09.30.08
I Don’t Teach Fishing
I’m a substitute teacher. Until the real teacher dies. But I WILL NOT teach fishing. Here’s why.
A very wise professor of mine at Penn State once commented on the aphorism: “Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a person to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” My professor asked, “Why are we fishing?”
Why aren’t we doing something else? Who says fish are best? Why aren’t we hunting or trapping, or growing other foods?
This is the danger we face today, politically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. We are so accustomed to seeing things the way we usually see them. We almost can’t see any other way; we think on automatic pilot. But–whose interests are being served when we don’t think a different way? When we can’t make fun of certain candidates? When we only target a certain person or philosophy? When we believe only what we are told? When we stop thinking for ourselves?
What does all this have to do with comedy? Comedy is precisely the questioning of the status quo (no matter which side your particular quo is on). It is being the iconoclast when everyone else is afraid to speak against. It is not ‘thinking outside the box’ but asking, “Why are we using a box as an image?”
How often do we stop to realize that both our candidates supported the bail-out in exactly the same version as it was? Do we look to see how often the two agree on issues? Do we wonder whether working “across the aisle” is a good thing for people who are not in power? Whose interests are being served when we fight each other? Especially when we see how often our particular opposing candidates aren’t fighting each other.
Another tenet of comedy is being comfortable with ambiguity. Today we must be comfortable with it. It is the space that allows for possibilities to form. It is the space where there are no rules. It is where creativity is born. If we rush to fill this space with answers, solutions, issues, people, more problems, etc., we lose out on creative, rational problem-solving. Another tenet of comedy is being fearless. Going where the usual route doesn’t take us. Questioning things with a detachment that separates us from our emotional response. Who says thinking with our hearts is always a good thing? If we are so emotionally attached to a person, an issue, a way of being, we are avoiding looking in from a different perspective.
What if we all started to realize how funny this election really is? What if we all would, “Get Your SHINE Together!” and put away our “fishing polls!”
