Contemplating a coming collapse

Upon observing a truly disheartening week for higher education (to say nothing about the disarray where I work):

Dreher (emphasis mine):

I would invite journalists, academics, and professional class people to think about what this little campus p.c. revolution so many of you are embracing says to the huge number of people outside your narrow circles of privilege. Houellebecq is speaking to you. You are waging a culture war on the people who are not like you. They know you hate them, and are pulling the ladders up behind you. When the university system collapses — as it will, because we cannot afford it — do you really think they are going to give a damn? Do you really think that they will, in the end, have any more concern for free speech, fair play, and other classically liberal values than you have shown? Here’s a hint: there are a lot more of them than there are of you. And sooner or later, some rough beast is going to come along and inspire them to vote.

"Weary of that flight"

Hee entred well, by vertuous parts,
Got up and thriv'd with honest arts :
He purchas'd friends, and fame, and honours then,
And had his noble name advanc'd with men :
But weary of that flight,
Hee stoop'd in all mens sight
To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunke in that dead sea of life,
So deep, as he did then death's waters sup ;
But that the Corke of Title buoy'd him up.

It is easy to start well. It is much harder to finish well. I taught this poem the other day as a companion piece to “To Penshurst,” and found myself exercised at myself because I seem to be slipping professionally, spiritually, emotionally, physically. It’s more than just the time of year or the time of semester. It’s also the stage in my life where I’m not sure I’m up to the task.

I tell my students that the hardest thing isn’t the rare act of heroism in a crisis — it’s the getting up every day and doing your job, being a person of integrity, even when the weight of years begins to make your legs shake and your back ache.

Goe now, and tell out dayes summ'd up with feares,
And make them yeares ;
Produce thy masse of miseries on the Stage,
To swell thine age ;
Repeat of things a throng,
To shew thou hast beene long,
Not liv'd ; for life doth her great actions spell,
By what was done and wrought
In season, and so brought
To light : her measures are, how well
Each syllabe answer'd, and was form'd, how faire ;
These make the lines of life, and that's her aire.

Monday Update, October Hangover Edition

With the end of October comes the end of what the Triathelete calls the long slog that starts during the Soybean Festival and doesn’t really end until we’ve sorted the Halloween candy. In most years, the Pig Pickin takes up two weeks in the middle of October and really taps us out. This year we were better prepared than we usually are, but then the end of October gloominess set in earlier than we anticipated so we couldn’t have the event. Now we just have the several weeks before the St Jude Marathon Weekend in Memphis.

The children really enjoyed Halloween, of course. We trick-or-treated in the rain, but they had so much fun it didn’t really matter. Lefty was particularly sweet, having the time of his life shouting out TRICK OR TREAT and THANKYOUHAPPYHALLOWEEN and then announcing what kind of candy he got. It’s fun to watch him do all that, and really fun to remember doing that myself when I was a first grader in the Garden Hills neighborhood in Atlanta.

I say “children,” but of course we are on the cusp of having a tween at my house. Number One goes from child to teen and back again, spending more time with headphones on and being generally secretive. But then this morning he was getting ready for school and singing a nonsense song at the top of his lungs in that high piping voice of his.

I’m going to miss that voice, just like I’m going to miss the husky grunt of Little Red and him scrubbing his bristly hair against me.

I make time for all these things from my boys, because I know they won’t be little boys forever.