81.

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance

today i spoke about truth with sixteen year olds. what’s the point, i asked? why do we go sit in nature, seek silence in solitude, escape from the otherness that we are not? why seek truth and why, why, why must we be alone to find it? my floating about the classroom and flailing of my arms like a crazed orchestra leader fairy lady was met with a strange combination of shouldershrugmelodramaticsighhhhh. “Well,” says one angel baby. “i think what he’s (Emerson, y’all) saying is that we have to seek solitude because all else (see: society, shoulds, age of reason) messes us up." this warrants a big smile from teacher lady. go on, I say…

teacher lady: what’s the point?

student 2: to get away

TL: from what? why?

student 3: from society. from other people. to seek out truth.

TL: who’s truth?

student 1: um, well, everyone’s?

student 2: no, no. your own truth. “little t” truth

TL: who cares? why is that important? sounds boring.

student 4: i think, what he’s saying, is we have to be alone to be honest with ourselves. like, we have to be quiet and alone to really hear ourselves.

TL: ah? why do we need to talk to ourselves

student: well, we have to know who we really are. to discover baby t truth so we can set out to find the big T truth.

[victory smile. arms flop by the side of teacher lady.]

so this is my day job – to talk baby t’s and big T’s. it’s not that glamorous, though. check your jealousy at the door as my night job is a forever unfolding extension of said day job. i read, plan minute by minute discussion prompts, activities, explorations, grade, grade, grade, and work on remembering how to teach kids things that may or may not enhance their brain power (secretly their heart/spirit power too). boy do i stress as i work through the knowledge that high schoolers are my present and i want to give ‘em all i got, but sometimes I wonder if they are my future. conversations like the one above really fill me up and get my wheels turning about my own truths. my own future. this truth-seeking business has been a point of deliberation with a lot of my dear ones lately vis-à-vis future plans.

I’d like to write an open letter to Emerson explaining to him that I really feel him – the journey for our own personal truths is not an easy one to navigate. a good burden to bear, no doubt. a privilege to be stuck thinking about which direction, what goals, what successes we wish to choose from…we wish to gather the means in our attempts to fetch ‘em. yes, yes, that is quite a privilege.

tonight as i think on paths that lead away from fear or contentment and towards a more honest exploration of my self and this life, I simultaneously feel the weight that “not knowing” can unload on us and that tickle of inspiration that comes from possibility. my kiddos give me juicy bits of wisdom to chew on long after the last bell of the day has sounded. tonight i’m energized as i recollect the look on my student’s face as he slowly, with the uncertainty that only a precocious high school boy can have, tip-toed towards a revelation in regards to what Emerson was calling for in “Self-Reliance.”

Looking down…then up again as his confidence sprouted, he proclaimed that what is needed is “a revolution…of the mind.”

a revolution of the mind. truth.