This is the end of the story. So, this professor accused me of being so “foolish and unreasonable” for because of my emphasis to put teaching on a true equal footing with research and publication, and because of my emphasis on teaching in a manner other than traditional lecturing, testing, and grading.

After I had read this professor’s accusation of being “foolish and unreasonable,” I thought of an interview given by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, I had heard a few month ago. You’ve got to admit that Home Depot, like Walmart, is one of the greatest entrepreneurial successes of the last twenty or so years. Bernie Marcus, however, admitted that if he had listened to those who had said his idea was unreasonable, if he had been deterred by those who branded his venture as foolish, if he had seen only what others thought possible, he wouldn’t have seen other possibilities, would not have taken the risk, and would not have co-founded Home Depot. People call you “unreasonable,” he said, because they take very personally someone talking about doing something different from what they’re doing. They see it as deliberate personal criticism of their own way of looking at and doing things. They feel you’re directly questioning their values or forcing them to look at things in a new way. These people, he continued, feel embattled and are almost spoiling for a fight as if they are defenders of the Holy Grail. These people think that what they call being reasonable is a guarantee for “knowing better” or “being right,” and that being unreasonable means you haven’t thought things through. So, they’ll write you and what you’re doing off in militant fashion as irresponsible by calling you “unresasonable” while pronouncing themselves “reasonable.”

“Many talented people throw up their hands in surrender and miss a lot of opportunities because they’re reasonable, that is, they listen to others who think they have a monopoly on all the answers,” he observed. “when, in fact, they don’t even have the questions. They’re afraid of making a mistake or being disappointed, and don’t go off to follow their dreams…” You can’t be bold going with the flow, he concluded his interview. “Being reasonable so often means only that you’re letting others set your limits and create your future with their limited vision.”

After hearing Bernie Marcus, I want to boycott reasonableness. I am a cancer survivor. I wouldn’t and won’t let the cancer control me. Why should I then let someone else control me? I want to stay hungry and be foolish. I want to dream; I want to follow my dreams; I want to have a vision; and, I want to pursue my vision. I want what I do to have such a purpose that it will last long after I’m gone. I don’t want to be bound by limits, mine or anyone else’s, on what I can do and on whom I find worthy of my time and efforts. I want that buzz of feeling engaged and optimistic, of keeping that edge honed, of listening and seeing and learning and growing. I don’t’ want what I do to be routine and ordinary. I don’t want to be reined in by acceptance. The secret, at least the secret I’ve discovered, of being adventurous and staving off boredom, of fueling my fire and avoiding burnout, of celebrating the question instead of accepting the accepted answer, of staying intrigued and instead of becoming disinterested, of welcoming serendipity and side-stepping predictability, of embracing any possibility that comes my way and shunning control, of humming with an openness rather than sighing with a preconception, of daring to experience the open seas instead of staying safely anchored in a sheltered cove is “unreasonableness.” For me, being a cancer survivor, the quality, vitality, and meaning of my life in academia is far more important than playing the game and merely surviving. I live by the words imprinted in the yellow band on my wrist: “Live strong.” Living life: that’s what academic life should be all about; it’s certainly what having cancer is all about.

“Unreasonable.” It’s a word for my Dictionary of Good Teaching. I’m going to send it to Kenny. You know, “reasonable” in the context used by this professor in our extended exchanges, so often carries with it a demand for “agree with me” uniformity, “run with the herd” conformity. It’s painted with a cowering and resigned “playing it safe” and “settling for” drab. It resounds with an outside noisiness that drowns out your inside self. It doesn’t glow with satisfaction. It is so often used to impose a tunnel vision. It so often is a sedating accepting “settling for” and “settling in” word. It’s so often a putting off “I would love to, but….” It’s so often an unexploring auto pilot and at anchor don’t question word. It’s a word that flows downstream with the current that doesn’t run into a lake of fulfillment. It’s a restricting word that severely narrows your options. It so often rings with a prohibiting “you can’t do that” tone. It’s so often a boring “take the wind out of your sails” word. It so often thuds with a static “it’s always been done this way.” It so often means accepting being spun and spun around by others. It allows so many of us to talk of freedom and individuality while we submit to and are stupefied by the tyranny of an academic culture imposed by others. It’s so often like what the Buddhists call living inside an eggshell. It’s so often a sorrowful word that mourns the perceived purity and sanctity of yesteryear’s exclusive scholarly Ivory Tower and the perceived current pollution by today’s dynamic openness and inclusiveness, or, as this professor put it, of “letting everybody and anybody in.”

So why is emphasizing the acceptance of teaching on an equal footing with research and publication branded as “unreasonable?” Why is advocating serious consideration of teaching methods other than lecture and controlled discussion, testing and grading that are based on the recent research about learning so “unreasonable?” Well, for one thing, as Bernie Marcus indicated, “reasonable” often means being set in your ways. That is, he observed, most of us don’t do well listening to anything new and strange. It comes across as uncomfortable and even painful dissonance. Too many of us don’t want to be reminded that we aren’t complete and have so much more to learn. Too many of us don’t mute our compulsion to judge defensively in our favor what is right and wrong, good and bad, proper and improper, professional and non-professional. For a lot of reasons, many of us don’t have the tolerance, respect, and patience to try to see and listen to divergent and novel ways. Instead we tend to cling to our preconceptions, and disallow the co-existing presence of those “unprofessional” divergent and novel ways. Another reason is the view of time that has been imposed on us and so many of us have accepted, however often begrudgingly. It’s summed up in this professor’s proclamation, “I just don’t have the time!” So many of us academics are, as I once was, the offspring of a shotgun wedding between time and scholarship. We had to go through school in such and such a time; we have to secure tenure in such and such a time; we have to get a promotion in such and such a time; we have to be peer reviewed in such and such a time; we have to publish such and such an amount in such and such a time; we have to secure an income generating grant in such and such a time. Sometimes I think the more we’re in a hurry to do something, the less we really care about doing it and the more the moment at hand loses its uniqueness. Is it little wonder that so many who are consumed with being reasonable consume themselves and burn out.

The more we associate only our scholarly resume with value, the more we think we need only research and publication to survive academically, the less we feel teaching is acknowledged, appreciated, encouraged, and rewarded. The more we associate only research and publication with academic life, the more we yearn for the archive or laboratory. The more we tend to our research and publication, the more we gravitate to the “time honored” ways. We create our own time-impovishment by convincing ourselves and pronouncing to others that it’s “unreasonable” to think we have the time to truly tend to and experience the wonder of the people in the classroom and the less time we devote to these people and finding ways to devote our time to them.

Bernie Marcus is right. The world of business is in many ways not much different from Ivory Tower. People are people no matter where they are and what they do. I know a lot of academics, like this professor, talented people, caring people, loving people, people-oriented, student-centered people, who have a forlorn, unfulfilled desire to devote of all their time and energies to teaching. But, with the rarest of exceptions, they live in fear of sounding and acting like anything less than 24/7 publishing scholars and being dismissed accusingly as “foolish and unreasonable.” I know a lot of academics who are reasonable, who, having “settled for” and “settled in” to the routine of academic acceptance, who are haunted by their unrealized dream, who have a sense that they’ve sinned against themselves and the students. They know that to devote the same kind of time and to display the same kind of devotion to focusing on teaching as others demand be spent for research and publication is not a survival technique in academia. They know, as it stands now, lip-service not withstanding, that if anyone at the collegiate level should want to be a non-publishing 24/7 teacher, they find themselves in the cross-hairs. Should they say they want to devote all their time to teaching rather than research and publication, instead of being respected, instead of being permitted to co-exist, they’re drummed out of the corps with accusations of being “unprofessional” or “non-professional” or “not dedicated to your discipline.” Should they say that teaching is as academically and educationally professional as research and publication, should they serve students more than or instead of editors and grantors, they’re fair game for an academic safari. Sadly, if you want to find those “unreasonable” 24/7 teachers in higher education, look on the endangered specie list.

Being “foolish and unreasonable” may not be a way, as this professor asserted, to get into the game and survive in academia, but, it is a way to truly live life. Life is an adventure, and adventure means stretching your boundaries, and stretching your boundaries is about exploring the potential within yourself; and exploring the potential within yourself is about steering clear of guarantee or predictability, and steering clear of guarantees and predictability is about trusting chance, and trusting chance is about daring yourself to do something you or others wouldn’t normally do, and daring yourself to do something you or others wouldn’t normally do is about doing something small and humble that is for you as bold as climbing a mountain or going bungee jumping, and being as bold as climbing a mountain or going bungee jumping is about opening your mind and spirit, and opening your mind and spirit is about being continually interested in everything, and being continually interested in everything is about making new discoveries, and making new discoveries is about feeding creatively on your imagination and feeding creatively on your imagination is about getting that adrenaline rush of hard won joy or getting pleasure of finding that magical spot or having the satisfaction of making the difference that make all the effort worthwhile.

I know how daunting being “unreasonable” is, not just because of its impeding obstacles and dangers, but because of its complexities and because it opens you eyes. “Unreasonable” is not a sign directing you to take the easy road. But, being reasonable seldom truly speaks to us. In fact, being reasonable so often jades not just the teaching experience, but the scholarly experience as well. What charm is there in regimen? Being reasonable so often takes the spice out of life.

Blandness is not the way to be true to yourself. That’s not the way to be a student of everyday life; it’s not the way to find adventure in the classroom and a classroom filled with adventure; it’s not the way to take the time and make the effort to take in the beauty that is in each person in the classroom. Want to know how unreasonable being reasonable can be? Well, think of this: it is the height of folly, as Martin Seligman asserts, to think that true contentment comes from holding onto the same goals and doing the same things that never made us happy in the first place. Burnout, a shutting off of the spigot, then, may come from the expectation that the academic riches of promotion, tenure, salary increase, research and publication, grant-getting, and professional renown will make us happy in the future when our current lives are rich with evidence that they don’t.

We need unreasonable academic heroes who use the same sort of bold personal vision, dogged determination and ingenuity, and burning passion of the Sam Waltons or Bernie Marcuses of this world. Such heroes would be change agents who measure success in terms of student intellectual and emotional and social growth rather than by measuring the growing length professional resumes, doing what cynics tell them can’t be done and naysayers say shouldn’t be done. We need unreasonable heroes, people who muster unusual courage or nobility of purpose to do extraordinary things, who have the ability to translate their devotion into action, who have a durable impact on the “system” and the world by changing the way people think and act and helping each person help him- or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming.

After all, the people who influence us the most are not those who buttonhole us with reasonableness. The people who influence us the most are those who unbutton us with unreasonableness. Keep in the front of your spirit the words of George Bernard Shaw. He wrote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Ain’t that the truth!

Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Be unreasonable. And, may you live all the days of your life and make a difference.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Now, as Paul Harvey might say, the rest of the story. Or, at least, part of it.

So, I get this message from a professor who accuses me of being so “foolish and unreasonable.”

“Foolish and unreasonable?” Me? You bet! Do you know what the editor who wrote the WHOLE EARTH CATALOGUE meant when they asked everyone to “Stay hungry. Stay foolish?” I didn’t then. I was too busy learning how to play the game and be reasonable. I do now. They meant for each of us not “to settle,” not “to settle in,” not to wait around and wish and make excuses and grow old, not be dependent on acceptance. They meant to be restless, to be an explorer within you, to keep building castles in the air with strong foundations on the ground, to utilize the rock-solid construction materials of learning, trusting, experimenting, daring, risking, practicing, independence, flexibility, boldness, deliberation, improvisation, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, authenticity, enthusiasm, adventure, imagination, creativity, belief, kindness, love, faith, hope, joy.

“Foolish and unreasonable?” Me? You bet! You know I have been married to the same angel for thirty-nine years. I have been in the classroom, teaching what most would call the same classes, for over forty years. I’m convinced–no, I know–that the only thing that fires my spirit with an endless supply of fuel, the only thing that keeps my inner fires burning brightly, the only thing that throws hot sparks of imagination and creativity into the air, the only thing that ignites fires in others, the only thing that keeps me from burning out, the only thing that keeps me from diminishing and dying from a hot flame into a cold and lifeless cinder is that each day I work to feed and stoke the fires with love. To keep me boilers steaming hot, I fall in love again and again and again unconditionally with Susan, unconditionally with each student, and unconditionally with what I do. You’ve got to find whom you–you, not someone else–love, what you love to do, and do it the way you love–in everything. There are five things that fill my life. The first and foremost is my angelic Susan. The second is my two sons, their wives, and their children. The third is my dear friends and close family. The fourth is my garden. And, the fifth is each student whom I struggle to help him or her to become the person he or she is capable of becoming. They all have three things in common: they are alive and keep me living far beyond mere survival; they helped me face, face up to, and face down my cancer, and they are throbbing matters of the heart. The only way to be truly satisfied, to be truly fulfilled, is love the people around you, to love what you do, and to act lovingly. That’s the only way to have great lovers, great loves, and to do great things. It is the only way to embrace life; it is the only way to see, appreciate, treasure, and enjoy the beauty in what appears to be plain and ordinary; it is the only way to run out and embrace whatever life throws at you; is the only way to embrace the beauty, the joy, the wonder and the abundance of life; it is the only way to embrace the challenges, the setbacks, the disappointments and the difficulties–and learn and grow from them; it is the only way to welcome the ups and avoiding the downs; it the only way to trust yourself, be trusting, and be trustful to others; it is the only way to be true to yourself and authentic to others; it is the only way to become the person you are capable of becoming; it the only way to grow, strengthen, and become whole. Don’t settle. Seek it out. Find it. Each day. You know it when you have it–and when you don’t. And, like any great love, as the years pass, it is gold that never tarnishes. It gets better and better; it gets spicier and spicier; it gets more and more adventurous; it gets more and more exciting; it burns brighter and hotter. Then, you’ll live each day of your life. If that be “foolish and unreasonable,” so be it.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Stay unreasonable. And, may you live each day of your life.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

It’s about 8 am, July 5th. Climbing to 30,000 feet. I’ve been up since 4 am to catch this plane. I’m tired from a sleepless four day July 4th weekend revelry at a wedding in D.C. and heading home for four more sleepless days to help Susan and our friends prepare for my son’s wedding this coming weekend on two weeks notice. I had put down my crossword puzzle book, was about to become a human pretzel in this modern day torture cell called an airplane seat when it all struck me and came together. My eyes popped open, I grabbed the pen and began scribbling in the margins of the puzzle book.

First, there was a few seconds of conversation with a guest at the wedding reception whom I didn’t know.

“Nice. You look like you’re having fun. I wish I could do that,” a guest at the wedding reception had said to me as she commented on the large rose that I had placed on my left ear.

“You can.” I took her by the hand to a table, pulled another rose from the centerpiece, and gently placed it in her ear. “There,” I said, “enjoy yourself.”

She quickly took it out. With a face that suddenly lost its glow, her smile quickly vanished, her eyes darting back and forth to see if someone had noticed, she said in a frightened and saddened tone, “Oh, I couldn’t. I look too foolish.”

I thought to myself, “What a way to kill the refreshing joy of doing what you want to do with convention.”

Second, there was a conversation with some of us old left-over (pun intended) activist denizens from the ’60s and ’70s. As the night moved on into the morning and the party moved from the synagogue to the hotel bar, some of us started to reminisce about the “good ole days.” Anyone remember the WHOLE EARTH CATALOGUE of the late ’60s and early ’70s? My memories of it were jogged in these going back conversations. One of my Susan’s cousins reminded us how the CATALOGUE had ended its run with the guiding farewell, “Stay hungry. Stay Foolish.”

And third, there was a blistering message I had received the day before I left for D.C. from a mid-western professor who responded to my last Random Thought, “Let Me Count the Ways,” with a pointed accusation, “Dr. Schmier. You’re foolish and unreasonable.”

I had taken her barb for an unintended compliment. So, keeping in mind all those glasses of wine lifted to “L’Chaims” (to life) during this weekend, that wedding guest, the CATALOGUE, and this professor, knowing the sleep is an impossibility in this cramped flying sardine can, I want to jot down some thoughts on “unreasonableness.

First, I want to talk about death. At first glance, it’s not a great topic of conversation in this particular place, especially after a joyous wedding, is it. But, hear me out. When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer last November, though my doctor and the consultants Susan and I went to for second and third opinions said the cancer had been caught in its earliest of stages and was curable, it was the first time I really was confronted with the reality of my death. You know, earliest stages be damn, the word, “cancer,” in spite of all the medical advances in recent years, has the dirge of a death knell to it. A common cold it is not! You don’t dance a hora to its ring. Anyway, until that moment, death had been an abstraction. It was a purely intellectual concept or theological construct. Sure, for the past 14 years, since my epiphany, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself the Talmudic question: “If I wouldn’t be here tomorrow, if today were the last day of my life, would I soon be doing what I will be doing today?” Even though my answer has been a daily and joyful “yes,” that question, nevertheless, was more abstraction than reality. I mean how many of us really think we aren’t going to see tomorrow’s sunrise. How many of us really think we’re always going to have more time. How many of us really believe this is going to be the last day. Now, having been confronted with that possibility, I consciously do. Or, at least, never has my awareness of that possibility been more intense, truer, and more vivid than it has for the last seven months.

I remember saying to myself when I heard the results of the biopsy, though the doctor was sensitive and compassionate when he uttered those words, “You’ve got cancer,” I felt a panic swelling up. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t want to die; I was too young; I had just turned 63; I had too much still to do and much more to become. And, even though I’m living in the southern Bible Belt, I don’t know anyone, even the most devout, who’s rushing out to jump into a coffin. But, death is something none of us can avoid. No one has. We just avoid talking about it and facing up to its inevitability. I no longer can avoid that avoiding.

Some of you may think what I’ve just said is just plain morbid and has nothing to do with academics, much less teaching. It’s not morbid and it has everything to do with academics. When we avoid talking about death, the rabbis tell us that we avoid talking about life. So, even though I said that I wanted to talk first about death, I really want to talk about life. You see, that is because once you’ve had cancer, your whole outlook on life changes. You acquire a keen or, as in my case, a keener appreciation for life. Every day is a toast of l’chaim. For me, the pronouncement of having cancer not only placed me the closest I have ever been to facing death, it has placed me the closest I have been to facing life. The real prospect of a “now” death has given me more of a “now” feeling for life than I’ve ever had. I listen, see, feel, touch, smell with a greater intensity. I am finding that having been reminded that I am going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of not living.

I, like every human being, came into this world naked and according to Jewish tradition, I, like every human being, will leave this world naked. But, you know, I now realize more intensely than ever, that I, like every human being, am always naked no matter what clothes I wear, no matter what foods I eat, no matter how I’m housed, no matter how I get around, no matter what my income, no matter how long my resume, no matter what I’ve published, no matter what authority I’ve accrued, no matter what reputation I’ve achieved, no matter what degrees I’ve earned, no matter what titles and positions I hold. Why am I already naked? Because, as I’ve already said in earlier Random Thoughts, the pride, shyness, arrogance, fear of what others say or think, self-righteousness, ego, fear of failure, the hesitation to live that go with the quest for approval of others and possession of these possessions are nothing–nothing–in the face of death. They are valueless in facing and facing up to death. Take away these material things and what’s left is what’s truly important. The gift of facing death is being confronted with your “approval obsession” and “possession fixation” and realizing how they restrict and constrict personal growth, relationships with yourself and others, freedom, imagination, creativity, and fulfillment. Death makes you intensely aware of your real options and your real potential–as well as your destiny. So, once I had cancer, there’s no longer any reason left for me not to follow my heart and do what I want to do and do what I honestly feel needs doing.

So many of us have crowded out what Emerson called the independence of solitude in the midst of the crowd. So many of us throw away our precious personal and professional years living someone else’s life and trying to be someone we’re not. So many of us fall so easily into the trap set by “the system” spun by the decisions and thinking of other people. So many of us need to prove to others rather than prove to themselves. So many of us accept the need for acceptance. So many of us approve of the quest for the approval of others. So many of us live down to the expecations of others rather than living up to our own. So many let the cacaphony of others’ sounds drown out the harmony of our own inner voice. So many of us waste our limited time by accepting limits imposed by others. So few of us have the courage to live the life we want to live and need to live instead of listening to others telling us how to live. So many of us guide ourselves by the guidelines drawn up by others. So many of us spend our time and energy satisfying needs that others say we need. So many of us seek the professional riches rather than living richly, to do well rather than living well, to seek good fortune rather than realizing we are our own good fortune. So many of us douse the courageous spark of spontaneity and adventure with the insecure waters of needed guarantees. So many of us seek the gain and lose ourselves thinking that material and professional riches automatically make us healthy, wealthy, and wise. So many of us can’t go through the difficulty and discomfort and inconvenience of “professional possessions withdrawal.”

So, so few of us break the bonds of safe convention and become freed, free-thinking contrarians. So few of us follow our hearts and gut feelings that seem to already know what we truly want to do, what needs doing, and what we want to become. So many of us don’t stay fresh, aren’t foolish, and are so damn reasonable. The result is that inside so many of us are unhappy, bored, unfulfilled, unsatisfied, numb, and lifeless. And, try as we may to hide it, so many of us model all that in our words and actions for the students who are not so “dumb” as not to notice it–and sadly too often learn it!

Well, in spite of the cocoon-like conditions, and feeling there’s more to say, I’m suddenly crashing–a lousy word to use in a plane 30,000 feet above the ground–and will try to grab a few winks. I’ve got a two hour drive to Valdosta after I land. I think I’ll stop here and continue on later with how I’ll tell that professor about the joy and freedom of being fresh, foolish, and unreasonable. I’ll just leave you with the words of Mark Twain that I had rediscovered a few months ago and tattooed on my soul, and that I’ll put on my office door when I return to campus in August:

——————————————————————————–

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by
the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.

——————————————————————————–

Stay fresh. Stay foolish. Be unreasonable. L’Chaim.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–