Here’s the thing. If we don’t do something to improve the world it’s not going to happen. You can’t depend on the Yahoos in government – many are just on a power quest, or digging for money. So if something good is going to happen you have to do it. It may be tiny, but it adds up.
So, How did I came to this conclusion. It was a bit bizzare, but it all was because I was asked a question:
I think she was interested in breaking up, but looking for a good reason to. She sat us down, grasped my hand, looked me in the eye, and asked me what I was interested in doing in the world. The question flummunxed me for a while. I knew what I wanted, but I don’t think anyone had actually asked me to encapsulate it in a statement.
After thinking about it for a moment, I responded that I wanted to, in some small, way improve the world. She sighed, smiled sadly, and I knew that I had failed the test. She wanted to hear that after my doctorate, I’d teach at some Ivy League college, write important papers in prestigious journals and be a great academic anthropologist. I had chosen, but not wisely. I might as well work as a carpenter or some other manual skill. Just not suitable as a partner to her, she planned on Harvard, Yale or maybe in a hardship UCLA. Thinking back on this years later my observation is one word: Strange!
A way forward
Instead of the doctorate the noise at my Department of Anthropology gradually drove me away and I wound up working as an applied anthropologist. I relished it. I did documentation projects on local culture, developed library collections based on the needs of national populations and ethnic groups, and wonderful cultural programs that drew community members from across all ethnic boundaries. Eventually some of those local programs drew larger attention and I worked for the federal government on a slightly more generous scale, but doing the same thing. I was doing what I said I wanted to do and had helped communities.
Later, after the government jobs ended I found myself working as a videographer and show producer in a small Massachusetts community. Once again the applied anthropology came forward to produce shows on local traditions, culture and history. I was invited to co-teach a workshop teaching video skills to middle school kids, and it turned into a decade long twice a week enrichment program on television production and media literacy. The programs that the kids produced amazed teachers and parents. I felt proud, I had helped empower the next generation.
Footnotes and Citations?
I haven’t left behind any great works that people will be footnoting, and citing for generations. But then I’m not sure that all that footnoting and citations actually make a positive impact directly on peoples and community lives, and that’s what I aimed to do.
This is what gave me direction in my professional life. It wasn’t all, but if you’ve read the blog for a while you may have found out about the marine woodcarving, and Pius Itinerancy.
Oh, and yes the young lady did break up with me. And as a result I spent lots of time thinking about my answer to her, and realizing that it was the true answer and direction for me.
Plus!
And yes, I did wind up teaching anthropology for a small college with a nursing school. They wanted an anthropologist with a medical background to teach how anthropology applied to nursing in their degree program. After leaving grad school I wound up returning to the operating room and working in a medical/ surgical hospital setting for two years. It had been what I had done as a younger man before college. The college felt that my academic, applied and practical background were perfect. It was a lovely three years teaching nursing students who would in turn have much to do with making lives better.
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Sometimes that little push in the right direction is directly related to unanswered prayers. Loved this.
Thank you!
This is beautiful and very wise. I figure I must’ve gotten something right at least once, but I’ll never know what it was. Still, I did teach upward of 10,000 young people writing, communication and critical thinking. Something MUST have gelled in there somewhere. The other part? I don’t think I’ve made things worse anywhere. That’s really not nothing. I often think of Goethe’s words, “What a poor good thing is man after all.” It’s true. I think most of us do the best we can. I have to believe evil is a rare thing, it’s just that it’s brightly colored, loud and exceptional.
I deadly serious about what I wrote in the first paragraph – we can’t depend on the politician or the famous ones. Tehy are on power trips or trying to extract wealth from the situation. It was all the rest of us who were in the trenches who really make it all happen.
Upward of 10,000? I’d say that you were carrying more than your fair share of the load.
In my current reality, your answer that you wanted to make the world a better place is the perfect answer. But… I think when I was in my twenties and lacking much of my current wisdom, I would have thought that was the wrong answer. At that time in my life, I needed an economic partner, and got stuck with too many dreamy men who ended up unemployed while I supported them. I wouldn’t have had the courage to take that chance again knowingly. It looks like it worked out for both of us in the end, though. <3
Your life is an interested story. Your blog should be around for a long, long time. It will inspire others to “do something”