Learn How to be Schooled

I continue from Sept 1st: Living in NYC is slightly different, where even $20/hr won’t get you by, but at least I’m getting by, slightly, for once in my life. And I’m proud of that accomplishment. I’m actually attempting to tackle the great beast, one body throw at a time. I just hope that I book something soon, or the beast will step on my head and pin me to the carpet. Donations from bankers or investors are accepted.

Sept. 5th: Today is a new day, and the city buses are now filled at 7:30am with students, teachers and administrators making their way to a new year. The air is filled with dread for some, excitement for others. I always enjoyed the first day, because work was sparse, the reunion began, and it was the promise of no mistakes made… yet. I had a clean slate, with new opportunities to shine or get by doing homework during lunch before next period.

But that excitement is only project-specific now, and not related to a school year cycle. And it’s been a while since I began a new project. I might have even felt that excitement my first day at my current survival-job at the investment bank. Oo, I got nervous to be an assistant.

My wife calls it the First Day of School whenever she starts a new show or project, because that feeling doesn’t really change with age or experience. She still gets nervous after performing on Broadway and working with famous performers, and the most brilliant singers in New York. It’s the expectations, and the hope that you’ll do well and make new friends, that gets your insides churning…

…I’m not feeling rather entertaining right now. I actually wrote a nice piece about my memories of Manhattan, pre-9/11, but it was erased while trying to publish it. Lesson learned, save the damn work before pushing the publish button.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel like I can move on.

The school year may have started, over a million students are back at school in New York City, and over six thousand new teachers are in place, but can we fix the problems of our age with education? Look at our society. We’re at war again and wagers of war have studied history. The Gulf Coast region still looks like a warzone, yet there are plenty of studied engineers and architects around. Mathematicians and economists have yet to figure out our re-grown national debt. AIDS is the new plague that has yet to be cured by science, not to mention cancer. People of the arts and journalists document our times, the good and the bad, but is anybody listening?

Fear is everywhere, swimming in the streets and floating in the fields, yet are we facing what it is we are truly afraid of?

At its root, all conflicts can be resolved, if both parties are willing to listen. But nobody is listening right now. They’re too busy firing bullets and exploding bombs to hear each other. And the leaders of every one of these conflicts comes highly educated. That’s why there is a call to ideals. We’re in... another… ideological struggle, so says both sides. Our highly evolved and educated societies stand for different things, therefore, our societies must attempt to destroy each other.

I know I’m wrong about that, but that’s what it feels like right now. Osama was educated but he became disillusioned and pissed off enough to hijack planes. Bush was educated at Yale, albeit C’s were common, but a C at Yale is better than an A at some Universities (I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt to W, because I sure as hell am not a W supporter).

And I’m one for education, I’m a product of it. I have learned quite a bit about the material world and the history of it, but there is so much we don’t know, or rather, choose to remember. There’s something out there that we’re not learning, and each generation isn’t learning in turn. Everyone in their heart knows these answers already, but what we've learned or failed to learn, is to listen to the true nature of our humanity. To listen to the child inside of us that is afraid of the first day of school because he or she wants to make friends and be accepted. But the child is also excited, because she has a chance to start over, a chance to make better on the mistakes of last year.

Let's start over and make friends.

School Children, Al Basrah, Iraq: Photo by Jane Sweeney