"Two competing ideas"

Yes, the quotation (attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald, though I'm not familiar enough with his writing to trust that he actually said it) is "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

Well, what I'm dealing with here are not so much two opposed ideas, or even really two competing ideas, but....sort of a juxtaposition of what seems to be "real" and immediate to me, versus something that isn't.

The real and immediate thing: a student of mine who'd been missing from class (very, very not typical of them) since the middle of November e-mailed me. They said they "did something stupid" and had been in a behavioral facility as a result. I am assuming - reading between the lines - that it was some kind of self-harm type of thing. I hope the student is getting continued assistance. (I remember now, the day before they went missing, they were in class with their head down on the table - also not typical for them - and I had just assumed, "Well, like the rest of us, they're tired by this point of the semester" or "maybe they have the little virus that's making the rounds). 

Anyway. They missed an exam, and another exam is this week. So I thought quickly - this is a gen ed class, yes, so I am not granted quite the same flexibility to alter the syllabus requirements as I am in classes that are fully my own, but this is a special case, and there was also an e-mail from the equivalent of our Dean of Students about the student's extended absence, so maybe a little mercy here is justified. So I told them: they can, their choice, make up the exam they missed, or not, and I would be willing to pro-rate their grade. (Or, I suppose, if they want to skip *this* week's exam, seeing as they missed all the material it covers, I could do that instead, if they ask). I *think* the person functioning as our Dean of Students will back me up on this. And anyway: if this is someone suffering distress right now, I do not want to add to their upset or stress by saying "okay, you need to make up all this work by tomorrow."

Kinda been there, done that this fall. Not the same exact way, but I remember sitting in my office and crying when I had to redo the stupid assessment stuff because I was SO tired and SO far behind on everything else and it felt like all I was doing was going to work, teaching my classes, doing my grading, and then going home and going to bed. Any extra task over and above what I was doing, it just felt impossible, like I'd never get done. 

So anyway. My day started out with my bending the rules - and I will maybe get called on the carpet for it, but I don't really care at this point* - to try to help someone else.

(*Well, I do care. But my concern over the student overrides whatever discomfort I might suffer)

But anyway. The current rage-click story in the news (perhaps moreso here because it allegedly happened in my state) is a coffee server being foolish and labeling cups that a cop was picking up for co-workers with an offensive term for cops. (There's been some debate, I've heard some people saying the term wouldn't make it past the chain's automatic profanity filter, but I don't know enough about that to comment). And the police are voicing their displeasure, and I guess the barista is being disciplined, and the story just keeps on going....and it just makes me profoundly tired.

For one thing: if it is as presented - where the barista making a "joke" as she claimed, by using the term, and the cops reacting - well, everyone behaved badly. We need to be a little nicer to one another. No, I don't care that you dislike cops in general; this is one individual cop you are dealing with human-to-human. And no, I don't care if your feelings have been hurt by the slur; people get called far worse every day of their lives (people working retail/counter jobs especially) and they keep going without grabbing the media bullhorn. 

I dunno. I suppose part of my exhaustion with the whole story is that from the age of about 7 until I was in high school (and even beyond, to a lesser extent), I got called stuff: "dog." Or "crybaby*" Or the r-word, which is strange, because I also got called "brainiac" and similar. You just....you live with it. It sucks, but you  live with it, you keep going. You try to hang on to the friends you have** and maybe if you're like me you imagine a nicer alternate world in your head and you escape there when you can, like when you're herded outside at recess and no one really wants to play with you.

(*And okay, yes, I was kind of a crybaby but that doesn't mean I deserved teasing and ostracization)

(**though now I realize some of my school-friends in the primary grades probably weren't really THAT good of friends, some of them were kind of mean in specific ways, and I think my issues with thinking friendship is "won" by doing stuff for the other person came from that)

And the teasing I got was just run of the mill teasing: I was a white, cis-female, Christian kid without a disability in a community that was VERY dominant-white and Christian. 

But yeah. I see two problems here: the tendency to not see the other person as a person, to see whatever group they belong to that you dislike first, and as a result, choose to be unpleasant to them (And yes, you can lecture at me about power imbalances, but unpleasantness is unpleasantness regardless of whether you're "punching up" or "punching down"). But also, making a huge deal about being called an ugly name. I suspect there's not a human alive who's not been called some kind of ugly name to his or her face (or behind their back, and they later found out, which is somehow worse to me). Again, it's nasty and unpleasant and can definitely damage someone's mental health if they deal with it every single day of their lives. But it's part of being a human. 

(And maybe? Maybe being disrespected helps you learn "wow, that hurts?" and you try to treat others with more respect later on? That's mainly the message I learned from my childhood teasing; that while the old "sticks and stones may break my bones" message is still presented, words can and do hurt, they just hurt on the inside where you can't see, and where a doctor can't bandage you up, and also, it's more easily-hid by the one hurling the insults, and so they often go without being reprimanded. Though I think being mocked/excluded as a child can have one of two effects on people - either it teaches them to be more compassionate because they know how much it hurts, or, conversely, it makes them worse as people, because "by golly I'm going to get the world back once I acquire a little power")

But I don't know. Some years back the whole WWJD thing was making the rounds - what would Jesus do? - and while yes, that's very Christian specific, and some people have argued with the underlying idea (Jesus was God and we are not, being one line people take), I still think it's a solid idea to think (if you're a believer) "What would He counsel me to do in this situation" and honestly? Either turning the other cheek (if you're on the receiving end of rare abuse) or trying to love your neighbor (and see everyone as your neighbor) if you're potentially on the giving end.....for that matter, I've thought perhaps, because not everyone is Christian, we could amend the saying to WWMRD - what would Mr. Rogers do? - and the answer would largely be the same. 

(And again: the idea that both those individuals have many fans but a smaller number of serious followers, because what their followers are supposed to do is hard and often counter to human nature....)

But yeah. I also think now of my dad, and how he used to talk about advertising to my brother and me when we were young - riffing on a shady character from Sesame Street, who was trying to sell people stuff for "a nickel," he warned us that advertisers were "trying to get our nickels" and to consider: do I really need or want this thing, or is it that I want the image it's selling. And I think many of these stories are not so much trying to get our nickels (though the advertisers that far too much online ad-space is sold to are), they are trying to get our attention. But I would argue our attention is better saved for things in our immediate sphere of influence, like, for example, the e-mail I had to consider and craft this morning.