I have to teach “humanities” as
if it were a JOKE—something
one might GET-IT if you let
go & fool around long enough
—loose, indeterminate, open,
receptive.
Playful.
Play & Be Played.
School & Be Schooled.
Compose & Be Composed
Non-Unilateral.
A reciprocity.
You know:
the GET-IT feeling.
Not gradual, not cumulative,
not an acquisition of fact &
fiction (insufficient evidence
though necessary.)
Something else.
I get it!
Not like physics or
chemistry, math or
women’s studies,
literature, religion,
computer science,
fine arts, French,
the Psychology of
Creativity. Disciplinary,
Be serious. No joke.
Not that there aren’t
eureka moments in
all these ventures
but I’m talking about
the Get-It which re-
configures the whole
mind-set, recalibrates
tolerances, changes the
attitude like maybe
watching an Obama
speech and suddenly
feeling re-born again:
holy smokes “love
cracked me open and
I’m alive to tell the tale.”
That kind of Get-It.
& you decide to give
your life to theater or
stock-car racing or
hedge-funds or English
teaching or cooking or
military service or teen-
age cutting and suicide
problems, corn shoots
and genetics: life’s work;
what
heroes with a thousand
phases—all the ways to
serve the muse, the “idios
daemon,” paraclete &
tutelary genius so as to
make one’s meaning
meaningful which is what
“humanities” is about:
The Liberal Art
What a JOKE!
(I.E. yek: “to speak.”
In Latin: jocus: jewel,
jocose, jocular, juggle,
joke: a jeopardy.)
IT comes to you.
aHA! I get IT.
Contextual.
Environmental.
Ah, the Humanities!
xxxooo, Local Fool
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