Beyond the 'en-dash'

We arrived as teens and twenty somethings -
green as grass; naive you might say.
Not quite as worldly
as we may have thought ourselves to be.

Three years later, four for some,
we left, much the same shade of green - but
somehow different. Different somehow.

Still young, still naive still wide-eyed
and opened minded - but different.

‘Graduates’ out into the world
wherever that meant for each of us.
Bonded though - some close, some loose.

A world of pre-existing order
and social constructs. We were set to find
our place in it.

There’s a en-dash ‘ -’ that connects 1983 to 1985,
1986 for some. That ‘ -’ is weight bearing, and like
velcro it holds strong, 40 years on.

That ‘ - ‘ is the foundation for this day’s experience,
and experiences. Today’s knowledge and wisdom
sits atop that en-dash - like a stack of books piled one
on top of the other, stretching skyward.

To think, to question, to reason,
to inquire, to critique. How to be
in the world.

‘Notions of a critical opposition
to the way things are. Not as a way of
changing the world. Rather, the best way
of being in the world.’

Three years worth of models and theories
drawn from the humanities
and social sciences.

Healthy serves of psychology
philosophy, sociology,
politics and economics. Some
outdoor ed and phys ed thrown in
with a touch of environmental ed.
Research methods
and planning too.

Organisational theory and practice;
studies of class, culture, work,
and leisure also.

Practical Ethics and
the Philosophy of Knowledge, woven in with
sociological paradigms and
the structure of scientific revolutions - anomaly
crisis, revolution, resolution. Paradigm shift, to
arrive at normal science.

Thanks to Kuhn we were equipped
not just with jargon and labels, but with
one of the best ways to view change,
evolution and revolution.

How could we not be different -
beyond the en-dash? Beyond 1985,
1986 for some.

Pleasure leisure and fun pervaded too.
We had good times
along the way. Parties and Pubs
anyone?

Today a liberal arts education is
somewhat maligned. I’ll take
‘how to think’ over ‘what to think’
every day though - still.

There was some kind of magic
underpinning and surrounding that ‘ - ‘.

That campus, those makeshift
portable classrooms.
Little brown structures of knowledge, insight,
of learning and growth. Of questions with answers,
and of questions without. Of freedom from,
of freedom to. Of difference, of sameness.

To say it was life changing is cliched, but
that time was. Or was it? Life-shaping
is perhaps more apt.

Here’s a bundle of books,
stack them anyway you choose too - or not.

Who knew of Sontag’s ‘Be Bold’
encouragement back then? In fact
the year we began - 1983.

Susan said…

‘Go on being students
for the rest of your lives’.

Individually and collectively,
passing symbolically from
one place to another,
from an old to a new status.

And, like all such rites,
it is both retrospective and prospective.’

I’m running out of reach
forty years on; or am I?

I still accumulate books,
and now I stand tiptoed
to stack them, pile them,
on that ‘ - ‘ en-dash.

Since I began this Dream Intentionally project a few people have asked whether I write my own pieces as well as FOUND and PATCHWORK pieces. I do. You’ve just read one. Its backstory connects to a 40-year B.A. reunion I attended recently. The only words that aren’t mine are those in italics from Susan Sontag’s ‘Be Bold’ 1983.

(A little bonus for you this week - for your next trivia night perhaps - an en-dash is used to join numbers in a range (1983-1985), or to tie words together that mark a span of time, such as Monday–Friday. It is so named because its width is that of a typesetter's N (just as an em-dash is that of a typesetter's M. You’re welcome)

I’ll see you next week with a FOUND Christmas piece - with a difference.

Dream intentionally - while you’re awake