In response to my last reflection, an e-colleague from a southern
university, asked me, "How do you live a life that matters? "
"Good question," I replied. Then, as dangling bait, I added, "Living
life is like sermonizing. You give a more effective sermon with your life
walking among people than with your lips from the distance and heights of a
pulpit. You live with your heart, not just your words. Or, as they say, you
have to 'put your money where your mouth is.'"
She took it. "So what sermon does a life that counts give?" was the
question with which she came back.
"'Love!'" I replied. "I had this fantasy that came within a
proverbial hare's breathe to being a reality at the Lilly conference last
November. I wanted to walk into my session, 'T.U.I.: Teaching Under the
Influence,' and say only, 'Love, love, love, love." And sit down. But, I
chickened out at the last minute. I hope you're not rolling your eyes. I told
you that I had a bunch of 'one thing I hope students would learn.' 'Love'
wasn't going to be my second 'one thing,' but it is now. It really should have
been my first since it has been my first principle of living since 1991.
Anyway, during the 'What Do You Want To Know About Me' session at the beginning
of the term, when the students invariably ask why my right pinky is painted and
why I teach the way I do, I tell them, 'Because I love each of you without any
strings attached.' Sure, they snicker and even wiggle because it makes them
uncomfortable. They don't know what to make of a prof who said what I had just
said. Heck, I know a lot of profs would be doing the same thing. Back to the
students. They then will always ask me how other profs feel about me using
that word. I tell them that 'love' is a word, feeling, and action I love. I
tell them that I often explicitly have written about it, that it's there
between almost all my lines, and that it's the backbeat of everything I think,
feel, and do. I tell them that I'm not afraid to say it and that I'm not
embarrassed by it. And, if anyone winces or sneers or laughs or criticizes,
when I do say or write it, I remember one thing. It's their issue, not mine;
it's a reflection of them, not of me."
We talked a lot more. The gist of my end of the conversation was that
in an academic world that holds tightly to the myth of cold, distant,
disengaged "objectivity," it's hard for that word to roll off the lips of so
many academics or administrators. In academia we have a strong "intellectual
culture" or "cognitive culture," and a very weak "emotional culture" or
"affective culture." In fact, we constantly are struggling to separate them
when they're really inseparable. Emotions are behind behavior, intentions,
thoughts, perceptions, choices. They're the backbeat of everything we think,
feel, and do. Nevertheless, we academics pay so close attention to the
intellect and give emotions such short shrift. Yet, we live in a world where
there is constant need to state something that is as obvious as the noses on
our faces: we each are a human being, and human beings beings. None of us is a
"unit;" none is a number; none is a source; none is a resource; none is a
statistic; none is a chart; none is a weed. All are sacred, noble, unique.
None of us should ever forget that. None of us should accept that. None of us
should act like that.
As I finished up my end of the conversation, I told my colleague,
"Nothing we do is without the feeling and enacting of emotion, the most
fundamental and most powerful of which is love. I didn't hesitate a wit to
repeat that I loved them throughout the term to them as a whole or individually
if an occasion arose when they needed to hear that again and again and again
and during 'closure' on the final day of class. In fact, the first of
'Schmier's words for the day' that I write on the whiteboard during the
community building 'getting to know ya' stuff we do in beginning weeks of the
term, before we're dealing with the subject matter, was what I told you:
'Whatever you do, make your life a "love story." And slowly, maybe even
painfully, certainly uncomfortably, over the course of the term, so many become
believers; so many begin to see at various times in various ways for various
reasons to various extents, as I did twenty-three years ago, that love is a
guide into a world hitherto unimagined and otherwise inaccessible. You ought to
read a recent study coming out from Pennsylvania's Wharton School and George
Mason's School of Management, 'What Does Love Have To Do With It?' It's
answer, like mine, is simply 'everything.' So,again, to answer your question:
make your life a 'love story,' and your life will matter. And, there are more
'one thing.' Later."
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
203 E. Brookwood Pl http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta, Ga 31602
(C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\
/\
/^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__
/ \ / \
/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/ / \ /\ \
//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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