NO I will not sit and wait while you tell me to listen. While you tell me the arguments which you give and have given again and again: “We must be reasonable, we have jobs to do, responsibilities, duties, people aren’t interested, they don’t care, forget it, you’ll never win, you can’t change anything.”
None of this was ever true.
You sit in your meetings pretending to represent us, pretending to be equals with men who give you half an ear, if you’re lucky. They were there before you, will be there after you – what interest do they have in listening to you? Those who voted for you, where are they? Drinking, studying, passing another day. When do you talk to us and what do you say? Perhaps students are not capable of knowing, they do not think of what they really do and what they have and what they want. And why would they need to? “That's why we were elected. Behind closed doors we fight for what is right, students don't care about the nitty gritty, we do the hard work for them so they don't have to. Don't try and tell me they could ever want anything more , they elected me didn't they? I'll do my job – I work for them. I'm just doing the best by them.” Which is what exactly? When did you ask us? And what do you tell us of what you see , of what you do, of what you think? A little morsel of truth comes out, every now and again, if you're looking closely and listening hard.
So we sit mostly numb, unconscious to all that matters, unaware of what you will never tell us. Numbed by the system which provides us with this brittle cocoon, but it was never so comfortable anyway. You maintain it, our little temporary shelter, or is it a blindfold? The poverty and cruelty of reality seeps in at the edges, but you take little notice. It does not interest you. “We all have a right to education, these days we study to get a job, you knew that when you came here. Why did you come here anyway? It’s money you want isn’t it, or what? Do you have some faded illusion of something better? Ha – you’ll forget that pretty soon. This is the big city, this is where the money is made: we can help you on to the ladder if you’ll only help yourself...”
Help myself, yes I just might. What lies beneath I wonder? Questions rise, slow steady growth of ideas, expanding, spreading until roots and branches stretch in every direction. I think of what I do, my position, situation, history, future – worlds of possibility and reality. Between them many steps lie, but I see them, that first step – questions, leading to thinking, leading to action, leading to change.
Is it so hard? Or is it that you just underestimate us? Of course we can think, they train us in that; how to learn and regurgitate at a later date. But this thinking, probing the lines of our learning itself – this scares you, but you know of it. You know of it and choose to ignore it. “Don't be such a romantic. Nothing would ever come of it any way. These thoughts are the whisper of a dream of a nothing. Grow up, reality is here, it’s not so bad, come on in the water’s...” tepid, at best. “But seriously, give it up, swallow the bitter pill like everybody else, you’ll be saving yourself a lot of trouble.”
A lot of what? Trouble – dreaming isn’t trouble, the trouble is not dreaming - what could be worse? Those changes you say you’re making, will anyone remember in 10 years time, 20, 30? “We adjusted things a little, an inch to the left, an inch to the right, it was an important step on the path to...” What exactly? What was your vision, your keystone, your point of departure, your end destination? “It was just a step on the ladder.” And the top of the ladder? “I’ll tell you when I get there.” When will you get there? “Ask me in 10 years time.” Are you sure it won’t be 20, 30? And then? Will you be satisfied? Will you tell me again not to ask for much or to expect only a little step forward – or is it backwards? Or what direction are we going in at all?
Do we hope? Do we dream, can we go further? What lies beyond, beneath, above, outside? I do not know, but in my search I know I will find a little of what there is not here. But wait, it is here already isn’t it? I see something at the edge of my vision, I turn around, it’s gone. I know I saw something. I catch something, it slides through my fingers a little touch of another object, a different idea, and it’s gone again. It is not lost though, it is always there. If only we look, not with eyes that search for the best and the worst but with eyes that feel, eyes that feel for a deeper meaning, a deeper good which yearns for people. A people who deep down yearn for good.
So when you tell me to listen and be realistic, just who are you speaking for? Me or You? Students or Future Students? Who exactly and why? When you forgot how to dream how did it feel? Without my dreams I am nothing. If we do not hope, if we do not believe, if we do not dream and act on those dreams, however distant they may seem, then where are we?
Nowhere.
Do not tell me we cannot change anything, this was never true.
Dream and we can change everything.
- Sol Gamsu -
Sunday, 25 May 2008
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Frogs and storks
Following an idea from some crazy cypriot called Nassos, this blogg has risen from the depths of the unknown in order to conquer your world and take over your desktop! Straight from the streets of London, we bring you the beautiful, the ugly and the random! Don't stop to blink, read on.
In these hard times of stressful examinations and successful procrastination, you may think that writing posts destined to an obscure,yet attractive, blogg is self-destructive idiocy or, if you are one of those, escapatory genius; but the truth of the matter is that it is destiny. Yes it is destiny, and destiny it is that has brought you here to partake in the ritual mingling of the minds in the world-wide web of creativity that is "only" a couple clicks away.
Do you feel that your opinions and ideas serve no purpose other than to wear off the letters painted on your keyboard buttons? Are your 'delete' and 'backspace' buttons the only ones you hit without miss, every time around? Has life served you its share of hardship, leaving you eager to get your own and bite back? Do you have a sudden urge to leap onto the desk and challenge the muhammad ali poster hanging on your wall to a fight to the death?
If so, then you are standing in the right place. Simply take a step back, make a left turn, and run straight out the door, down the stairs, up past the picket fence and accross the river down near the old paper mill until you hit Main Street. Once you make it to Green Street, follow the white rabbit to the post office and send in your article to afromonkey.productions@gmail.com
If not, then simply mail your article, poem, picture, song, video, cake(?), essay or love letters to the address in the blogg's profile and it will do just as well.
This is your last moment of delusional freedom; from here on out, I work for you as you worked so long for him, but it's the they that we must worry about now. And so I propose a toast... to her, and to us! The blogg is now up, let's give this a try!
As Martin Luther said so well: "The world is too wicked to deserve princes much wiser and more just than this. Frogs must have storks."
-APG-
In these hard times of stressful examinations and successful procrastination, you may think that writing posts destined to an obscure,yet attractive, blogg is self-destructive idiocy or, if you are one of those, escapatory genius; but the truth of the matter is that it is destiny. Yes it is destiny, and destiny it is that has brought you here to partake in the ritual mingling of the minds in the world-wide web of creativity that is "only" a couple clicks away.
Do you feel that your opinions and ideas serve no purpose other than to wear off the letters painted on your keyboard buttons? Are your 'delete' and 'backspace' buttons the only ones you hit without miss, every time around? Has life served you its share of hardship, leaving you eager to get your own and bite back? Do you have a sudden urge to leap onto the desk and challenge the muhammad ali poster hanging on your wall to a fight to the death?
If so, then you are standing in the right place. Simply take a step back, make a left turn, and run straight out the door, down the stairs, up past the picket fence and accross the river down near the old paper mill until you hit Main Street. Once you make it to Green Street, follow the white rabbit to the post office and send in your article to afromonkey.productions@gmail.com
If not, then simply mail your article, poem, picture, song, video, cake(?), essay or love letters to the address in the blogg's profile and it will do just as well.
This is your last moment of delusional freedom; from here on out, I work for you as you worked so long for him, but it's the they that we must worry about now. And so I propose a toast... to her, and to us! The blogg is now up, let's give this a try!
As Martin Luther said so well: "The world is too wicked to deserve princes much wiser and more just than this. Frogs must have storks."
-APG-
1 comment:
Good statement for dreams! It is true we need them and if you really try, you might have an impact and you will be able to make a change.
A bit of realism does not hurt anybody! You always have to bear in mind that there is a possibility that you won't be able to make the change you want to make BUT there is also the possibility that you will make the change! That's why we have to have our dreams and why we should try and fight for them!
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