Inherently...

In eight grade, I had this really horrendous English teacher who's anonymity we will attempt to preserve by calling her Mrs. J. She was horrendous for a multitude of reasons, the least of them being that, after 8 months of teaching me, she still found it impossible to remember my name, choosing instead to confuse me with my best friend, who was about a foot shorter then me in both hair and height. I can't tell you how many times she counted my absent because of her failure to connect my name with my face. Seriously, my mother thought I was cutting class and running around like some kind of a crazy hoodlum because she kept getting those automated phone calls from the school:

BEEP! "Blah blah blah introduction to message YOU'RE CHILD LAUREN ACOSTA HAS MISSED ONE OR MORE CLASSES TODAY WHICH OBVIOUSLY MEANS SHE HAS BEEN DOING HORRIFIC THINGS AND IS HEADED FOR FAILURE blah blah blah closing remarks" (crunkle crinkle click dial tone).

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OK, so maybe that wasn't the EXACT automated message, I'm trying to translate it for you the way my mother heard it.

Anyhow, somehow, despite the fact that Mrs. J seemed to hate me so much that learning my name was beyond her and that class was about as educational as an episode of Hannah Montana, I about to make use of one of her many (and mostly failed) attempts at a class activity. We had just finished reading Anne Frank, and Mrs J, in a rare and most likely accidental stroke of genius, had the class separate according to whether they thought human beings were inherently good or inherently bad. The class filtered slowly to our like-minded sides of the room, a few students standing confused in the center of the room before finally committing to their opinion. About 3/4 of the class had joined me on the side of the room reserved for people who thought humans were inherently good. The remainder stood across from us. Mrs. J (in another unheard of flash of brilliance) had each side explain why they thought humans were inherently good or bad. And it was funny... because when we were trying to explain and support our opinions, it was like we were talking about two sides of the same coin. Basically, you either thought humans were good and did some bad things, or you thought they were bad and did some good things. And the thing is, whatever side you were on, you understood the other side of the argument. In fact, the arguments were using the same evidence: good and bad actions and thoughts. But each side took the sum of these actions and thoughts to mean different things.

Our explanations were like 2 sides of a coin: we were describing the same thing but concentrating on different parts of it.

http://z.about.com/d/coins/1/5/U/-/-/-/coin-anatomy-1.jpg

There were a few instances in How Can I Help where Ram Dass reminded me of this particular activity. He says that "We take pleasure... in what we [do to help]" (5) and talks about the unity that arises from out "innate generosity" (5), citing examples of times when "caring is a reflex" (5). And yet... and yet... he is forced to admit that "all too often, helping isn't happening at all" (9).

There we have it: the good and the bad, lumped together, the inner struggle between "generosity and resistance, self-sacrifice and self- protectiveness" (9).

I don't know what Mrs. J was trying to have us take from that class activity: being the WONDERFUL teacher that she was, she never went any farther with it after having had us explain our positions. But, after having put on my thinking cap and combined the activity with How Can I Help You, I'm thinking that the merit of that activity lay not in the assignment of "inherently good" or " inherently bad" to the human race. I think that the recognition of the good AND the bad that humans posess was more important.

Growing up, you hear over and over again that you can do anything you put your mind to. This is usually accompanied by some awe- inspiring story, which impresses you when you're 5, but fails to impress you by the time you turn 12 because, quite honestly, you've been around the block a few times and you're pretty sure this story is either completely made up or, if true, unlikely enough that you're better off treating it as a fairy tale then believing something remotely similar could happen to you.

The stories that accompany the statement "you can do anything" often seem like fairy tales, much like Snow White.

http://thepartygoddess.com/blog/media/blogs/Food/fairytale.jpg

OK. So it's a fairy tale. SO WHAT. I really, really wish that everyone would just shut up, and pretend that they're 5, and bring tinker bell back to life by screaming at the top of their lungs that they do believe in fairies.

Look. It's obvious that we want to believe the fairy tale, that we want it to be real. Have you watched a movie lately? For crying out loud, Hillary Duff actually decided to make a movie called " A Cinderella Story". So why don't we just decide that it's possible, that the penny we just gave that homeless man on the street won't go to buy him another beer, that if we lend our favorite dress to our little sister it won't come back stained and in shreds?

Fairy tales are hard to believe though, even for me, and let's face it: I'm the queen of fairy tales. So, whenever I'm wavering, I think back to a quote I read in Of Beetles and Angels by Mawi Asgedom.

"People always mistreated the angels, my father said, because the angels never looked like angels. They were always disguised as the lowliest of beetles and beggars, vagrants, and misfits. No matter how much strangers resembled beetles, my father always maintained that they could be angels, given to us by God to test the deepest sentiments of our hearts." (29)

And I know that this line probably brings to mind the hobo in Bruce Almighty, with his cardboard sign that held messages from Morgan Freeman (aka God). But beyond all the cheesiness of the quote, and the Hollywood spin on the idea, the message is nice, you know? And I really feel like if we could just find little ways to multiply on the good part of humanity, we could

1. build a more ethically sound and happy world, and

2. move all of those sad, sad people who think that human beings are inherently bad and there's no fixing our wicked ways over to my side of the room :)

OK, so though I was unable to find any clips or pictures of the hobo in this movie, I have provided for you the trailer, which should encourage you to watch the movie so you can know what I'm talking about :)