#edumaction

I just took a look at the rankings of my old high school back in New Jersey. Wow, meeting the Standards for English language and the ever challenging Mathematics, too.

I was about to organize a parade or at least text the news to a few fellow alumni with whom I stay in touch when I read further. “Fourth through seventh grade.” So my dear ol’ Alma Mater, Underperforming High, home of the Fightin’ Redlining Realtors (our mascot wore an ill fitting blazer) was achieving standards of grade school and junior high school students as a high school.

Oh.

I sorta get it; the factories closed decades ago and poverty among the still segregated communities that make up the sending districts is twice the State average, but still, gee whiz.

That’s all I have left to say. Gee whiz.

Oh, I know you dint ast, but youse can drop the Federal Department of Education any time now. Dey ain’t doin’ a goddam thing for my school.

See youse at the reunion?

If I asked you to hold your breath for no apparent reason other than my own want to see you turn blue, in order to entertain myself, would you accommodate my request? If you knew this act would perpetrate injustice though maintain perceived balance would you allow it for “the better good”. If you answered no, then what if I told you it was the law?

Is choice just another antiquated overinflated and over extended ideology that’s meanings lost all hope and dignity? Is choice really choice? Surely the current climate would suggest that individual choice is irrelevant, yet not irrelevant enough not to be taken advantage of?

(There is unique individual power in this last sentence; remember your choice however vague to the ears it falls upon is most relevant if constructive)

Be them of passive or aggressive intent or combinations of both, guised indifferences offered as choice burn dark shadows on this mostly unrealised and forgotten human ideology, nurturing unbalanced conceptions and exploitations rife with hypocrisy. By hypocritical dominion alone following the environment around yourself in order to maintain the status quo is the perfect example of the broken leading the blind into the umpteenth repetitious cycle of ego and subsequent indecision.

Choice and ego, like oil and water if shaken hard and fast enough, you too also could be convinced, they will mix. For any singular individual to underestimate the capacity of their own thought process is a loss of human dignity. Wants and needs are two very different beasts of choice and like oil and water they differentiate necessity from the malignancy of overly abused power.

Personally, I too have unknowingly surrendered my choice upon reflection when it became apparent that in actual fact, I was no longer in possession of it; or at least that is what I was led to believe. Many ego’s including my own were drowning in what I believe most saw as light, truth, choice. Was I by default setting becoming a burden of individual, societal and collective disappointment? Perhaps here is a realisation we all must learn from.

Why can it seem as though we are so hung up on the currency of choice rather than its concepts of option, growth and constructive realisation?

Pin pointing the exact moment choice lost its meaning seems futile and redundant. Evolution of this once potentially constructive ideology is required if choice is to be valued today and, in the future. Rather than commoditized and taxed; perhaps the willingness to accept choice should indeed come from a place of honest togetherness rather than bias opinion.

What of obligation within choice? I often naively have confused the two, yet mostly we are led to believe in the symbiotic relationships between both. Destructive obligations make strange bed fellows with choice; whilst constructive individual choice extends the hands of opportunity and progression regardless of age, class, religion, sex or sexuality. This is the essential, beneficial and constructive make up or DNA of informed and educated conscious choice.

Obligation is defined as an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment. Example: "I have an obligation to look after her". Similarly obligation can be defined as responsibility, moral imperative, function, task, job, chore, assignment, burden. Such a minefield of markers used to exact an inorganic and forced choice rather than garner an individual’s authentic and organic response seems very one-sided. Choice ought to be liberating; something to witness, to believe in, and, most of all to feel no pressure in providing, for its providence is not only profound, but productive when offered authentically.

“And just like the wave and the wave preceding it, the water too shall come ashore in its own time; destined is its truth. Tide nor turmoil govern, honest reflection guides, certain of one thing, the truth; the shore”

“Ah, and how the light was shining, they had learnt the hard lessons of choice; decisions never to be taken lightly. Obligation seemed to supress, yet freedom of choice when used constructively unlocked the tightest of chains. Unbound; they, we, and us all, were freed today; come what may.”  

-UNKNOWN

What is it to oblige one’s self? Is obligation necessary? Or the harbinger of choice?

From whom do the conditions under which you may be morally or legally bound to do something that you find immorally or illegally differential substantiated?

Are you under obligation to stick to their scheme? Is your direction or choice a debt of gratitude for service or favour? "Obligation dictates often that he or she didn't want to be under an obligation to him or her". The question to be asked here is obvious. Did they have a choice?

Confusing to a fault can anyone choose anything anymore? Is it now out of antiquated choice or one-sided “mutual obligation” that options are displayed seeking the highest human quotient in popularity bending and leaning toward segregation rather than the integration of constructive thought?

Is it just me or have we been here before?

“Cyclical was there nature to a fault that they believed they were the earth! Repetition of conquest dictated destruction. How choice obliged her to reconcile”

In the countdown to Christmas, I’ve had my ear to the ground, in hopes of discovering, a jingling sound.

After patiently waiting, and walking the streets, I believe I’ve found the perfect story, a real Christmas treat.

Down on the corner is a house, light pistachio green. There is a mother, a father, a bright little boy, and a little mouse, in a little house, that the little boy, calls Roy,  

Roy’s house is found, down on the ground, in a small hole in the hallway near where the hat stand is found.

Roy is small, round, and brown, polite to a T. Roy is the way he was born to be, polite and caring, just the way he wants to be. Roy lives alone, no other mice here you see. It is just mum dad, Roy and me.

So, I wrote to Santa, asking for nothing this year. Instead, I asked jolly Santa to send Roy a family, and a golden bell, brimming with cheer. That was the little boys, living is giving, Christmas idea.

On the eve of Christmas, we all placed gifts underneath the tree. I had made mine myself for mummy and daddy. My mummy’s name is Patricia while my Daddy’s name is Paddy.

I made a tiny tree for Roy that I left by his hole in the wall. He came out smiling, his nose twitched, I think he was glad. So glad for it all.

As I drifted to sleep, I thought of my dear Santa letter. Wishing Roy’s gifts would be delivered, making Roy happier, for the better.

When I woke Christmas morning, I was sure happy to see, that indeed no gift from Santa was left for me under the tree.

I then looked to the ground, where Roy’s house is found. I felt a tingle, I shivered, then I heard a jingle, a tiny bell was singing, singing to me, it was underneath Roy’s tiny Christmas tree.

I blinked my eyes, Roy was not alone, he had a new mouse friend now, now his house was a home. His friend was white, as white as snow. I named the little white mouse, I named him Jerome.

I was oh so happy, and oh so pleased, that I knelt down and cried, I cried on my knees. They weren’t tears of sadness, but tears of joy, for the golden bell, and Jerome, and Roy as well.

Next thing you know, by the tree magically did appear, a letter addressed, “To Roy’s Little Boy”. It just kept getting better, and better, it was simply the best.

I opened the envelope, inside was a note, a note from Santa, this is what Santa’s note wrote.

“Dear Little Boy, I was so pleased to read, your choice about giving to others in need. You requested no gift, a true Christmas sacrifice. It wasn’t long before the elves told my wife. Mrs Claus is the reason Roy has his new friend, but this letters not over, until you get to the end. Your love for others, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, really is something to see. Little boy now look up now, look up at the tree. I left you a present, I have left you a key. This key is special, it unlocks a chest, within it is placed what you love the best. My dearest child, always believe, that giving is better than receiving, especially when others are most in need.”

This is the story my ear found on the ground. A Christmas treat, pure and sweet, with the all-important jingling sound.  I hear you all asking “What was in the little boy’s chest?”

“Come back again, I’ll tell you all next year, wait and see, watch this space. What was found in the chest is GOLDEN at best. The makings perhaps of a modern family……

                                        Merry Christmas.

why my universities and me have a love/hate relationship