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By Philipina A. Marcelo
Avery Corman is the bestselling author of the novel “Kramer vs. Kramer,” which was made into a highly acclaimed Hollywood film starring the brilliant Dustin Hoffman and the extremely talented Meryl Streep in the late ‘70s. In the early ‘80s, Corman came out with another novel entitled “The Old Neighborhood”.
The latter novel unraveled the inner conflicts of a man whose ardent pursuit of happiness brought him to the apex of success in his profession. Rather than finding happiness, however, he found himself entangled in a web of conflicting emotions. He was gripped by loneliness so chilling that at a certain point he lost life’s meaning altogether. As he climbed the ladder of success, he met so many people but the nature of his job did not
allow him to make personal connection with anyone. So that in one dark moment of his life, he found himself without a friend. He couldn’t think of friends he’s had other than those he left behind in his old neighborhood – a working-class neighborhood that he chose to turn his back to when he began his lonely journey to the top of the world where he expected to find happiness.One of the most unforgettable lines in that touching novel by Corman was uttered by the narrating character, Steve Robbins. In the novel, Robbins was a successful advertising genius who, at middle age, was struck by a sudden realization – after twenty years or so in the advertising field, every single dream he had as a poor young graduate of a city college in the Bronx has come true. What was appalling about this realization was that his remarkable success did not amount to even just an ounce of happiness. Of his career, he lamented, “You give out little pieces of yourself and they come back in the form of good suits and good desk.”
Robbins, however, have forgotten how lucky he was in his career that aside from good suits and good desk, he also got a great window view from his office in Manhattan’s business center, a nice house in a classy suburb in
New York, a flashy car, a gorgeous California beauty with an equally dynamic career for a wife, two lovely and level-headed daughters who grew up with the social grace he was too poor to know as a young man himself, four credit cards with sky-high credit limits, and countless frequent-flyer accounts with different airlines. He was regarded with reverence by his colleagues as the “conscience of the business,” the champion of “truth in advertising”. All this and being called one of the top five creative brains in the field of advertising in exchange of the little pieces of himself. Such glory left him with gaping emptiness, a void where happiness should have been. And, the higher he climbed, the farther happiness seemed to be. In the end, he gave up everything that he had worked for, including his picture-perfect family, and left the chaos and excitement of life’s fast lane. Later, he reconciled with himself and found peace. In the simplicity of his existence back in his old neighborhood, he found happiness.It’s funny that musing about my own teaching career, Steve Robbins’ cynical summation of his accomplishments should come to mind. To be sure, my progress in the teaching profession is incongruous to that of Robbins’
The Royal and Pontifical University
of Santo Tomas - The Catholic
University of the Philippines,
founded in 1611 and ran by Dominican
fathers.in the exciting world of advertising. For one thing, I haven’t gotten good suits and good desk out of my job, not that I need them either. But I am, and wonderfully so, to a certain extent, happy. Another incongruity between Robbins’ job and mine is that giving out just little pieces of myself was never enough. Every single undertaking, even day-to-day undertakings in the Faculty, was accomplished with the heart, mind, body and soul poured in completely. A little less than this would mean half-baked output in the classroom that would not produce even the feeblest grain of accomplishment.
In my profession, the absence of heart, mind, body or soul in our daily work turns days into little blades that cut through the flimsiness of the conscience and alienate one from the sense of fulfillment: the building blocks of happiness. This happens when either the heart is in pain, the mind exhausted, the body ill or the soul lost. And since I, too, am human, I suffered from such inadequacies from time to time. Such inadequacies usually put teachers, like myself, in some dark, frightening mood where the don’t mess-up-with-me-or-I’d-summon-the-red-ink look would be written all over our faces. Sometimes, even when nobody dared mess up with us, we still summoned the red ink anyway! To some, it merely is a defensive pose to mimic control whenever pain or exhaustion or illness or sense of loss
attacked. And yet, to some students, this is nothing but a despicable miscalculation of authority or lapse of judgment. In such cases, the battle between pride (on the part of teacher) and rebellion (on the part of the student) that we all know too well follows. In many cases, the red ink prevails! And, of course, it’s always a shame when the red ink triumphs because, more often than not, it simply means failure to explore all options. This emphasizes the necessity of having the heart, mind, body and soul poured in completely in our job’s day-to-day activities.For so many teachers, myself included, this daily exhaustion of the body and spiritual faculties dims the light that illuminates our prospects as social beings. Our lives tend to revolve around the principal object of
our attention: the students. The fire in our hearts is consumed by the desire to give them the best training they need. Their dreams become our mission, their idealism our inspiration that constantly strengthens our spiritual fiber, their youthful energy our source of strength. Sometimes we end up with only a tiny glow left for ourselves. A glow so tiny it’s not even enough to keep us warm in those cold evenings that ought to be spent with someone whose last names we shared. In other words, many of us end up running out of social options other than single blessedness. Although I do not prefer single blessedness, I do not see it as an entirely negative thing either. It is one thing to be a biological parent to one’s children, and it’s another to be a good “spiritual parent” for so many souls bound to become a lot of things. For those of us who are more fortunate to have learned to juggle the demands of our profession and a working home, the pressure is even greater. And yet, they stay, loving every minute of their time in the teaching profession.In much broader sense, this brings us to the more interesting nature of our job as teachers. Unlike Robbins’ job, ours is not just a personal
pursuit of happiness, it’s so much more than that. We lay ourselves to serve as avenues for our students in pursuit of their own dreams. Sometimes we serve as ladders through which students reach the height of their dreams. We could be steep or easy, but we’re always directed upward. Still students sometimes misunderstand us and see us neither as avenues nor ladders but rather obstacles that impede the accomplishments of their goals. Sometimes we give them good reasons to consider us as such, too!Oh, yes, there are glorious moments, too. In fact, there are countless glorious moments! Although, “glory” in our job is not measured in the same scale as in Robbins’ profession, the effect is the same: sustenance. Robbins’ glory sustained his supply of good suits and the continuous influx of suckers who posed as friends, ours sustained the spirit. His
glory bloated the ego, ours fattened the heart. The feeblest nod that signified understanding of knowledge revealed in a lecture, those little discreet smiles that expressed appreciation of our efforts, those awkward attempts for small talks that meant fondness, those quiet and sometimes cheerful greetings that implied respect, those advices sought that meant “we-believe-in-you” or “we-value-your-opinion,” all the little expressions of courtesy and thoughtfulness that seemed to quietly say “you’re-a-part-of-our-lives” – all this constitute the great reservoir of inspiration and personal glory that is simply immeasurable. They weigh the heart down with happiness! And after the tassel is finally shifted, friendship begins, and boy, what a flood of friendship it is, too!Perhaps, this is the best thing about having very little material possessions, one become more appreciative of all the little “bonuses” here and there. And, in this profession, “bonuses” abound. Some people keep their treasures in exquisite ornamental boxes, I keep mine in a small cardboard box. My treasures are not those sparkling pieces of jewelry that are good for vanity, and yet, they too sparkle like exquisite pieces of diamond. My treasure is a bunch of business cards each engraved with my
former students’ names. Some of them I don’t remember anymore, but they remember me! Sometimes, that elevates the feeling from mere happiness to joy, and what a feeling that is, too!Steve Robbins found happiness in his old neighborhood, I am experiencing happiness in a place where I belong and where I seem to be needed. I have no great wishes from this place except for it to allow me to mellow with grace in its portals and not to be forgotten too soon. Or better still, not to be forgotten even when my own time is up.
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COPYRIGHT 1999 Thomasian Engineer (Author: Philipina A. Marcelo), the official student journal of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Santo Tomas, España, Manila, Philippines.
