| This is an era of ever-tightening budgets and | | | | demands your energy and attention to maintain it. The |
| precarious performance in students' basic skills. It's an | | | | promise of contentment that it made to you once |
| era of 'No Child Left Behind', although very many still | | | | upon a time remains disturbingly unkept. |
| are. Many inner-city schools are in disrepair, school | | | | There's a hunger in the human soul that material things |
| supplies are hard to come by, and teachers are | | | | just cannot satisfy, and it's only at midlife, when you've |
| generally ridiculously under-paid (and often have to | | | | done a good deal of your accumulating, that you begin |
| donate classroom supplies out of their own pockets). | | | | to notice it. It's a hunger to create as well as to be |
| When push comes to shove, the school budgets get | | | | nourished by deeper - soul-stirring - meaning. Humans |
| pared down along with nearly everything else. What | | | | just aren't fully human without aesthetic and artistic |
| does that say about us? | | | | expression. The famous stone age cave paintings of |
| Actually, the state of education in the US bears | | | | Lascaux weren't put there by some hired interior |
| eloquent testimony to our practical values. I say | | | | designer. They weren't zoological diagrams, blueprints, |
| 'practical values' to distinguish them from our | | | | or productivity-enhancements. They were aesthetic |
| 'theoretical values', which are far different. Theoretically, | | | | creations that somehow communicated something far |
| we value hard work, education, moral rectitude, the | | | | deeper and more fundamental than words could ever |
| flag, mom, and apple pie. In practice, we value | | | | convey between human souls. Even today, they |
| entertainment. That's what we spend most of our | | | | somehow very deeply touch our common humanity - |
| thoughts, time, and wealth on. Entertainment heads up | | | | the essence of who we are - across vast distances |
| this list of our practical national values because that's | | | | of time and space. |
| what we worry most about. | | | | There's a longing in your heart to create and to leave |
| But I digress. In an age that would rather cut | | | | something of yourself (your true inner self) behind that |
| educational budgets rather than inconvenience the | | | | goes beyond mere reproduction. Your children are |
| population (remember those opinion polls and all those | | | | certainly your legacy, but is that all you want to leave |
| up-coming elections), Popular wisdom insists that the | | | | behind? What's the price you pay in your soul for |
| remaining dollars be spent on reading, math, science | | | | stifling your inner creativity? What do you ultimately |
| and (the often-unlisted essential) sports rather than | | | | lose, and is it worth it? |
| wasting them on artistic frivolousness like fine arts, | | | | Furthermore, the undeniable longing that may lie hidden |
| music, literature, dance, or theater. These things don't | | | | and unrecognized until midlife also expresses itself in a |
| contribute to the gross national product, they don't | | | | hunger to be fed with meaning that goes far beyond |
| enhance our position in international academics, and | | | | the chatter of the evening news or the talking heads |
| they aren't amenable to measurement by | | | | arguing endlessly about issues that will very soon be |
| standardized testing. In short, they're a waste of time | | | | 'yesterday's news.' Despite all the budget cuts and |
| and money. | | | | program droppings of our bottom-line-obsessed |
| Sadly, this all-too-short-sighted (but fairly prevalent) | | | | society, people still dig into their souls, distill what they |
| opinion can have a devastating affect on people | | | | find there (the attractive as well as the repulsive), and |
| experiencing the midlife transition. I say this because | | | | serve up the potent liquor of raw emotion in all the arts |
| even when 'practical' knowledge has yielded its | | | | I listed earlier. Time and energy spent with the arts is |
| harvest of career and income and all the toys and | | | | only wasted if you measure the results in dollars and |
| bells and whistles that come with it, the human spirit | | | | cents. But the value of dollars and cents doesn't hold |
| discovers itself surprisingly unsatisfied, overburdened, | | | | up well against the challenges of midlife. Then it's the |
| and yet longing for more. What you've gained and | | | | longings of the soul that take precedence: longings that |
| what you have suddenly turn into burdens. The more | | | | need to be satisfied, otherwise something even more |
| 'stuff' you accumulate, the more it owns you: it | | | | precious than life itself may be lost: your humanity. |