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Myself

I have a few general reflections I would also like to share about myself, in particular about leadership, my learning, and my future.

Leadership

People tell me that I am charismatic. As you know by now, this is a new thing for me. But the way this word is used seems inadequate to describe why I have been able to do the things I have done. So I feel that I ought to record explicitly what I think are some important skills of leadership, inexhaustively I am sure; my goal is to bring the magic of leadership down from this peculiar word ``charismatic'' to more earthly skills so that others realize how capable they are of the same thing.

First of all, and most importantly, I ``put in the time:'' I spend time thinking about how to achieve my goals and then do what I decide. When I originally thought of rejuvinating the idea of the Radical Departure (it had, after all, been mentioned in The Making of a College and been tried many times before at Hampshire and elsewhere), I wrote papers about it, talked with students about it, talked with faculty about it, held meetings about it. When I wanted to have new people become involved, I organized feasts where I personally bought and cooked the food - sometimes being reimbursed for the food expenses, sometimes not. Whenever I have had ideas for Hampshire in the past few years, I have written them up and found a way to share them. When I thought we needed people to sponsor EPEC courses, I spoke with dozens personally, trying to excite them about the idea. Once this summer, when it seemed like the difference between one particular person cosponsoring an EPEC course and not could be a matter of me visiting him, I got in my car and drove to Boston and spent the evening talking with him. Constantly, since mid-summer, I have been keeping administrators, students, and a few faculty informed about my thinking. Building trust and making people feel included are important. When I felt like we needed a course catalog or brochure, I made sure it was made. In the case of the course catalog, I had someone else do the first draft; in the other case, I asked someone for help on how to design the brochure and then did it myself. This is all about confidence in action. As I described in part I, becoming this confident in (and accustomed to) action has taken years. I think my ability to act responsibly will continue to increase, if not perpetually, then at least for the foreseeable future.

I think another part of my effectiveness is that I have hit on an important theme - trust yourself. For people who are ready for it, this theme is exactly what they need. It may seem peculiar that the encouragement to trust oneself must come from outside, but that's the way it is so why not go with it. It also seems peculiar sometimes that such a simple thing might be the most valuable tactic or realization, but for some reason it is so why not go with that too!

Finally, I am highly individualized. As much as possible, when I speak, I speak to one person. When I am in a class, I ask one person a question. When I am in a group meeting, I suggest to one person that they could do something. In each case, I might then go on to the next person, but the point is that it is individualized. Things work because I have made them work with individuals; EPEC is truly how I have personally effected individuals, and so I realize that my goal at every single step will ideally be working with individuals (and never should it disappear from what I am doing, or else EPEC doesn't exist). This works well with the other two strengths.

Interestingly, I have also found that at times each of these strengths are also weaknesses. Some people, for instance, when confronted with ``trust yourself: decide what to do and then do it'' are confused or scared out of their minds. They might be ready for ``trust yourself: you're really a good person'' or ``trust yourself: you can succeed in what Mr. Professor suggests.'' In fact, the subtle line between these interpretations is part of where the problem of confidence comes in.

When I think about the way confidence in action can move other people to action, it is because through my action I inject an idea into their thought space, as if it is crystal and their mind can use it as a start of a new way of thinking. Often, the crystal was really needed, and they take off balistically. For some examples, see the quotes in the EPEC One-Month report, or the students who wrote descriptions of my personal contact with them. Other times, however, my crystals only seem to continue the feeling of people that they are incompetent at doing what they want to. Personally, I am not convinced this is so bad as long as there is also support for these people - but I am only sometimes able to give that support (partly because of time issues, and partly because I haven't let go of my expectations of people), so my confidence in action often ends up creating uneasiness (which is sometimes problematic) as well as helping others to mobilize themselves.

I have found that I am not the only one with these dilemmas - they seem to go with the territory. In 1936 at Black Mountain College, many students and faculty were very concerned about their leadership. They felt that the man who had originally been most responsible for the founding and philosophy of the college, John Andrew Rice, was creating more harm than good. Some said he ``deliberately misused his power or doesn't realize his strength;'' one said, ``We have a rough Socrates here, and perhaps we need a little Jesus.'' In his book Black Mountain, Duberman describes and quotes Rice's response to these charges in a way that I can relate to:

Adamic turned toward Rice. ``This seems to me very important. Mr. Rice is accused of going against his own theory. He is a leader but is against leaders. Is this a just charge?''

Rice finally spoke. ``The essence...is true,'' Rice replied calmly. ``The worst sin in the world is impatience, and I am the most impatient person here...Sometimes I kick a person too hard...I don't like some people here; some I dislike intensely. I'm not under obligation to like everyone. My obligation is to be just. I am sometimes unjust. The job of the college is to deflate my power...George says there are some sheep here, but there are also a great many strong people. The place will go on if people can get up and fight and not sit back and complain. They must burn out of me my hatred and meanness...You should make yourselves into little anti-Rices...fight for justice, make it prevail. If I'm in the way, make me `take it.' I have certain good qualities. Get hold of them and bring them out. But sit on my shortcomings...Say what you mean. Stand up. Don't mutter and gripe in little groups...I admire George Barber for having the guts to get up and say what he thinks...The student officers this year are worth less than nothing. They bring countless problems to me instead of solving them themselves. Every time I straighten out a problem that gives me power. Let me alone, and I'll have less power. It's your job, not mine. Rise up so that I'll not amount to anything. You've got to work on me...''

This is precisely how I have felt sometimes. Power comes through individual action, and as much as I wish I could get others to take that individual action, it is by nature their choice. And yet, I think there are still ways to negotiate this dilemma. Importantly, this is my first real time as a leader, and I think that with time I will outgrow some of these problems.

One final comment on leadership: the disadvantages of too much action. In writing this division III, I have found myself constantly referring to EPEC as nothing more than my own personal effects and interactions. At first I was surprised, because this seemed to be such a limited perspective on what is actually going on. There are EPEC courses for which I haven't even met the sponsors or participants! But I have found myself unable to expand my vision properly. I think this is partly because I am still so inexperienced at really doing what I think I should. In future efforts, I expect that I will be able to have a much more objective perspective on the big picture, as my own development becomes more separated from what I am doing. However, two other reasons why I have this tendency are much more something: I tried to do a ballistic amount of action this semester (including my writing this), with not enough balance of physical labor, mindless pleasure, or masturbatory intellectualizing; and I just haven't had enough time since the time when EPEC really was synonymous with me. Both these factors have contributed to me not having enough reflection time for my language of thinking to change so that it reflects what I am perceiving currently instead of what I remember. This hasn't become too much of a problem yet, but is rather a warning to myself that too much action not balanced by reflection could make me lose track of reality in the future.

How and Why I Live and Learn

One of the most interesting discoveries of the semester for me has been that I don't need to learn every single thing on my own. I am finding that I used to make lots of things difficult for myself by needing to prove that I didn't need other people (particularly, teachers). I think this behavior came from my old feelings of teachers by whom I felt misunderstood and unappreciated. It might have all started with being forced to write in elementary school, but maybe it also has to do with teachers, peers, and adults since then who have not liked my knowitall behavior. It was a really powerful experience for me this semester for Ken Hoffman, the Chair of my division III committee, to be interested in reading my writing, and in working with me on my own ideas. For the first time, I met regularly with a faculty member and discussed my ideas. It is embarrassing, actually, to recall that I have spent three years at Hampshire but less than 5 times got myself together enough to go to the office hours of a Professor - I was too scared and would have needed an invitation. I think Ken was probably aware of my resistance to learning from anyone, though I am not sure if he knew that it was not simply out of obliviousness, but rather out of peculiar parts of my history.

I finally see now what Greg Prince was talking about when he insisted to me once that the student and faculty should be working on subjects in which the faculty is an expert. It's not because the faculty member has anything going for him in objective endeavor, but simply that he has so much experience in a very narrow field, experience which is valuable even if it is not everything. I still think Greg was wrong when he thought every interaction should be like this, because at that time I know I wasn't ready for that, so it wouldn't have been ideal for me.

In part, this discovery about being able to learn from others makes me regret that I had not worked harder to incorporate faculty into EPEC in a non-hierarchical way. I may have dismissed that idea too easily, when I didn't feel particular support from faculty, in concept or devotion.

I cannot help but think that this particular learning I have made about my processes of learning reflects a deeper trend in what I have chosen to do in my life. Just as I have consistently worked to prove that I do not need the experience of others in order to learn, so I have also worked to prove that I do not need the experience of being a human. Instead of being able to appreciate education as it exists and living it up for what it is worth, I insist on forming it to my own notions of how it should be and worrying about tactics; instead of traveling through the world to see other cultures or experiencing beauty in my own yard, it was more important for me to show that I was the best bicycle racer in the world. My muscles are always tense because I feel that I must hold the entire world in place - though I could disappear, and it would all continue. Indeed, in every sphere it is as if I began very early chasing windmills, and I wonder whether I will ever be able to let go. Whether these trends come from my treatment as a young child, or from reincarnation, or from a particular combination of DNA I do not know. Why does my sister paint and attend classes reading the canon at Columbia, while I manufacture a document to prove to the world that I was right to attend Hampshire so that I would not be required to attend classes? We shall perhaps never know, for there is after all no why; but if what I say is worth its weight, then my heart is already on a path that is ever becoming; ever becoming more balanced among the ways.

My Future

Finally, a few words about why I am moving on. I have had the feeling that I could create some kind of position for myself at Hampshire so that I could continue my work with EPEC, and for the first part of the semester I was considering it. However, I have since then decided that I don't want to continue with this work now. I can imagine several reasons I am making this choice; which are the most important, I may not really know until later.

I have been frustrated with the small successes of EPEC, for one. I had set some of my sights far too high for what could happen in one semester. Partially, I had created my own utopia, and was working towards it, rather than recognizing how very far the students had to go before they would be near there. Another important part of this same frustration is that the students I worked with had to spend so much energy working in their other classes that I felt they could not devote the energy to themselves, which is what EPEC classes really grow on. One or six hours a week of EPEC classtime does not itself make an EPEC class something I want to participate in. Thinking from one's selfish heart about what one would like to do in this world, and working for it - which is what want to be a part of - can only happen when one has some free time and energy.

When I work with smaller children, it feels so much easier to make them feel heard, to help them feel that they can try something. With these older kids, I feel that I am splitting my heart open with comparatively fewer results. I think ultimately, I will want to work with a balance of younger and older learners, but perhaps I will find that I want to work with exclusively younger children.

So for these reasons, I have been frustrated. Why not start an entire school of my own, I thought. And that is what I plan to do - an alternative elementary school, with college interns learning and acting as staff. I have spent many hours now wondering whether I am leaving EPEC only halfway completed. After all, it is my habit to leave things before they are finished - whether it is quitting highschool or leaving before saying goodbye to people. Do I ever stick with anything, I wonder - anything besides following my nose itself? I don't know the answer to these questions, but I suspect this is because for some reason I am simply not ready to know yet. Right now, I am only ready to better understand the questions, and if my heart and feet tell me that I should be on to other adventures, then that is where I shall go.