The New Evolution

It doesn't seem right that I am much more interested in sitting around engaging the plight of the working class, planning their emergence and freeing their minds through education than I am actually engaging working class people. It doesn't seem right, and yet I know that I am guilty of the sin of subscribing to intellectual evolution. I don't know if other people have coined or used this term or concept, but what I'm getting at is the idea that through education a human being can quite literally evolve. The difference in only one lifetime when education surpasses the previous generation's can be equivalent to many generations of Darwinian evolution--I truly believe the difference can be so stark.

Elitism. This is an option for the POV that I'm referencing. Elitism, however, requires a feeling of arrogance. This can be true in some cases of established white-collar/blue-collar tensions, but that's not exactly what I'm referring to. What I'm NOT speaking of is a person who is an established member of the white-collar class with no hands-on blue collar experience; in this case avoidance or a hands-off approach would indeed be a candidate for elitism.

The intellectual evolution of which I speak happens within an individual, within a lifetime. In this case, the unwillingness to engage the blue-collar world from which said individual evolved is based, not in arrogance and lack of understanding, but in fear and intimate understanding. The outward signs of this intolerance can perhaps be the same as elitism--aloofness, scoffing, avoidance, distaste and distrust--but the internal struggle is completely different. The outward signs are a result not of a lack of knowledge (as in elitism) but of intimate knowledge and, having "seen the light," a fear of "going backward." This notion of "going backward" is not at all fair to the place from which the person evolved, nor to the people who still inhabit that space. But the individual, perceiving personal enlightenment, believes their journey to be one of progression, the inverse of which would be regression. So, through this progression or personal evolution, the concept of "overcoming" emerges. "I have overcome and to engage or embrace my previous incarnation is to take a step backwards."

I am beginning to see that this personal evolution is, in fact, a circle, not a line. The further growth and progression from the starting point leads not to greater distance but, in fact, a greater understanding and a closer look and, eventually, the release of fear.

Until next time...

Breathe it in

In my heart lies a memory
To tell the stars above.
Don't forget to remember me, my love

Ooooooh, I don't like to fill the days. I'd rather take them as they come, spontaneously surfing from one moment to the next, but life is busy.
I'd rather be classy, but mostly I'm crude.
I'd rather be compassionate, but mostly I'm sarcastic.
I'd rather be driven to be all the great things I'm not, but mostly I'm pretty comfortable with me.

Until next time...

I'll cop out to the change but a stranger is putting the tease on...

I feel like a lot happened over the holiday weekend. I know a lot happened in my head.

I went in to the weekend with all of the stress and tension involved with the end of the fiscal year at work. Uncertain as a team whether we would achieve our goals when it was all said and done, and certain as an individual that I'd not done my best to make sure we did hit the mark. I some times do that; occasionally I get in a funk and don't live up to my potential. This year, however, is the first time I've ever looked at the situation while I was in it and summed it up in terms of potential. Although it doesn't expunge the sin of failing to pull my weight, I'm somehow pleased with the observation that I have the ability to do better--the option to live up to my potential or not. I hope I can consider myself under this light in all things large and small. The fact is, the potential of a given individual human is an impressive thing. Being a human, I guess I'm comfortable with the concept that this also includes me.

This observation leads me to a commitment to consciously consider "my best" in every moment. I've done a lot of being in my life, but I'm not sure I've done much being my best. Here's to being my best in husbandry, fatherhood, humanity and humility.

Until next time...