Leverage

It is tax time, and budget balancing time, and as a public school teacher, I’m also thinking about contract negotiation time.  This all coincides with the dreary months of January and February. So, in Kansas, I can wake up in the cold dawn, grab the newspaper out of my wet gutter, and read about how very little our elected state officials value my career as an artist or my career as an educator.  I can turn the page, and in my pre-caffeinated fog, I can read about how the school board will need to stop action on voter approved fine arts facilities that were promised to my school after they canceled the last voter approved fine arts facilities that were promised to my school just a few years before.  In the frosty and bleak morning, I can also read about how the district is forecasting salaries for next year that are still frozen from three years ago, even as the national and world pages predict soaring fuel and food prices.  I'll admit that sometimes, as I sit in my dimly lit breakfast nook, rubbing my face and trying to make sense of it all, I'll wonder aloud "How did I get here?"

My life has evolved from decisions that, at the time, felt like natural choices based on my world view.  But, “natural” is a funny word. In Darwinian terms, it can bring to mind images of a society that preys upon my existence, clawing and chewing on my benign efforts.  For example, I pursue an art career because I believe in dialoguing creatively with my surroundings.  CHOMP! Creative dialogue is abolished; it is a luxury we cannot afford.  I teach in order to bring opportunities into the lives of young people. SLASH! I have to provide more and more to my students with fewer and fewer resources.  I am married and have a family because I met my soul mate and because we knew we could be great parents.  CRUNCH!  What if I do not earn enough money to bring opportunities into the lives of my own children?  In the natural world, the friendly little altruistic fish is always swallowed by the larger, more market driven fish.

In desperate times like these, idealist such as myself are left with very few beams of light to warm ourselves in, so we turn to the only source of artificial light and heat that we can find: Inspirational quotes! Tom Brokaw has been bouncing around in my mind a lot lately.  Well, okay, I’ll admit it, I do not watch televised news, and I have not read any of his books.  But I did once read this quote from Mr. Brokaw: “It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.”  This is the magic of an inspirational quote.  Even removed from the context of his life and work, I can bask in the light of this little proverb and draw some strength from it’s relevance to the here and now.

And it is relevant, here and now.  Why struggle with making a difference, and not just focus on making a buck?  My best answer is not a witty quote, but another analogy.  You see, when I think about making shallow, short term changes to the world, it reminds me of trying to move against a great force with a short lever.  You may feel like you are in closer proximity to the problems at hand, but your efforts are pretty much futile, and you can effect very little change.  But if you work against large forces with greater leverage, like intelligence, and compassion, and creativity, real movement can happen, even when you feel as though you are operating far out in the periphery.  And, at least, the view from the periphery is more interesting than the shallow view.

 Please visit my work at kevinpkellyart.artspan.com