There was a fictional character I came across who quit playing chess because he didn't like what it did to his brain. He found that when he was deeply immersed in the chess world he looked at everything with a certain filter. And he felt that he needed to choose how to train his brain-- how he wanted to interact with the world. So he became a scientist and viewed the world through a scientific lens.
I thought this was utterly ridiculous. And after all, I do not go to fiction for my psychology. I thought it was utterly ridiculous until I went back to working with students in a K12 setting and I could feel it... resetting connections in my brain. A particular way of looking at the world. A particular way of being. I do my best not to bring work home-- endeavoring to do my prep at school to the extent humanly possible. But my job lives in my head. Not in a bad way. Not in an obsessive I can't stop thinking about my job kind of a way. Just that there is this hum, kind of a quiet engine that works passively in the background, figuring out long-range plans and juggling around groups of students. Rehearsing possible chess moves. This was mostly a message in Quaker meeting on Sunday. Only the part of the message that didn't come out during my "vocal ministry" was the importance of doing. Of doing what you are called to do, doing "the right thing," doing what needs to be done. The way that what we choose to do... what we choose to let in... rewrites the physiological structure of the brain. The reason this did not come out in vocal ministry is because it is messy and I can't articulate it still. Not to say that your job is the thing that rewires your head. For me, the job is... the thing. I am an evangelical teacher. Not teaching evangelism, but spreading the gospel of free and appropriate public education for all children. A born-again educator. Returning to the flock. The prodigal teacher. Did I mention I got very little sleep last night? I woke up every hour on the hour after dreaming that my alarm had not gone off. I kept waking up spouse to get him out of bed so I wouldn't be late to school. Ugh. Grateful crap: bickery, whiny, sullen and infuriating children. Equatorial Actions: meds good food sorta good sleep good job good night. Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |