Jun 11, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

Dread and Fatigue
©By Vijaya Sundaram
June 11th, 2013

Two words that sum up what made up much of my past week — and I know it isn’t over yet.

In fact, it won’t be over until I’m dead.

Meanwhile, I have to keep going, pushing on, like a diver plunging into the trenches.  And you know what they say, the pressure in those depths can kill you.

Oh yes, there are always moments of joy — many moments, in fact.  Moments of pleasure abound (as they do when I’m reading a book, and eating a nice snack, or seeing my daughter bound about happily, or when we watch “Red Dwarf” together, in companionable silliness, or hang out with my funny, but equally tired husband) — so, don’t worry.  It’s not depression.  Nor is it some treatable thing.

It’s bone-deep.  It’s surface-physical, too, but that’s just sleep-deprivation and encroaching age, I suspect. 

It’s soul-deep — because I see what the world is doing to its dreamers, its poets, its singers, its healers, its teachers, its truth-tellers — and I am scared for the future of us all.

I see the venality of people in power, and much worse, the greed for power in those who already have it. 

When do such people choose to allow their humanity to be smothered?  At what point do they say, “That’s it!  I’m selling out!”  Or:  “The hell with everyone else.  I want what’s mine!” 

Or, more scary still:  Did they ever have it?

I see the disrespect that people who know nothing about education show to the teachers in their midst.  And when I see this, I want to curse those people to a lifetime of ignorance, and make them suffer for it.  However, I cannot.  I will not.  The teacher in me says, “Teach them.”

That’s what I shall have to do.

And that goes as deep as living itself.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #humanity, Living, Students, teach, Teachers and teaching, venality