A Sea of Lights

A Sea of Lights- Chapter One

Chapter One

     Maturity comes on a case-to-case basis. For some, maturity comes easy. For others it takes longer for that process to be completed.

    I had always expected myself to be someone who didn't settle down to the life I grew up in. I craved variety in life and grew bored with the vanilla flavor by the time I was thirteen or fourteen. When you are born into a good life it takes years to fully realize the blessing you inherited. But such a realization only occurs when you mature into an age that can make a true distinction between a good life and a bad one.

    After my college graduation, I became stuck in the sprigs of spring. There was no direction that I seemed to be pulled too and for a year I traveled the country visiting my friends. Traveling was an illusion. It gave me a sense of direction—physically. Really though, through that period, like a ceiling fan, I was suspended in motion. Eventually, as I lay on the grass and contemplated the big questions of life, those questions raised to forget that inevitable mortgage, my parents began to quietly push me to a life that wasn't dependent on their dime. Even my own sense of detached responsibility, which was more so a liberty loaned by privilege than a selfish thing, began to stir. I understood thoroughly that I owed my parents a secure life lived. So, using my parent's connections, by Fall of '19 I was a tenured teacher at a high school in the small suburban town I seemed unable to escape from.

    I had a good deal then, something I took for granted. I was making 50k a year without a phone bill or any other bills to pay besides a car payment at three hundred a month. Further, I had become well-liked by the student body and respected by the older members of the faculty for my ability to percolate literary interest in my juniors. Still considered a member of the younger generation, I understood the ideas and beliefs of my students. This gave me insight on which buttons to push and which books to teach, which would ultimately percolate that interest spontaneously. Opening with a quote from a writer or a person of good literary repute, the tone in the classroom would be set, which was always a harmonious chord of independence and belief in self as I would tell my students that those quotes and these books we'd read were spoken and written by someone who was once like them. Then, we would begin that day's lesson. The lesson I taught to my students' day in and day out was to use the subject matter of my classroom to sharpen their worldviews. I urged them to add these ideas to their tool belts. See which ideas fit with them naturally. Discard the ones that didn't. The poetry in some of the books I taught would provide the empowering part of the lesson. Each author I taught held an optimistic belief in the world without failing to illustrate the issues it faces. My students loved this type of education. It kept them engaged because they realized they had skin in the game. And by mid-semester, they had grown to view thinking not as something dull but as something useful. My students became acquainted with the power of imagination, arming themselves with its unique ability to create solutions. Finally, in closing, I would remark that, first and foremost, trust the beliefs you hold over everything, and that part of doing so, in maintenance, is to enjoy your youth, for the sprigs of spring will soon yellow.

    Even amidst a successful beginning to a meaningful and worthwhile career, I couldn't shake the clash between an appetite for more and a staunch belief in paralysis. I began an effort to decide what was more moral to get my feet moving. After a few weeks, I concluded that it wasn't a tale of morality, for as Americans we are taught to pursue happiness—at least some of us are—and as a result the selfishness of those two words when combined are omitted. But I also knew that those two words when combined are used to illustrate the American Dream—something believed to be buried underneath soil and marble. However, such a dream isn't exactly dead. For normal people not born into the gentry of America, the Dream is simply a secure life in a nice home surrounded by nice people whose children attend nice schools: something entirely attainable, perhaps more so today than ever before. My parents for instance attained the Dream themselves. So, the question then became: what does one do if one is born into the Dream? My first instinct is always to build, so as to compound the blessings I was given. But that meant, for me, a rather affluent life was required. I was free to pursue individual achievements, which would lead to building a structure on the foundation bequeathed to me. Still, such a thing seemed selfish to pursue. Yet, at the same time, to carve my own path as my parents carved theirs, that path was the only path left to walk upon. Soon I realized I had to choose between more or the same. Which was right, I hadn't a clue.