MONDAY, 6 DECEMBER 2004
Value and meaning, and the insight of children
Sometimes a quarter of an hour will pass, or a whole hour … maybe a few hours or an entire day when you just react without having any significant experiences or thinking any thoughts that you would consider worth writing down, if you were in the habit of doing so.
What value do these times have? Do they simply ensure continuity in a life that hopefully includes more meaningful moments?
Another question: What does it say about your existence if more significant moments are so irregular that you want to burst into tears when they do occur?
* * *
Judy, a six year-old student in my one class, got up from her desk, walked up to me where I was sitting behind my desk in the front of the classroom and said, “I saw you talking to someone, but I couldn’t see who. Now I see you’re talking to the eraser.”
[And it wasn’t even my eraser …]
TUESDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2004
For years I kept saying, “Place, place, place!” Only later did I figure out place is conducive to something – definition of identity. Identity in turn is conducive to something else, namely successful functioning. The latter is, however, not the alpha and omega of human existence. I believe 99 out of every hundred people stop at identity and successful functioning. Very few move beyond that …
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