Viktor Frankl and Me

Viktor Frankl never ceases to amaze me.  He gets in my brain and tells me what I should have known all along. 

I’ll give you this (from Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, where Frankl is sharing a letter sent to him by an American medical student):  “All around me here in the U.S. I see young people my age who are desperately groping for a meaning to their existence.  One of my best friends died as a result of his search.  I know now that if her were here now I could help him, thanks to your book, but he is not.  His death, however, will always serve to pull me toward all people who are in distress.  I think this is most powerful motivation anyone can have.  I have found a meaning (despite my deep sorrow and guilt) in my friend’s life and death.  If I can be strong enough to fulfill my responsibility, his death will not have been in vain.  I want more than anything to prevent this tragedy from happening to others.”

In this passage, I recognize the reason I teach high school.  Not only did I see a handful of friends die when I was young (drunk driving accidents, overdoses, suicide), I myself experienced a kind of death in adolescence.  After high school, I wasn’t all that happy, and I sought happiness in places where it could never be found permanently.  Frankl’s explanation of the “existential vacuum”, in which people try to fill a void with supplements to happiness, is a perfect analogy for the feelings of meaninglessness that people feel.  We want to find meaning.  Everyone does.  Some of us, more than others, feel a void.  I felt it.  I still feel it.  What I want to do with my life is help other people stop trying to fill a bottomless pit and just find happiness.  MY problem is that I help other people while neglecting my own personal needs.  Even so, I would not change that purpose in life for anything.  I just need to keep reminding myself of Dr. Frankl:  he survived a series of concentration camps in which all of his family died.  He maintained a positive attitude, because there was nothing else to do.  If you want to help other people, you can’t wallow in circumstance.  Life is. 

We are all human, and the events which take place in our lives happen.  Whether by fate or purposeful decision-making, we are who we have made ourselves to be.  That doesn’t mean we can’t change, but it does mean that being stuck in the past is absolutely useless.  We can’t transcend the past, but we can impact the future. 

Frankl wrote that “all freedom has a ‘from what’ and a ‘to what’”.  Just like Margaret Atwood wrote in The Handmaid’s Tale, people have “freedom to” and “freedom from”.  Problems in existential thought happen when we can’t decide which freedom is more important.  People in the United States certainly have “freedom to” (at least most of the time), so then they are faced with the crisis of:  now what?  If I have all this freedom, shouldn’t I be doing something with it?  Shouldn’t there be a bigger purpose?  What is it?!  And the crisis ensues …  People who struggle with the meaning of life seem to self-administer psychotherapy, via drinking, drugs, cutting, promiscuity, or simply guilting themselves out of happiness. 

I love that I have a job in which I can help people identify and (possibly) avoid the sucking vacuum of meaninglessness.  I will teach them my subject area, and (hopefully) in the process, teach them about life itself.  I may not be a doctor of psychology, but I can certainly pass on my friend Viktor’s wisdom.

Maya Angelou died today, and she once said:  “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.”  You see?  English and psychology and life all merge.  School is not useless, no matter what the haters think.  We might not realize it until much, much later, but the things we encounter in our youth have a lasting impact.  My youth almost killed me, and yet here I am.  That’s a good enough reason as any to help others find meaning in life before it’s too late.   

Pop-Up Pools & Other Outdoor Nightmares

I decided to put my little pool up today.  It will absolutely be worth the pain later, when the Nebraska heat hits 1000 degrees, but it was a pain in the ass.  Leveling (again), shoving poles into other poles (no innuendo intended), and spiking my water bill for the next three months.  It's dirty already, and I can't afford a proper pool vacuum, so I will be seen any given day scooping debris out of the pool by hand.  (Why did I ever move from an apartment building with a proper pool and workout facility included?  (I think it had something to do with my irrational fear of other people burning down the building...)

I also just spent $50 on chemicals to kill and/or repel things from my yard.  Bunnies, squirrels, birds (repel) - ants, flies, gnats, mosquitoes, grubs (kill).  All those little fuckers are ruining all my hard work by eating the shit I planted.  This isn't a socialist garden; it's MINE.  So they have to go.

And then, for every plant I intentionally put in the ground, there are roughly 100 plants which don't belong.  I have pulled out about 500 (seriously, no exaggeration) little maple trees from my yard.  They are tenacious little fuckers, growing in places I can't even reach.  Even the stupid bunnies don't want the maple trees.  Just now, trying to spray a chemical barrier around my sunflowers to stop the onslaught of fuzzy little creatures, I inhaled a couple lungs full of whatever is in that bottle.  Thank god I got the eco-friendly variety, but I still have a terrible red-pepperish burning in the back of my throat.  If their are no more blog posts, you can assume I succumbed to the toxins.

Every time I go in the back yard to relax, I end up picking weeds.  I wish I could be a lazy sack of shit like my neighbor and just guzzle beer in the garage, but I can't sit still while NATURE tries to outplay my man-made (lower-case) nature.

I'll get those bastards.  I've got nothing else to do for now... :)

Past-Tense Teacher

Many of my students were kind enough to give me thank-you notes at the end of our time together this year.  The common theme was that I initially scared the shit out of them.  Next came the part where they thanked me for allowing them to be who they are without judgment and for making them think.

That’s it.  That’s all I ever wanted to do.  I could probably go without the “scaring the shit” out of people, but being who you are and thinking are not bad things, no matter how many times society tells individuals to conform. 

I went to the store the other days to buy garden supplies, and the guy ringing up my stuff was a former student.  I said hi; he said hi.  I asked if he remembered me.  His face drained of color, and he said “of course I remember you.  You were the first adult who made me feel like a human being.  I’m going to be an English teacher, because I want to do for other people what you did for me.”

I said thank you, but I was totally at a loss for words.  (which is very unlike me…)  How did other people manage NOT make him feel like a human being?!

Strange days, when people treat other people like objects.  Very Kafka-esque.  And very shitty.

I think I am a very nontraditional teacher, but I guess sometimes I don’t realize just how different I am from the other teachers.  I like these people I teach.  Even the ones who make me want to kick their ass or punch them in the throat are worth my time.  Is that not something all teachers have in common?  Maybe we just deal with people in different ways – I’ll probably never know.   But I think if teaching is your chosen profession, you better care about your charges, or else get the hell out of there. 

I was pretty fragile as a teenager, and I took that existential angst and made a fucking mess of my life for a while because of it.  If I help even one kid avoid that pain (or at least alleviate it), I’m happy.   Not everybody likes what I do or how I do it, and I suppose it really doesn’t matter what they think.  I am who I am, for better and worse.

To the Men

I want to be a man for a day.  Just one, because I don’t think I could stand being in that brain for too long; but there has to be something alien up in there which would explain the strange behavior I see manifesting in the opposite sex. 

I understand that women are complex.  (P.S. This is why men are always trying to get in us.)  But I must be wrong in my experiences with men, because my conclusion is that men are fucking stupid.  They think with their penises, and all they seem to want is mediocrity.  No drama – no fight – no talking. 

Dear men:  Women want a little fight in a man.  I’m not talking about domestic abuse; I’m just talking about desire.  I’m talking about a man who can unabashedly feel emotion and then talk about it.  There’s nothing “gay” about having feelings – it’s called “being alive”.  If I can’t talk to you, well, you’re worthless.  Because part of being alive and being in love is conflict.  Arguments can be productive.  They can allow relationships to grow and flourish.

But…  If you can’t talk … we’re done.  If I wanted to be alone, I’d be alone.  I don’t need to be alone in the same house with someone else.  That sort of defeats the purpose.  And if I don’t want to have sex with you, because I don’t even know who you are anymore … it’s dead.  Stick a fucking fork in it.  I can’t have sex with someone who won’t talk to me; and if I DID want that, it would be a handsome stranger, not someone I had to pick up after. 

Get it? 

So maybe if I had a penis for a day, I could understand this apathetic thing most men have going on which deprives them of having healthy relationships with women. 

Don’t send me suggestive text messages.  Don’t send me naked pictures of yourself.  Don’t try to get me drunk and make lewd suggestions.  Talk to me, and then we’ll see what’s up.  

End of Days 2014

            

Today is my first official day of summer vacation.  Am I happy?  Yes.  Am I confused?  Yes.  If doesn’t seem like the end of anything.  School just sort of ended yesterday.  It didn’t feel like the last day of school.  I didn’t get weepy or sad when the seniors left two weeks ago, and I didn’t really feel anything yesterday either.  It just feels like the weekend.  I’m sure students all over the city were out celebrating and burning all their “useless” paper from school (I know my kids were…), but I just sat at home and watched Hell’s Kitchen. 

I suppose my ambivalence is caused by too many years of teaching.  The whole shit-storm will all start over again in no time.  Nothing is really over.  But I would love to feel something. 

I don’t.

One of these days, I’ll wake up and not know what day it is; that’s the real measure of summer break for students and teachers alike:  getting caught up in the squandering of time. 

Last night, I dreamed that I wrote a novel this summer.  It’s not unheard of to write an whole book in two months.  Maybe my track record of not being able to write a good book, well, ever, so far should deter me, but I’m going to bleed out on the keys of this computer this summer.  (Not in the whole DEATH way, but in a more CATHARTIC, LITERARY way.)  Even if no one reads what I have to say, I’ll write it anyway. 

Life is better spent trying than being angry at everything and nothing.  I’ll let the anger fuel the words, and then perhaps the anger at all that I’ve left unsaid and undone with dissipate into peacefulness. 

It’s worth a try.

Killing Me Softly

My life is made up of units of time.  I distract myself within those units of time, accomplishing nothing.  I’ve had a full life, and yet I wonder if it’s meant anything.  I find myself wandering about in my house or in my yard or at my job, wondering what I’m doing.  Why I’m there, in that spot, at that moment.  I’m circling the drain. 

I don’t want a different job; no job could compare to the one I hold right now.  I want a different path; I want to be a writer, but I have no earthly idea how to do that.  I have to change everything.  Gut my life in every aspect.  Change every breath and every decision made in each of those breaths.  How is that possible?  

The life is killing me softly – telling my whole life in a handful of useless words. 

Mother’s Day 2014

I have a mother.  I am a mother.  My daughters will (most likely) later be mothers. 

My mother-in-law sent me a card.  I sent her a card.  I painted a pot to give to my mother.  My daughter took me to dinner.  My son bought me flowers.  All lovely gestures.  I don’t see why gestures are necessary on Mother’s Day.  I love those women, and (I assume) they love me.  I am okay with that.  I would actually prefer it if they would spontaneously show me their love in a more daily way, rather than being told by the American Capitalist Industry that it’s time to purchase a card or buy some market-inflated flowers (which will go down in price by half tomorrow).  I also don’t want to feel guilty about staying home, just because my brother is having a dinner at his house for my mother and his wife, but I don’t want to drive 40 minutes each way to get there. 

I just want to be a mother today.  On my terms.  At my house.  I don’t even need my children to be here; they’re here every other day, and I don’t love them any differently today than I did yesterday or than I will tomorrow. 

Maybe we should celebrate humanity on a day-to-day basis, rather than waiting until coporate America tells us it’s time to buy something. 

Love each other.  Today.  

Another Last Day

Tomorrow is the senior's last day.  Again.  I've been through this 16 times now.  16.  Perspective:  That's as long as my son has been alive.

Every year it's a countdown to the end of the year, which seems pretty counter-intuitive.  Wishing our lives away day-by-day; but I really don't wish the days away.  I would love to freeze the good moments to revisit later.  What I love about teaching is that the best days are not always the most productive days.   We learn about each other even when we aren't trying so hard.

Yes, it's beautiful symbiosis when we all learn something new and spend time together questioning and exploring ideas.  I love that.  I love the spark of recognition or inspiration or even anger at an idea which stews in our minds.  But sometimes, it's just the present ... and we just "are".  Today in Debate, we finished watching The Breakfast Club (because there are only eight of us, and some of them had never seen John Hughes channeling high school) and ate waffles.  I'm not talking frozen waffles; I'm talking about a kid who brought in a waffle iron and a huge vat of waffle batter (and all the ingredients, in case we ran out).  I read the paper and watched the movie.  A couple of boys wrestled each other to the ground (the smaller kid won with the under-the-ear-pressure-point hold).  Other people who aren't in that class floated in and out of the room to hang out.

The key is looking up in a moment, and seeing that you wouldn't restructure that moment in any other way.  We even talked briefly about how we would explain to an administrator (if he or she were to walk in) why we were watching an 80s movie:  "You see, The Breakfast Club is a psycho-social experiment about the different manifestations of high school, dependent on who you are."
(You see, I'm trying to teach them how to think ...)

I'm going to miss these seniors.  I miss them every year, even before they're gone.  I don't cry (only once, actually, when a girl I barely knew grabbed me after the senior video - tears streaming down here face - and told me she didn't know how she would ever find her way in life).  But it's a life-changing event for all of us.  Even the younger classes who are simply moving up a category next year.

We ebb; we flow.

People come; people go.

Philosophy Season

Hello?  Mr. Sartre?  I, too, sit and watch the humans every day, and I, too, am nauseated.  I have looked in the mirror and seen someone else looking back at me.   I hear your call to take responsibility for my choices, and to make choices as though I am choosing for all of mankind.  Unfortunately, I am a victim of the absurdist vacuum which daily threatened to suck in your friend, Mr. Camus.  I would like to make meaningful decisions and take control of my circumstances, but every day I am more paralyzed by the futility of my actions.  Do this, or do that.  Who cares?  What does it matter?  Why spend an entire lifetime contemplating whether things have meaning, when there are no answers? 

I’d write a book about it, but I can’t care long enough.  Contemplating the nuances of life is exhausting. 

Just ask Mr. Tolstoy.  Even being born into Russian nobility and writing brilliantly crafted tomes about the human condition didn’t save him from a lifetime of wanting what he could not have.  The serfs wanted Tolstoy’s wisdom and money, and he wanted their faith. 

Melancholia is the disease of the thinker.  Those of us who poke and ponder and wish and dream aren’t satisfied with the general mundaneness of everyday life.  If we stare into the abyss long enough, we occasionally lose our balance and fall in, only to have to crawl back into the light … somehow.

I need to talk to you, Mr. Nietzsche.  We have so much in common, and I am ready for the lantern your madman smashed to pieces.  The rest of the world might revel in ignorance, but I long for deep, unadulterated truth.  Even when I thought I was deviating from the herd with my individuality, I was just wandering aimlessly into a different stream of cattle. 

Mr. Frankl, how did you find meaning in such a bleak and dreadful landscape?   How did optimism find its way into a man whose family was systematically murdered simply for existing in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Will you put me on your couch and coach me through this muddled mess?  Sorry, Misters Freud and Jung, you were too adrift in the cranial ocean for me.  I would like to live here, in this place, and not hate it (or myself) for all the ways I feel cheated and manipulated and ignored.  I want optimism. 

In all the bleak landscape of the existentialists and absurdists, I see hope.  I hear students speak of my friend Mr. Kafka as though he was a tragic loser, but even in a man-turned –beetle, killed by an apple thrown by his father, I see hope.  I see writers who wanted nothing more than a break in the cloud through which some sunlight leaks through.  They watched and waited.  They wrote and waited.  They tried to love and waited.  

And while I love that I can find kindred souls in the books on my shelf, I would prefer happiness. 

Mr. Leary, if only you were right about LSD curing the closed human mind and opening the doors to nirvana.  The problem, sir, is that the things behind those doors are all-too-often scary as hell.  Opening the doors of perception means opening them to any and all things – not just the beautiful ones.   

So, friends, how do I proceed?  How shall I act, and what shall I say, and which thought should I entertain?  I would wish that you all were here to help me, but you couldn’t even help yourselves through this thing called life.  Perhaps there is another side, and I’ll meet you later.  Until then, this daffodil on my table is lovely, and this beer is chilled, and the sun is shining outside my door.  I’ll find a way.