters in long coats
Deep in the litter-baskets -

All dodging the toad work
By being stupid or weak.
Think of being them!
Hearing the hours chime,

Watching the bread delivered,
The sun by clouds covered,
The children going home;
Think of being them,

Turning over their failures
By some bed of lobelias,
Nowhere to go but indoors,
Nor friends but empty chairs -

No, give me my in-tray,
My loaf-haired secretary,
My shall-I-keep-the-call-in-Sir:
What else can I answer,

When the lights come on at four
At the end of another year?
Give me your arm, old toad;
Help me down Cemetery Road.
-- Philip Larkin


		
	
					
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Movie magic

I love watching movies. I even did an Masters course on film. I love all kinds of movies. Action films, comedies, dramas, foreign films, animated films, even silly films. I love them all. There are very few movies I don’t actually like. Usually these are the very tedious ones that put us to sleep with pretentious aspirations.

There have been a lot of theories and ideas around why people value film as a discourse, but I am not going to write about those ideas here. Perhaps another time.

But it was a long time since I caught a movie in the cinema. Many months and that is long for me as it was at least one a week for me at one point in my life. Could even watch back to back movies in the cinema. But time was not on my side lately and didn’t really have the time to make the trip to the cinema. I have also been buying loads of DVDs lately and that I guess took the edge off. With a big screen TV and a home entertainment system, watching movies at home hasn’t been too bad. Certainly less time consuming and we can always multi task.

But there’s the rub. Multi-tasking at home means that we don’t get the same effect as in the cinema. Being in the darkened room where all eyes are focused on the screen for the 2 hours or so makes the escapist element of movie watching more effective. It is a time when the issues of real life don’t matter for a while as we immerse in the ‘reel’ life.

So since I came back from the work trip, the one movie I was going to catch at all costs was the latest Indiana Jones movie. Let me explain. Indiana Jones movies are among my all time favourites. I have seen the trilogy multiple times in the cinema and on DVD. In fact, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first movie, was the first ever VHS video tape I watched when my late father brought home our first VCR! Imagine that! Besides that sentimental trivia, I loved the plots. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by the search for the Lost Ark of the Covenant and the cup of Christ! And, yes, yes, we all wanted to be Indianna Jones back then. You know College professor by day and intrepid explorer by night. Fantastic.

But somehow I had the feeling I was going to be disappointed. You know, when we have such fond memories of something and have such high hopes, more often than not, we get our hopes not met. So it was with somewhat mixed feelings I went. I wanted to enjoy myself.

Well, it was an enjoyable experience. Once the distinctive theme music started, we all knew we were in for a good ride. If we suspend our disbelief and accept all the less than plausible sequences in the film, it was good. But as I expected, I was a bit disappointed. Ok, i didn’t really like the way the plot developed (I won’t go into the details in case I spoil it for some). It was to far fetched and lacked the ostensible versimilitude of the previous episodes. I guess it is hard to replicate the same impact a beloved movie had when you are much younger. It was the same experience I had watching the new Star Wars movies. Not the same as the old. You can never go back I guess.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie a lot. But I was not wowed. But I thought about when I was last wowed by a movie. Oddly enjoyed, I think it was Hairspray! How weird!

Oh and after not watching movies at the cinema for so long, i actually also saw Sex in the City as well. I didn’t expect much of this movie, but after all the hype, I had to watch it. After all, I did follow the exploits of Carrie and friends in the TV series. This one was Ok I guess. But expected this to be just that.

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