Contingencies

Life is composed of contingencies, remove one event and perhaps nothing that follows would ever have transpired...it's been sometimes referred to as the butterfly effect, one seemingly insignificant event in one place has the potential to effect the course of monumental events oceans away. So it has been in my life. Remove one contingent event and the consequent narrative is irrevocably altered..the road is indeed open and sinuous.

Choosing one life-altering event that has irrevocably altered my life and made me the person I am today would be minimizing so many significant contingencies that I cannot single out one. This blog is called the road not without some deliberation, for it truly has been journey of many curious circumstances. That said, there are certain events, though not exclusively, that have substantially brought this mortal coil to where it is situated. I offer four of those circumstances,graciously,for your discernment...

Getting Clean...Twenty years chasing the dragon down the opium trail should have hastened my demise, God knows others that went along that path with me did just that...and I nearly followed suit, twice. The hand of fate had other designs and I emerged from that long night's journey into day relatively unscathed physically and cognitively. Bloodied, bruised, hardened, but unbowed...make no mistake, I am a survivor. The education was exacting, but invaluable, and without it I would not be here. This I believe to the depths of my soul.

Jason's Murder...Jason is my little brother. The youngest, and most innocent of three brothers, and the least deserving of the fate that became of him. Suffice to say, I miss him dearly, and not one single day passes that he does not enter my thoughts, even if for one brief fleeting moment. Life is fleeting and tenuous, and rarely do we know what the next day may hold. As such, with his memory in mind, I endeavour to have the courage of my convictions, never regret my decisions, nor to take lightly those I hold dear.

Dr. Paul Hernandez...I will not dwell here long, as much, if not more for others sake, than my own. Nonetheless, a fortuitous prerequisite humanities general education requirement altered my academic trajectory, and I will forever be indebted to Dr, Hernandez, for intellectual validation and prompting the conversation that led to my scholarly commitment.

My Wife Paula, Baby Evangeline, and her sisters, Adia and Izzy...My life is no longer exclusively my own, and my decisions, for the first time in my life hold significant consequences for others. While personal responsibility may have previously made for a noble code to aspire to, it is now my imperative. I no longer come first, and the world will never revolve around me...I welcome and accept this charge...I know no greater gift to date, and doubt one will come.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

On Happiness...Whatever gets you through the night

No waxing philosophical this time, happiness is feeling, and what follows is a short? (maybe) list of some of what trips my trigger, and what I'll miss when I take my last breath...

The Obvious
My lovely wife's smile...Ah hell, lets be for real, my lovely wife, period

Baby Evangeline...smiling, crying, sleeping, it matters not, I'm amazed and awestruck
My family...enough said

Thoughts of time spent with my grandparents, and my little brother...damn, I miss them

My dogs, by my side...especially Khan, (Nadja, I love you too but Khan is the rock)

* Disclaimer* if the next item offends, my only wish is that you get the chance to experience it before you die...Mutual orgasm with the love of your life, staring into each other's eyes, slick with sweat, shuddering, unable to catch your breath 

Honest to God True Friends...I can probably count them on one hand, those I'd take a bullet for

All the other stuff...
Intellectual Conversation...Whether its my wife and I debating absolute morality, My brutha Bruce and I kicking around the nature of virtue, or any of the other myriad engaging conversations I find myself in, this is what I enjoy most of all being a human being, and ultimately, why I chose academia as a life path
*see above* The intellectually stimulating and epistemlogically challenging regularly occuring conversations with Dr. Amanda Garrison, above all others, I relish and miss right now

Being in center city Philadelphia, especially in the heat of summer...The smell of so many foods, pizza, cheesesteaks, Italian ice, stale beer wafting from the open doors of two hundred year old taverns, the Italian market, South Street, Independence Hall, The Liberty Bell, the sight of so many diverse peoples, the sound of the elevated, car horns, music of all kinds from open windows, grafitti, street performers, homeless folk spouting Sartre, junkies, hookers, drag queens, homeboys and homegirls, street kids, horse and carriages next to the trolleys...This sacred and profane magical circus I call home!

Cranes, Herons, Egrets, etc...One word DINOSAURS!!!

Bats...

Spiders...Hell holds a special place for those who kill these amazing little machines

Creating...It matters not the medium... drawing, painting, songwriting, poetry, or any other vehicle of expression, the fruits of labor are the sweetest

Building things...this goes with the previous, swinging a hammer feels so goddamned natural!

Music...The short list goes...The Clash (stirs the soul, you know the feeling), Social D!, The Dropkicks, Loreena McKennitt (especially in the Fall, near a warm, blazing fire...she above all others speaks to my pagan spirit), Imelda May singing Kentish Town Waltz (makes me feel like crying, EVERY time I hear it), Punk rock, Reggea and Dub (not step!, c'mon now), Rockabilly, Swing, Old school Jazz ( Coltrane and Hartman, Lady Day, Duke, the Count, and of course, the sublime Mr. Miles Davis)...Stravinsky's Rite of Spring....you get the idea, music is like air, a necessity...in adendum, if one wanted a glimpse into the inner workings and thoughts of my mind, he or she would find much of that tempestuous wrangling mirrored in the lyrical poetry of Joe Strummer, Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Tim Armstrong, and Mike Ness, just throwing it out there

Dancing with my wife in our living room  ...Taking turns choosing songs, Sinatra for me, Louis Armstrong for her

Sharing the cathartic experience of an intense concert with friends ...(Bruce, my brutha, what's a few bumps and bruises compared to the lasting memories?...guess ya have to be there, eh my friend)

Honesty and Candor...No explanation necessary, I think

The Moon when its full, large and bright

Sunday mornings with nothing to do but relax with those dearest to my heart, watching movies...

This list is abridged, stay tuned, I will expand further...Like I said, the road goes on and on

Dancing with my love in the living room, eventually brings us to "our" song

                                                                          

SUCCESS...

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Simply stated, as I see it, success is being comfortable in your own skin, having the courage of convictions that you are endeavoring to be the best human being that you can be at any given moment, and exploiting that one quality, creativity, that separates us from the other species sharing this planet. Following from this, I further believe that one cannot experience that comfort and courage of conviction without having experienced substantive failure, loss, and suffering. It stands to reason that the metric of a "good" decision, one that provides a measure of personal satisfaction, which at the end of the day, essentially defines success , can only be understood when mirrored through bad decisions. Failure, however one defines it, seems to me, essential to success.

       Children have no fear of failure, at least not at first. Theirs is a world of wonder, magic and experiential joy. It is only when the "adult" world of rules, obligations, and expectations invades their realm of possibility and potential that the magic begins to be quashed. Before that happens, life is just an interesting journey of possibilities. Anything can happen, and outside of consequential physical pain, is equally as rewarding as any other outcome. Desire, an unfortunate consequence of aging, comes along and adulterates experiential pleasure. As we get older, others expect things from us and we internalize their expectations and make them our own. Living up to other’s expectations provides us our first glimpse of “success”. We succeed in making others happy; their satisfaction in us becomes our satisfaction. We desire approval. Thus begins the lifelong pursuit, conventionally, of measuring personal satisfaction through the lens of others expectations. When viewed this way, the notion of success begins to take on an unsavory quality.
      At the expense of appearing to wax existential, I submit that an authentic notion of success, at least for me, only came after my profound failure to live up to the expectations others had imposed on me. When one sinks to base depths of volition, whereby benevolent deference to well-being, personal or other-directed, no longer factor into appraisals for behavior, notions of expectation tend to be negated. Such was my lot. By the graces of whatever metaphysical construct the reader chooses to insert, I prevailed over my intentionally ambiguous “lot” to emerge with an understanding that above all else, I, under the implicit direction of others, had beaten my creativity and child-like wonder at life into submission. My fundamental epiphany came when I realized what I had lost: the ability to think clearly, to know things tangibly, and to create things that I could genuinely call my own, be they ideas, images, or songs. Sitting here now, in this moment, I gauge my success with the belief that, through this reawakened potential, I have positively impacted the life of others, and will continue to do so until I take my last breath.          

The Research...

The research...there's the rub, how to approach this topic? Social science research is like peeling an onion for me. Where does one begin when so many tendrils of so many domains and concerns intersect? I suppose the best thing is to just dive in and let it unfold as it will...The impetus of my current work stems from a reading of "Academically Adrift". Basically, the assertion made within the pages is that American undergraduates are faring poorly in terms of their acquisition of critical thinking and analytic skills. For the sake of brevity, critical thinking and analysis in this conceptualization includes the ability to apprehend and articulate the complexities of a situation or phenomenon cogently. Some students, upon graduation, according to the authors, lack this ability. The reasons for shortcomings are myriad. Some students arrive at college lacking pointed direction, some arrive without efficient study habits, some lack the social and economic capital that allows their more successful fellow students to thrive...the list goes on. Regardless of the reasons, consequentially, these students enter their respective vocations ill-equipped to perform and thrive amongst an increasingly globalized cohort.
My particular lens into this phenomenon concerns whether demographic specifics affect the acquisition of these critical thinking skills. In particular, does an incoming student's socio-economic status, i.e., privileged or disadvantaged family circumstances, inhibit or promote substantive learning in college? Moreover, does the acquisition of critical thinking, or lack thereof translate into favorable or unfavorable self-assessment of their subsequent respective vocational position? Along with an individuals particular SES, the question begs...does race/ethnicity and/or gender also play into how one experiences learning in college?
Let me qualify before I present a cursory explanation of my measures and method, this study is restrained by time and resource limitations. The data is secondary, taken from already existing General Social Survey (GSS) information. To conduct a comprehensive survey of the measures necessary to give a full reading of the dynamics laid out above was beyond time left as an undergraduate, to say nothing of the financial burden required to survey enough respondents necessary to result in significant findings.
As such, my limited study uses independent demographic variables of parental education  to express SES (bachelor's degree or above representing privilege, high school education or less representing disadvantage), race/ethnicity, i.e., white, Black, Hispanic, or other, and gender. At the other end, as dependent variables I use self-reported assessment of job complexity to gauge the level of vocational accomplishment. Admittedly, this study involves some semblance of extrapolation to make the connection between academic disadvantage and subsequent acquisition of limited critical thinking abilities, nonetheless, I believe significant results can help contribute to the greater body of knowledge regarding academic achievement and quality of working life and lend support to the assertions found in "Academically Adrift". At the end of the day, I fully expect to use this initial work as a prelude to a far more comprehensive study as I move forward with my education.