hopelessly hopeful

I consider myself an educator. On second thoughts everybody can. Educating others seems an inherent quality of life. Be it our partners, children or dogs we educate to get others to do or think what we believe is right.
But the thing is I'm an educator professionally as is my mother and as was her mother before her. The difference between ordinary, say, real-life, educating and learned educating is that the latter is systemic.
We all agree that teaching others to do things better or, consequently and more generally, have better lives is a good thing. Probably for that very reason there have been so many people in our history ready to devote much of their time and energy to spontaneous making up and spreading ideas of educational value. But spontaneous educating is one thing (and very enjoyable at that) and systemic educating is another.

Imagine people gathered at the original Sermon on the Mount. Or a bunch of Scandinavians loaded with mead being told Beowulf for the first time. (It's all education, stories.) What are they doing there? Are they listening intently? Are they engaged?  Will they tell anyone about what they were told?

Now, fast forward a few thousand years. Imagine a group of young people sitting in a room with somebody retelling Beowulf or quoting Jesus. What are they doing there? Are they listening intently? Are they engaged? Will they tell anyone about what they were told? When will be the test? What's for supper? Hey, is that nice looking lass is smiling at me?

So we have two very different approaches to spreading the news.
You can start talking, try to make it interesting and count on the people to come and listen  (if you're good at it, they may even ask you to sign some obscure body parts of theirs, which is kinda fun).
Or you have someone tell/pay/sexually incentivise people to come, tell them to listen and only then do the talking (which kinda spoils the surprise, but attendance has its cost).
This is voluntary education and obligatory education.
Which one sounds like a better deal, eh? Learning about stuff you want to learn about or learning about stuff somebody told you was interesting.

And yeah, I do know people who say they don't want to learn anything, too. But what they mean by learning is systemic learning. They learn of their own will how to be better drivers, lovers and gamers. Some of them might even be interested in learning to cook, dance and tie their shoelaces. So it's not that education sucks. Or, better, it does and does not at the same time.

Experience tells me (apparently, many feel similarly) that only a handful of people approach educational system voluntarily. Many more declare that they need to go to school of some sorts. After all we live in the times when all of us recognize the importance of formal education. But still, needing is different from wanting, isn't it?.
As a pro I keep asking myself this question: can I do anything to make wanting stand out more in their personal narrative landscape? (this, of course, can be stretched to a more general discussion on motivation cos' real wanting is everything you need to make things happen).

Well, I can do it the hard way, beat the hell out of them (or, better still, let somebody do it) and coerce them into wanting (to avoid pain or sth). I could also buy them into wanting through forceful mental persuasion, commercial/school style, but it'd be just beating the crap out of their minds rather then bodies.

I can not give a fick, but if you've read the first post, you know it's impossible (believe me, I've tried a thousand times).

I could also talk to them, ask what they want and try to establish a highly personalised plan that at least partially takes into account the thing they want to learn (that they want to learn something is as certain as it can be, which is very) and bootleg some of the things I want them to know into it.
I know it sounds very time-consuming, but once the wanting is there, you just sit and watch as it kindles and just steer the boat instead of rowing all the time.

Yeah, sorry for that, but times when only the willing went to schools are long over. Systemic education grew out of proportion and waiting for schooling-hungry devotees will become more and more frustrating. Instead of just moaning about the Zeitgeist just learn something from the systems that've already taken people's attention captive like the media and entertainment industry. Or religion for that matter (which does know a few decent tricks). I'm not asking you to betray your ideals. Just be consumerist in your teaching methods, take that which works and use it for whatever purpose you deem worthy. Recognise diversity among recipients, it has increased along with their numbers. Screw the system, it's becoming more and more bureaucratised and what we need is more flexibility.

Do what you can, cos' we might well be a few ficks given away from raising a generation we really won't be happy to have around.

losing my religion

That's a tricky one and for me it was true some ten years ago. Part of the trickiness in losing faith is all about asking the wrong questions. Wrong in the sense that they usually make us feel bad about ourselves and everything around us. Like bad bad. And wrong because almost everybody deems them as such.
So why would anyone attempt this if it makes your life so miserable? 
Well, because it's useful and because the thing is that it doesn't. (Told you it's tricky).

Yes, living in an enchanted world where fulfillment is just round the corner, your success depends solely on hard work mixed with just a handful of talent, a world where you not only can but also deserve to get what you really really want is full of joy. Such world is a land of opportunities, providence and meaning. Except that, come to think of it, all of the above is bull faeces. Obviously it's but a flesh wound for your fluffy, filled with Disney stuff self, so you wade on singing songs to yourself dazzled by the colours of the wind. 
Those precious, long-honed defence mechanisms built into your self do an excellent work of translating the world to you in familiar, pacifying terms. Being dishearteningly miserable is evolutionarily disadvantageous, so you have the accumulated experience of the whole species to protect you from losing faith. 

Let me tell you something.
You thought that Santa didn't visit you that Xmas twenty years ago, because he got sick, poor bugger. No reason to get sad, he'd get better soon and, yeah, of course that next year he'll be back. You can't blame him for not giving you the Lego set you kept moaning about for the previous six months. It's not that your parents spent the money elsewhere, it's only natural that everybody gets sick from time to time and you can't help a flu. The ship was there somewhere, in his sack, waiting. 
See what happened here? You were wrong, but you were happy and happiness is a good thing, right?
Wrong.

Let me tell you something. 
You thought that you lived in a happy and stable relationship. You exchanged favours and shared the bed. All was fine until one day they didn't answer the phone when they were supposed to. No biggy. But then the strange smell on the clothing appeared. But you loved them on. And the calls at strange times. And the business trips. And Stacey told they saw them together. But, come on. You have children, it can't be true, right?
Wrong.
The very same mechanisms that protect you from getting miserable can and will sooner or later get you miserable. But it's not you being naive or anything. It's just that whatever-it-is that's at fault. 

Yep, constantly being miserable will get you nowhere. But being miserable at times is the thing that gets the world go round. Without misery we wouldn't get those fine pills for headache, winter clothes or your partner. The more joyful stories you're telling yourself, the less useful you become to anybody except yourself. Misery is the drive that fuels your actions. Happiness is all just fine unless you have to get up and actually do something.

Why get upset, then, by asking yourselves the wrong questions? Because we are not alone here, and there is a chance, slight, but still, that if we do manage to scrutinize our faith that everything is or will be just peachy, for whatever reason, we will actually get up and make it so.
Get angry, get discomforted, look around and learn stuff because if nobody gives a fick, we might all be ficked one day

or face nuclear winter if too few will. 

PS I find it a nuisance that in my newly rented flat I have my kitchen light switch a five minutes' walk from kitchen. But it is comforting to know that if flats were evolving for people to live in them, this one would not hold long in the race for survival of the fittest. 
I will probably fetch myself a table lamp or something.
Misery is the drive for change.