Limitations

 I am sitting here knowing I have to read for 1:15 class and it is 11:55am. But what am I doing? Blogging. Why? 

Because I don't want to have to sit in a class and compete and perform; show how much I know, and I would be rushing through 100 pages without grasping the majority of it. I don't want to perform for my professors or classmates, I want to take my time and absorb the book. 

But the more I go through schooling, the more i realize that we are in a continuous battle between efficiency and effectiveness. Under perfect conditions, we could take all the time we wanted to learn all the things we wanted to learn. But conditions are not perfect. We will always work within the constraints of time, unruly emotions, our own scheduling mistakes (overbooking), etc. So we have to learn to take these as a given and do what we can within these constraints. 

I'm reminded of Socrates who said that the philosopher (in search of truth) can never be a politician. And I think that his words illustrate this same tension. If we are in search of truth, we will be fighting against the constraints, protesting the time limits, dealing with life as it comes, breaking through the constraints for the sake of truth in every area. So that when unruly emotions get in the way of our work, we stop our work to deal with our unruly emotions, and when time constraints are placed on us, we do not abide by them for the sake of understanding all that is in front of us. We live our lives in protest of efficiency, letting effectiveness take precedence. The politician, by definition, must be aware of the limitations: Many interest groups are fighting for different ideas in a world of limitations. The needs of all will not be represented fully because the needs of one group necessitates taking away from another. The politician's job is to facilitate the best outcome in light of these ever-present constraints. Philosophers, troubadours, artists and mystics will attempt to live in the realm of the spiritual, emphasize the matters of the soul, trying to ignore the constraints--dwelling in the realm of the infinite while running away from the finite (Kierkegaard). 

And i find myself in the latter category. I must learn to embrace the finite, to engage what is in front of me in light of the constraints, and to not protest these limitations I am constantly up against. I do not have all the time in the world. I am limited, and I must accept that. I am not God--not omnipotent, not omniscient. I am constrained. 

Learning to embrace the constraints....

Learning stewardship when I have only been given one talent....

That guy with one talent did nothing with it. Did not invest it. He hid it in protest of the limitations, while the ones with five talents and ten talents invested their talents. At the end the one with the one talent was chastised for not investing. The trick here was not what you had it was what you did with it. And perhaps i have 10 talents but if I do nothing with it; if i hide it in protest of the limitations I am up against I will have failed. 

the ivory tower

Yesterday I met with one of my favorite people in the world. She's one of those grassroots people--stays connected with persons and places we don't like to be bothered with. She befriends the homeless and kids we consider to be thugs and criminals. And she said something to me: "We love you, we just don't like the academia." She was referring to the arrogance that comes from the ivory tower. It's a little ironic, though...because I find myself reacting against that ivory tower phenomenon in my classes, often getting over-emotional about how arrogant we can become. i often get angry about the inherent power dynamics within academia's relationship to the rest of the world. I get angry at the Western world's enlightenment thinking and the way it condescends latin America, forcing it to become its project,  guinea pig and subject. However, its all relative right? 

Because in relation to the college I attend, I am the grassroots person, defending the ideas and experiences of those outside of academia. But in relation to those outside academia, I represent the ivory tower...and I am blind to my own propensity to intellectualize the world around me--their world. It's a class issue, no? 

This woman went on to say, "We become the very thing we hate, Annery." She said, "In the same way that you get angry about the ways men may treat you unfairly or condescendingly, its the same thing when you bring academia in here--the same feeling." 

So its interesting....that we can live in one space; yet, worlds apart. And border-crossers who often are in yet another world--trying to reconcile all the worlds they dwell in, and never fully in one or the other. So....the question for me is: Can I keep this up? Dwelling in two (or more) worlds without fully engaging either?