I missed all the news today, only now just returning home to find out what happened. I was lost in a world of Don Quixote and pierogies, and, frankly, I'd rather be there with the $28 of tips I made today and not in front of the computer screen reading all about it right now.
The reason I became a teacher had a lot to do with my faith in humans and human nature. I believe that people are born good, and that it's the world that makes them bad. If I can get in there and help make that world a little bit better for them, especially for kids whose worlds are presenting obstacle after obstacle, then I'm happy. I teach many kids who live in the deepest ghettos in a city that sees 200 gun deaths of young black men every year, of a city some of the highest addiction, imprisonment, and disease rates in the country, and these kids come to my school expecting to find a path through, or a path away. Some of them don't find it, but most of them do, and my job is to provide a little light. To do my job, I've got to believe that every kid who walks into my door has been granted a basic goodness that I've just got to use to help them succeed. I don't think I'd be a very good teacher, particularly a good teacher in an area with some rough kids, if I didn't believe that everyone has this sense of goodness in them. This optimism in human nature is who I am, and it always has been, which is why I don't have much of a tolerance for cynicism. And it's also why shit like what happened in London yesterday just rocks me to my core. How could someone make the decision to set up bombs on major transportation systems and decide to kill as many innocent people as possible? I know my reactions are not unique, but for someone like me that does believe that people are inherently good, it threatens my belief system. I don't have much faith in religion of any sort, but I have a deep faith in humanity, and, damn, it's being tested a bit today. I know that Bob Ewell evil exists, but, like Atticus, I just don't want to believe it. I want to believe that evil comes mistreatment, like Mayella's, or from something else. The concept of evil in human beings is a difficult one to grasp, and seeing it in action stupefies me.
There's a line in Hotel Rwanda - a movie that I really should own, it's so good - that says when people see suffering in other countries, they say how horrible it is and then they turn off the TV and go back to eating dinner. Sadly, I'm going to do the same. I wish there was something else to do, but I know of nothing. It's just so frustrating to me that as great as the human race can be, that as many brilliant minds that we have, that as much greatness comes out of us a collective world, that we can't figure out how to live with other peacefully. It's naive of me to think so, but it just blows my mind.
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5 comments:
" I wish there was something else to do, but I know of nothing"
but...you BELIEVE in people. You dedicate your life to offering that *light*.
And you posted this, instead of a rant about what assholes people can be.
Namaste.
in the paraphrased words of someone very wise, never doubt that an individual can change the world. whether it be through picking it up and moving it somewhere safer or the simple act of remembering a student's birthday, you can make things better for someone. and if you've done that, as it seems clear you have, then what you said about turning the TV off doesn't apply to you. maybe you can't fly to London to help clean up the debris, but you're not turning your back to the plight of our own inescapable darknesses. and for that you have my total respect.
oi, thought provoking post. it occurs to me often that concepts like good and evil, and faith in humanity can never be totally be divorced from religious philosophy or theology...and irony of ironies religion and theology are the basis for these attacks...nevertheless i can't give up that faith in people you describe, either for some strange reason
Aside from teaching, you lead by example by living according to your convictions. Almost everyone has a version of the theodocy problem to face now and then. You pause at these incidents, but keep steady on your path. And so I bow to you...
_/\_ Gassho
Remarkable and inspiring post... you are a good man, charlie brown, to belief. You are absolutely right about people turning a blind eye when they see the unfortunate in the third world countries. One of my most precious exeriences in life was my visit to one of the poorest countries in the world, The Republic of Niger. I spent two weeks there and it simply restored my faith in humanity. Even though the village of Maraka had very little, their hearts were filled with gold. They were the village that raised a child together and with pride. They had no sense of national identity, just of their village.
One time they offered my family and I several cooked chickens (so small and so skinny) just as a token of friendship. Unfortunately, it is not something we could eat and cannot insult them by giving it back, especially if it was my sister's Peace Corp village.
For a village to give so much when they have so little, is an inspiration and is enough to restore your faith, even when there are people out there with a different line of thinking.
Thanks for the posting and being a genuine human being with great intentions... if only others would follow your example and good faith!
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