Pages Carefully Read
By our continual and earnest
pursuit of character we bring our own deportment and conduct frequently in
review. This constant habit of surveying ourselves, as it were, in reflection,
keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong, and begets, in noble
creatures, a certain reverence for themselves as well as others, which is the
surest guardian of every
virtue.
--David Hume
When I began teaching in El Dorado Springs my take home pay the first month was $283.00. While that seems like a ridiculously low salary by today's pay scale, neither was it too great in those days!
I discovered during my first month at EHS that my pay would not reach to the end of the month. So I decided that if I bought a full month of lunch tickets after I received my check, then at least I would be guaranteed of one meal a day, five days a week.
To assure that I had food to go beyond that I would go to Sibley and Thatch Supermarket and buy a lot of on sale frozen TV dinners and frozen cream pies. My freezer would be packed and I knew I could almost make it to the next payday.
One incident stands out in my attempt to have enough to eat. My future brother-in-law (I had had one date with his sister, and had no idea at the time that I would marry her) had come to my home with a friend. They wanted to work on their art projects at school. I said OK and had gone to another room to get something to take over to the school. When I returned to the kitchen where they were waiting, I found them eating a frozen cream pie.
Mark had checked out the refrigerator to see if there was anything to snack on, there wasn't. Then he looked in the freezer and found the pie. It was the only pie. It was about all I had left to eat that month!
I took it in stride and said nothing. They were teenage boys, always hungry, and didn't know about the struggling attempts of a first year teacher to make ends met. It was a losing struggle, because they never met.
I did have one secret, however, and I have to admit to doing this, although I think I can fall back on the natural drive for survival as my excuse. I could always get invited to dinner if I made a visit to a certain couple at the right time of evening.
One of the faculty members was a veteran teacher and his wife was retired. I had met them at the faculty picnic in the city park the day before school opened in l966. I especially enjoyed visiting with her, as she was a reader and loved to discuss ideas. She never took a particular side on an idea, but rather like to explore all possible ways of looking at it.
Usually when I arrived she would say, "I've been thinking about . . . What do you think about that, Mike"? Or she would say, "Have a seat. What have you been thinking about?" She seemed to know when to ask that. She was intuitive and usually knew when I had an idea floating around in my mind.
We'd bounce our thoughts back and forth and before you knew it her husband would come in from his office and say, "It's time to eat. Mike had better stay and eat with us." Thank goodness! There was no food at home.
Once she said to me, "Mike, you will be remembered as a philosopher, not an artist." That surprised me, because as a twenty-three year old I was idealistic and thought that someday, just maybe, I could be "an artist." Honestly, I didn't even know that being "philosophic" meant. Never had I read any book of philosophy. So I didn't really give much credence to her comment.
Since that time I have read widely in the philosophies of the East and the West and I've read religious philosophies of great thinkers from around the world. Answers to the questions that she and I raised so many years ago have come slowly. They have led in one direction and then in another, been redirected and refined.
Literally thousands of books have been written by men and women seeking to discover the meaning of life; seeking to discover what its purpose is. Surely the average person has asked, "What is it that I am supposed to be accomplishing in my life?"
To have truly lived we must ask, "What Idea is my life expressing? How do I expend my daily energies? What do I think about? What do I say to others? What actions do I perform?"
By looking at my daily life, I find the answers; that is how I find out what Ideal my life is expressing.
As the pages of my daily life are turned, leaf by leaf, I find myself revealed. I learn who I am. I come to know the Idea being expressed through my life.
Am I a caring person or neglectful of others? Am I compassionate or disregarding of others? Do I offer forgiveness or seek vendettas? Do I extend goodness or meanness to others? Do I show kindness or vindictiveness? Do I express love or hate? Am I sharing or greedy?
The book of my daily life contains the answer. The pages must be carefully read.
(written February, 2000)
--David Hume
When I began teaching in El Dorado Springs my take home pay the first month was $283.00. While that seems like a ridiculously low salary by today's pay scale, neither was it too great in those days!
I discovered during my first month at EHS that my pay would not reach to the end of the month. So I decided that if I bought a full month of lunch tickets after I received my check, then at least I would be guaranteed of one meal a day, five days a week.
To assure that I had food to go beyond that I would go to Sibley and Thatch Supermarket and buy a lot of on sale frozen TV dinners and frozen cream pies. My freezer would be packed and I knew I could almost make it to the next payday.
One incident stands out in my attempt to have enough to eat. My future brother-in-law (I had had one date with his sister, and had no idea at the time that I would marry her) had come to my home with a friend. They wanted to work on their art projects at school. I said OK and had gone to another room to get something to take over to the school. When I returned to the kitchen where they were waiting, I found them eating a frozen cream pie.
Mark had checked out the refrigerator to see if there was anything to snack on, there wasn't. Then he looked in the freezer and found the pie. It was the only pie. It was about all I had left to eat that month!
I took it in stride and said nothing. They were teenage boys, always hungry, and didn't know about the struggling attempts of a first year teacher to make ends met. It was a losing struggle, because they never met.
I did have one secret, however, and I have to admit to doing this, although I think I can fall back on the natural drive for survival as my excuse. I could always get invited to dinner if I made a visit to a certain couple at the right time of evening.
One of the faculty members was a veteran teacher and his wife was retired. I had met them at the faculty picnic in the city park the day before school opened in l966. I especially enjoyed visiting with her, as she was a reader and loved to discuss ideas. She never took a particular side on an idea, but rather like to explore all possible ways of looking at it.
Usually when I arrived she would say, "I've been thinking about . . . What do you think about that, Mike"? Or she would say, "Have a seat. What have you been thinking about?" She seemed to know when to ask that. She was intuitive and usually knew when I had an idea floating around in my mind.
We'd bounce our thoughts back and forth and before you knew it her husband would come in from his office and say, "It's time to eat. Mike had better stay and eat with us." Thank goodness! There was no food at home.
Once she said to me, "Mike, you will be remembered as a philosopher, not an artist." That surprised me, because as a twenty-three year old I was idealistic and thought that someday, just maybe, I could be "an artist." Honestly, I didn't even know that being "philosophic" meant. Never had I read any book of philosophy. So I didn't really give much credence to her comment.
Since that time I have read widely in the philosophies of the East and the West and I've read religious philosophies of great thinkers from around the world. Answers to the questions that she and I raised so many years ago have come slowly. They have led in one direction and then in another, been redirected and refined.
Literally thousands of books have been written by men and women seeking to discover the meaning of life; seeking to discover what its purpose is. Surely the average person has asked, "What is it that I am supposed to be accomplishing in my life?"
To have truly lived we must ask, "What Idea is my life expressing? How do I expend my daily energies? What do I think about? What do I say to others? What actions do I perform?"
By looking at my daily life, I find the answers; that is how I find out what Ideal my life is expressing.
As the pages of my daily life are turned, leaf by leaf, I find myself revealed. I learn who I am. I come to know the Idea being expressed through my life.
Am I a caring person or neglectful of others? Am I compassionate or disregarding of others? Do I offer forgiveness or seek vendettas? Do I extend goodness or meanness to others? Do I show kindness or vindictiveness? Do I express love or hate? Am I sharing or greedy?
The book of my daily life contains the answer. The pages must be carefully read.
(written February, 2000)
Posted: Wed - January 25, 2006 at 03:50 PM
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"Chance favors only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
"Art arises from basic needs-a strong need to express and celebrate our everyday events.
In a museum most people spend less than twenty seconds looking at a work of art."
"Art arises from basic needs-a strong need to express and celebrate our everyday events.
In a museum most people spend less than twenty seconds looking at a work of art."
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Published On: Jan 25, 2006 03:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 25, 2006 03:50 PM