On Time and Persistence (or Endurance)(…or Perdurance, if you are of the metaphysically savvy)

             This week the fellow teachers and I stayed after classes to begin setting up for an event this coming Monday. One of the teachers mentioned how she enjoys the extent of creativity we get to employ in our work. For this particular event, we needed to come up with four different activities all related to a specific country. The idea is that learning about different countries helps broaden the child’s cultural awareness, through the medium of spoken English.

            I agreed with my colleague. I had not anticipated I was going to be responsible for any creative thinking. I was more or less under the impression that there was going to be a curriculum that I would have to follow (which is actually the case at hand, just less adhered to). As we sit there painting, cutting, laminating, and making general preparations for the event, the same teacher remarked how that same creative freedom in our job prohibits the work from being dull, to which I also agreed.

            Then I sat there a moment, blade and paper in hand (creating cutout attire for a paper bag puppet), wondering how many more minutes I will spend in the next year with blade and paper in hand. My job certainly isn’t dull. However, the repetition of cutting out hundreds of pieces of paper for what will amount to a few hours of child’s play struck me as mind-numbing (or at least having the potential to be so, for the work didn’t seem mind-numbing while I was performing it).

            It was at the identifying term that I realized I had made a distinction between the two: dull vs. mind-numbing. Let me reiterate, my job is far from dull. Children (from any country) are basically little psychopaths that society tolerates because we collectively agree they can be reformed based on the trend of successful child-rearing practices. Meanwhile, I come into school everyday not knowing which personalities my students have adopted for the day. If my job was turned into a book, you could rearrange every day since I’ve started into something totally random (chronologically), and it would still make sense to whoever wanted to read it. Yet, I look back at setting up for the event, and the repetitious cutting, and gluing, and painting, and laminating, and I wonder, at what point will the chaos of everyday teaching become my baseline “normal”, when will my random episodic existence cohere into something predictable, familiar, and repetitious, when will it become mind-numbing?

.     .     .     .     .

            

            Already I look at my phone to glance at the date sitting small and squat next to the overbearing numerals of the clock on some days to find myself appalled by how much time has truly passed. I’m pretty convinced I skipped a week of recognition (ie. I hadn’t realized it was a week later than when I thought it was). Monday through Wednesday are good days, but something happens about halfway through Thursday where my mind just kicks back and I proceed on autopilot till Friday’s classes are finished.

            In college I took a course on metaphysics, and one of the topics we covered was on time, and how people perceive themselves changing through time. Some believe that we endure through time, permitting a continuous self-identity. But that would suppose that we don’t change much. Some believe that we perdure through time; that we are made up of incremental beings in time that constitute a whole being throughout time. The point being? This automated functioning leaves me with zero indication of any sense of continuity, both for myself, and throughout time. Basically, it feels like neither of these once applicable principles are relevant in describing the ensuing monotony I’m beginning to feel at work. But we go on, for what else is there to do?