So far this year has been one of re-invention, and accepting who I am in the moment I experience myself. Finding that means to a brighter end has its ups and downs.

Saturday morning, after a sleepless night, deep feelings of disappointment, futility and sadness veiled my soul. Throughout the morning, my surface enthusiasm smiled with the ease of social acceptability. I usually control superfluous relations, but underneath — behind my closed feelings, I concertedly work through the invisible sheath of despair. My efforts these past couple of months bore no deep holes that broke through to release the poisonous fumes at the base of my being. Although, my NEH Philosophy seminar this past month did allow me to make some concerted ground, I still woke this past Saturday feeling the weight of fear.

Our move back to the city, now 10 months ago, tried my expectations. My work throughout the spring became uninteresting, and I labored over completing too many tasks. I let go of old relationships, and started new ones. I made the choice to write as a new mode of expression, while struggling to find the time. My daydreams reminisced about the choices not taken, rather than staying ‘in the solution of’ today’s problems. Although feeling financially and professionally stuck, my self-determination stayed the course. I put one foot in front of the other — looking forward. When those self-deprecating moments seemed to elude progress, I worked hard to feel gratitude.

I’m healthier today than when times were flush — all diseases remain in stage 1. Most cannot truly wrap their thinking around what it means to be a celiac sprue patient. Although I still struggle with eating the wrong foods, or buying the wrong lotion, I persevere. Often people’s desires to put me at ease only frustrate me. Every day reminds me that my health defines who I am.

This week I set goals for myself — clean the house — sort the papers — write the recommendations for my student’s college letters. I accomplished nothing — no task seemed pressing. I walked through moments detached. Materialism began to preoccupy my thinking in cunning and insidious ways, as the city worked its wiles on me.

While walking the NYC streets on my way downtown, my gazes only registered what I didn’t have. I saw fancy cars, designer shoes, new clothes, and apartments for sale that were once within reach, but now an impossibility. I felt like my brain was not fast and nimble enough. I tore apart my teaching and parenting abilities, and castigated my lacking desire to achieve. Shallow consumerism glaringly overtook, and led me to anger and resentment of everything I had become. The delusions overwhelmed me.

The Powerball Lottery provided a momentary escape. While driving from here to there I fantasized about winning, and what I would do with the millions of dollars – I dreamed a life of money property and prestige, supported by my benevolence, prudence and compassion. This delusion obsessed that such a future was possible. It puffed me up – supported me to walk taller and feel special. I lifted myself so high in this dream that the fall back to reality was crushing. Today, the bill collector called. I could not get out of bed.

It is when I put these feelings to paper, and retreat to this page, that I find my way back. The gift of being human is our ability to reflect, and to make decisions. If I give fear a constructive platform outside of my head, the negatives dissipate. Through the editing process, I drank water; made sure I had plenty of sleep, and went for a 3 mile walk and aligned with right breathe.

Exposing resentments to the light of writing opens a door to new possibilities. The story becomes the means to an end.

With the recent Supreme Court decision that declares the 1964 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, the question of fair treatment rises as a central concern of our polity. The appearances of normalcy – equal treatment – are illusions in our society. The concerted efforts by conservative groups in the last presidential election reveals that America is still highly divided, yet we all do not see our division easily.

What masks this division, which history shows us, is the nation’s growing materialism – if all citizens have full access to goods and services, their responsibility is to rise up and utilize those opportunities through self-motivating forces. Simple psychology reveals that defacto racism, sexism and classism are not easily distinguished by laws. So believing that numbers designate a defacto change in psycho-social behavior becomes too clearly a tool for monied conservatives to mask their gross intentions to prohibit the “opposition” protection from laws that could easily constrain equal access.

About 10 years ago a young woman of 24 told me that if women feel they are ill treated or are singled out through discriminatory practices they are deluded. In her zealous youth she failed to understand that efforts of women to equalize the playing field through pay check equality, sexual rights and job opportunities had still not been reached. In 2002, women still earned 25% less than men, and only 1% of the top decision making positions in business were occupied by women. Although women have made incredible gains, it has come through the sacrifice of women to lay themselves down on the gauntlet and fight for those rights. Women’s rights are not self evident in patriarchal minds. Minority rights are not self evident with defacto racism. Sexual rights are not self evident in homophobic maternalist thinking.

Throughout history, laws for broadening the rights of citizenship have only come from bloodshed in some form or other. The failed application of the 14th amendment by the United States government in every state of the union throughout the 19th century was only rectified by brave men and women who had the courage to stand up and put their lives on the line to challenge the wrong. Although they experienced many defeats, they kept going forward – they leaned forward – they passed their message from generation to generation. It is our current generation that seems to feel paralyzed from not only understanding the impacts of the conservative laws, but stymied by the increasing feeling that as long as one’s basic needs are met, all is well. All is not well, as our society moves back to Gilded Age economics, and its psycho-social underpinnings.

In America, money represents the key to freedom – the relationship is inherent in the constitution’s very way that it was constructed – a coup of the financial elites over the notion of populism. The elites never believed the people were educated enough to make civic decisions, so they constructed a system by which the majority of peoples in the republic could not vote to change or make the laws of the state. Those laws were changed only when the power elites needed those votes to maintain their hegemony. Throughout our democractic experiment, money always begot power. However, power corrupts, and the economic debacles of the last decade confirm it so.

The interpretation of the powerful court all too easily becomes the byway of partisan power, constructed through the financial power of a silent minority (the 1%), who’s position is threatened by democratic thinking – allowing populism to dictate any norms of the market. Conservatism is the minority, but they hold the majority of wealth and political power. Since we are a nation built on democratic capitalism, our first thought is that if I or the nation are financially sound, than the system is sound. With that thinking, the fight for equal rights, equal access of the financial and political disenfranchised, cannot come about until we see ourselves as disenfranchised.

While reading Emerson on a hot humid lawn, nature’s sounds orchestrated my musings of his essay on poets. Rich in language, Emerson attempted to give a verbally seductive argument that painted a variety of emotional responses to the bad poetry of his day. His rational descriptive arguments sliced point to point through essayed rhetoric, giving a clearer portrait not only of the poet, but of an artist.

I was astounded by a single line. After a long description of genius, Emerson captured the essential element necessary for the artist to be an artist. He claimed, that genius expresses itself not only in the prescriptive forms, but more so through an “insight which expresses itself by what is called Imagination … [which] does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuit of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others.” This qualia of creative imagination, within any medium, provides the foundation for genius in all disciplines.

We entered the library for the lecture.

The Emerson lecture started well, but slowly digressed because of contradicting analyses of the professor. I stopped listening after two hours of general claims that provided no documentation to prove veracity. My attention then diverted to look within the faces of my peers to see their reactions to these undocumented interpretations, conflating theory on theory, imposed by professorial privilege.

The faces of my peers painted stern contemplations. I projected that these captive learners felt the same confusions I experienced. I noticed their eyes slowly buried themselves under furrowed brows, and downturned smiles that began to sleep with eyes wide opened. We sat what seemed like an eternity, battling out the artistic relevance of a single piece of text; debating whether Frederick Douglas’ narrative was a work of art, outside of its utility to argue against the harms of slavery within this certain place and time.

The questions went round and round for hours. Should we consider memoir art? Is autobiography art, history, philosophy? We compared one of notoriety versus the dulled exhortations of those less talented writers. Questions whirled on the meaning of language: When is a sentence art? How can we know the intention of the writer? If all literature is art (Iris Murdoch) is a manuscript art? The questioning seemed circular.

Electrified by the contradictions, my instincts engined utterances of metaphor upon metaphor that challenged the biased analysis whenever given the chance to speak. My underlying objection to the absence of historicism in the discussion grounded my critiques. IF we analyze a piece of literature, its very essence of being claims that this intellectual property has a history. The examination of form and function, and the choices the author makes is grounded in a person’s psychology and event context. People don’t write in a vacuum. They are motivated by forces that in many ways are cultivated by alliances, and the impact of tangible external events. Philosophers more easily consider historicism, but English teachers have greater difficulty, as the text in and of itself is the primary concern.

We all gave our conclusions with detailed examples that often derailed the initial point. In the end, most participants resisted moving outside their disciplines, and so discourse met dead ends. Conclusions were left to the eye of the beholder. After hours of moving through this single author’s writing, questions about its artistic relevance remained unanswered, and historicism was swept under the rug.

Sitting for long hours makes me uncomfortable. I couldn’t help obsessing about the professors contradicting assertions. My arrogance of rightness empowered my privilege of thinking, thus I felt justified in giving my two cents whenever the moment allowed. My impatient views empowered my ego. Later, upon reflection, I felt embarrassed by my assumptions, falling into self absorbed thinking that my exhortations were of a false humility. Like a monkey that sits silently on my back, the truth that my problematic early years failed to diligently read and write feeds a repeating low self-esteem about my academic abilities. This self deprecation feeds a self-preserving, perhaps self-righteous, desire to be right.

At the end of this day long session, mental exhaustion from sitting too long overtook my atrophying legs. Although I struggled to lift myself out of the chair, once standing, I briskly made my way back to the dorm. As the hot humid weather drenched me during this mile walk home, my inner dialogue spoke aloud to an invisable audience.

In these moments of reflection, I relived my actions like a memoir, making arguments – claims and warrants – that fleetingly questioned my process. Fear is such a cunning enemy of intellect. Through my self-imposed training to turn fearful thoughts over to positive self-affirmations, I looked to just what was before me – the rationality of my arguments.

Language too easily confounds perspective. One’s chosen word to define a point in time can be contrary to the definitions used in other disciplinary contexts. Discourse then serves to clarify the confusions, and helps to build a common ground. For the surviving self, these moments of learning nurture the intuitive perspective through open-mindedness to things unimagined by the naked eye.

The hardline stories of growing up always bring me to tears. Although my experiences reflect more of the mundane in middle class white suburbia to their urban decay, I feel the pain and powerlessness of those neglected children. These emotional images swell up inside me, and inevitably become tears.

The recreated stories of disenfranchised urban poor children, so diametrically different from me on the outside, seems all to familiar on the inside. Once told, I, all too well, feel their violation – their intuitive desire to shut the feelings out – to hide through fantasy in a different, more perfect life – to survive. Driven by an unending fear, the shame and loneliness overwhelms, stymying any forward actions the damage child may want to take.

After such reads, I try to comprehend my voice, but pull back, comparing and judging my less dramatic circumstances. I wonder if my aptitude of empathy and compassion is only driven by my affluent guilt. When I remove those judgements from my feelings, and just feel someone else’s life’s pain, I can more rationally tell the story that would need telling – see the story more objectively. The opportunity to advocate then opens up, and I can more confidently move forward with my job to tell the story.

Posited to offer a means by which those who have the power to change the world will listen, I attempt to consider classroom activities that hopefully provides students the opportunity to comprehend the exact nature of the wrongs these disenfranchised people experienced; to accept that such circumstances, despite 21st century progressiveness, exist; and to encourage participation in more compassionate and meaningful acts to change the system that has allowed such harms to exist. Perhaps, in some slight way, advanced high schools should be ethical think tanks for a more progressive society. These school’s influential students, who are on the path to become influential adults, would take part in the dialectic discourse that questions not only the ethics of the system they are working towards joining, but the validity of that system in and of itself.

Unadulterated competition destroys bonds of compassion and empathy because by its nature the weak must be obliterated by the strong to perpetuate its place of power. All are become subjects to the system, which has no moral obligation. In Darwinian social norms, the strong survive and prosper over the dispensable weak. This thinking does not account for any real application of equality of condition in accessing opportunity.  Although we have institutionally set out to undo the separate but equal mentality, we have not considered how defacto inequality persists. In fact, history clearly illustrates that defacto discrimination persists despite democratic legislative efforts to increase equal opportunities. Changing individual psychology is far more complex than changing and applying a law. Applying laws does not guarantee that practical reasoning will change.

Realism is a priori to the abstraction, and the abstraction applied is the best means to a broader utility. If we can know the problem of a minority disenfranchised group, then we can transform their parochial needs into a broader concept of societal needs, built upon compassionate, tempered competition, with more fair distribution of opportunity.

My life is fortunate, in that my journey has ventured to both spectrums of experience (privileged and disenfranchised). As I rose from the ashes of self-destruction, the rooms taught me to see how selflessness and empathy are the cornerstone of social interactions, and service to society, the central tenet of action. Here, usually, are misconceptions. I am not talking about service as giving a service based activity, but rather encompassing charity and fairness in all my actions, and always striving to bring out the best in any situation without increasing any disenfranchisement. Selflessness in one’s daily actions, whatever they may be, becomes primary, not institutional philanthropy.

So, I got pushed by the story, however contrived, that the sins of the father, are the sins essentially in society. So we must push forward, to undo harms, and find increasing compassionate efforts of inclusion.

BBQ to celebrate the last day of classes. The four of us celebrate, as best we can, markers of our children’s lives, and our own special triumphs while attempting to support our individuality.

Their friendship means something to me. I often wonder why some relationships work out and other’s don’t.

My last week of classes all too often become fatigued to the point that my squirrely thinking leads me to question everything. Easily, I begin to believe the lie that I’m a loser or people don’t want me around. Although I make attempts to shirk off these delusions, they linger. I usually retreat and isolate.

The last to leave, finding the solace in solitude, I sit in my “office” and take in the light, air, lines of the classroom’s image, and the sounds that make their way through the limited openings of the windows.

By 4:00 on any given school day, when the sun’s light takes a turn toward the western side of the building, I begin the process of leaving, which could take upwards to an hour. I move slowly to the rhythm of my hearts pace; no more or less than what’s necessary.

To be and then be nothing as I move through the paces of rounding up my belongings. The smells of the emptied school building envelope my senses. Sober reference, connecting to a greater purpose for me working here, beyond my own financial self interest.

I press the elevator button, always tinged with guilt that I don’t walk down the stairs to the basement. Indulgence, and privilege motivates me too easily. I exit the building through the back door, noting the emptiness of the school – feeling the heavy absence of people – the thousands that come through each weekday for the 10 months in operation. The last exit of another year.

At the end of school BBQ, the girls ask me about finishing for the year. How did grading go? What were the students like? Their sincere small talk, is just that, small. This light conversation provides a means for me to find my way through feeling like the outsider.

Eventually each inquisitor retorts the big reflection question, either with a sly somewhat envious grin or large bubbly smiles, “are you happy to be off? My forced smile never gives away my wincing frustration, and I exclaim, “I’m ecstatic! So looking forward to it!” My heart and soul, exhausted by my life watches as they happily nod in approval.

My friends mean well. They always do, but my angered, lonely, tired spirit makes me hungry for something different.

Each summer I am reborn by expectations of wanting better than how the year finishes. Each disillusioned perception signals the need to be committed to a summer rehab that will fix the broken end searching for a new beginning.

This year is no exception. In fact, the crystal ball’s future looks bleaker than in past times. The New Rules being applied to my job, with rubric after rubric, feeds a new level of insecurity.

The suburb BBQ redirects me. My girlfriend’s consistent efforts to celebrate slowly works me over and takes me in. School’s out for summer, and the School’s Out BBQ tastes delicious.

My inbox had my daily dose of TEDx Talk and it was George Papandreou Jr. speaking about the future of democracy within the European Union. He made a compelling plea to the European Union, and its allies, to enact more communitarian initiatives hoping to repair the systemic flaws in the political system. He advocated for the development of more global political institutions, which would better complement the global economy. Parochialism is dead and dangerous – and unless checked, it could further destabilize Europe’s, and in turn, the world’s, balance of development.

During his TEDx talk, Papandreou claimed the naysayers were idiots. Now immediately you would think that calling all critics of communitarianism retards might have some bearing. However, doing so  would basically be unproductive, as well as unprofessional. Papandreou quickly explained his definition of the term.

Referencing up the ancient greek definition of idiot, Papandreou gave his political yarn a new spin. An idiot referred to an ancient greek representative who was imbued with their own material political power over the welfare of the state. These ‘idiots,’ characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs, concerned themselves with only local needs and wants. For Papandreou, idiots were born, and citizens were made through education. We would get to choose who we are.

These ‘idiots,’ layman without professional skill, would never be able to see the larger picture where cooperation, compassion and reciprocity provided a fairer distribution of goods and services, necessary to keep unity and fair trades. These laymen would have to change all that they knew –  to rethink how 21st political economies should work. He claimed the old models cannot be applied since the way we operate is so interconnected.

A new way of thinking is not easy for an idiot, ancient or contemporary. They would have to set aside all that they knew, and be open to a new experience, with less power and prestige. They would have to share more, and see themselves in the race and gender of others. Values perhaps would be universalized, although wearing different cloths.

One might say it is the idiot who gives up so much. But in reality, the real idiot is the one who cannot see how having so much excess is creating less for all in the long run.

Maybe we need some more TEDx talks to help.

The gendered hetero-norms of my childhood society dictated that women should behave as budding maternals, and men as bread winners. However, my 21st century reality, and that of the many women who support me in my life, has us as the bread winners, while the men struggle to find their solid path.

These reversed roles send our egos, on both sides of the sexual spectrum, into spirals. While dejected men fight against their inculcated expectations from bygone upbringings, we women continue our climb toward financial independence.

What my imagination always feels is the judging eye, who’s periphery always catches our business like image, and winces. Through a concentrated gaze, the protectors of true womanhood spy, and size up the “to what extent” do we imbue femininity. Somewhere in their thoughts, they secretly wonder, “How could she ever be a mother, with a mouth like that?” Perhaps they secretly wonder if we are not hetero at all, because our ‘certitude’ or competitive spirit seems all too masculine for them. They then quickly characterize us as super feminists, bordering on misandry.

Whatever their judgements, in the end, we are left paying the bill. So for us to survive the role reversals, our assertive method of a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude, and making sure a paycheck is in the pocket, is not only fair game, but a necessary means to an end.

Traveling up to St. Nicholas terrace on the D train provides cheap amusement. I gaze over to see a tired slumped face in a corner chair finding respite from a long hard day. Behind the sleeping slump, two gay friends share polite conversation with flamboyant gestures. Across from me a kindle reader, with her glasses sitting comfortable at the edge of her nose, carries a faint smile on her face as if watching the scene unfold with pleasant ends. Suddenly the train stops at West 4th street. They all leave. A whole new crew climbs into the car.

A yawning NYU student replaces the kindle reader, and sits at the edge of his seat, with his glance upwards toward the advertisements making his way to the subway map to get his bearings. Directly to my left a large black man gives me a stern glance as our eyes meet. Black skin against the charcoal jacket, with Apple earphones dangling, creating thin lines that fall effortlessly within the creases of his jacket. A young homeboy sits to my right, stoically looking forward; just a gaze. No phone. No music screaming in his ears. Then, as if my stare moves him, he adjusts his backpack, seemingly to exit, but when the next stop comes, he maintains his gaze.

A survey of the car’s length reveals a near empty place. As the landscape of this subway ride is taken in, my thoughts immediately reflect on my own image of what people must see of me. In a moment, my self-conscious self faces their to quick glances, as my subjects become my mirror. My somber head overruns my rational heart with unrealistic expectations of what I should be. Looking for some friendly place to make a connection of what I am, rather than what I project others see in me. Where I see all the world neatly tucked into a judgmental box, they tuck me into a very similar box. My perceptions of their perceptions frighten me. I quickly look downward, and furiously type into my Iphone.

Another stop; another set of people step into the scene. Across from me, a young androgynous Asian, with Long thin black hair draped over a black suit, feverishly texts. To the left, a sad gaunt eyed middle age man with a goatee gazes into the phone as if looking for some answer to a pressing question; or possibly avoiding the discomfort of his last encounter, searching for some other world to be taken in by. To right corner opposite me, a young Latino man, covered in asian tattoos void of color, and wearing a Bronx style Yankees hat, boxes in his girlfriend, as if shielding her from any outside distractions. With his eyes he seeks to convince her of his love, flirting with humor hoping for a kiss. Large laughs from the girl bellow over the din of music in earphones and my own inner dialogue. She swoons with contralto guffaws. On my bench next to me another couple, or perhaps well behaved lovers, seem challenged by the girls flirtatious howls. They bury themselves in their earphones, with eyes glued to their video game.

All this visual contextualization does not exhaust the fear – rather it waxes poetry in hopes of reaching some different ground. My efforts to break the habit of circular thoughts that run fast throughout my blood are not quelled by the train rolling on. By now, all the seats are taken. There is a cacophony of sounds of which no single sound lives larger than the other, until all at once the Latino girl’s laugh roars above the fray as the train comes to a screeching halt.
Time to exit.