Old Possessions
From my childhood and youth I have kept every last school note I ever wrote. I kept everything. I've got filing cabinets filled with school work from primary school to graduate school. Well, it’s not literally true, but it’s close enough, I think.
Why?
It’s a good question that needs to be answered forcefully in order to address the load of wrong thinking that so many people cultivate their entire lives
I keep all of that stuff 1) because I want to; 2) because it's nice to look back on a lost world, a world that was as real as the current world is, a world that is not less real or due less regard simply because it has passed; and most importantly, 3) as an act of Grace towards all the fools - including myself - who participated in the pretense that it was not all folly to begin with. I am being gracious towards the fiction (and to those who hold the fiction) that our schoolwork was important. Or, at least, as important as we thought it was at the time. To dispose as rubbish all the old school work - after the end of the school year, or after graduation, or after the passage of time - exposes the lies and pretense of the notion that school and schoolwork were important. If it wasn’t important then why the hell did I work so hard at school? So preserving them serves that vanity.
I am being gracious towards the fiction that our schoolwork was important. Or, at least, as important as we thought it was at the time.
♦
If it wasn’t important then why the hell did I work so hard at school?
As adults who endured school we know perfectly well how stupid and awful it all was. Teachers, principals and School Board directors know perfectly well the depravity of it. They endured it as students themselves, so how could they not know? But it is socially inappropriate to admit it.
I hold onto that stuff as an act of Grace towards those who foisted that pretense on us - a pretense that I lived with the sincerity of a schoolboy. Today, pretense is one of my most disliked features of humanity, despite the well-established fact that pretense is both important and necessary in our social lives. Faith in the importance of our endeavors is a conceit we use to help create meaning in a largely meaningless Cosmos. Today, I am a teacher. I have been for many years. But I have no illusions and make no pretense about my work, my work environment and my colleagues. At least, not when it counts, anyway. But I could be wrong.
Faith in the importance of our endeavors is a conceit we use to help create meaning in a largely meaningless Cosmos.
I admit that the time for keeping those old paper things is rapidly evaporating. It has to do with my decision to redistribute my large book collection that I have written about before. The decision has been taken and is already being acted upon to downsize my collection to material stuff in storage in Canada. These filing cabinets of old school notes are in storage together with boxes containing my library (and boxes containing kitchenware and tableware, too). As I slowly empty the storage unit with each visit to Canada I will eventually deal with everything else stored there as well.
Oh, and I kept my teddy bear as well. His name is Theodore Edward Bear (Ted E. Bear). I don't sleep with him anymore out of respect for his physical condition. But he sits on a chair next to my bed, facing my pillow. Sweet dreams are made of these.