Reciprocation

Dr Yong says that, as educators, we're in the enterprise of knowledge. We have little to offer but our knowledge and our intellect. And that's all we really have to offer the world. It isn't worth much economically, with particular regard to our discipline, but it's all we've got to be proud of.

We're in an enterprise that requires us to give of ourselves daily, to impart knowledge, possibly, in all delusion, wisdom, skill, ethics and attitudes. We don't ask for very much - at least I do not in the light of a tormenting consciousness that reminds me of how emotional neediness is entrapment.
But when I look around, at those whom I think I'm cultivating, I wonder ... in despair and disillusionment.

Apathy, indifference, amoral utilitarianism, commodity fetishism, ungratefulness, selfishness, vindictiveness, vicious competition, a false sense of achievement, misplaced egoism, superficiality, trivialness ... they characterise much of the young today. There is no gratitude for the things that they've been given, for the gifts they've been granted, for the concern - however little - they've been awarded.

Perhaps that may be a hasty generalisation but all generalisations are a formulation of the complexities conceived by repeated observations and daily encounters. It may not be absolute truth but it holds some semblance of an observed reality.

In the dusk of a short but eventful, not necessarily always fulfilling, career, I look back to see how much I've done. The closetted humanist in me hopes I've made that little difference in some of these lives whose paths have crossed with mine, even if it had just been for a short while. I look to see who remembers, who recalls, who cherishes. I glance above my shoulder in hope, in a naive and romantic fashion, that perhaps the many lost hours of sleep, the recurring illnesses, the anxiety attacks, the weight loss, the time devoted, the emotional energy expanded, the bewildering disappointments, the concern given, the material sacrifices made, the future put on hold - all that which has been given both material and immaterial - have made some difference in the lives of these young ones as they search painfully for their place in life. It is perhaps vanity that I hope I've helped them discover themselves as worthy of self love, as deserving of being their own persons even if they didn't conform to the norm, as individuals who could appreciate themselves for who they are and not for the achievements they desperately seek to etch on an invisible plaque.

I'm not seeking the impossible ... just the humanly necessary in some measured quantity that could help me to move forward knowing that the past meant something. But most often, I look back, from the here and now, with merely sadness and disappointment.

Because I too seek reciprocation. I would like the warmth of concern too even as I give unquestioningly and unreservedly.

And that's all I'm asking for...