Ross Brought Spiked Orange Juice to Me... and Other Things...

Government bureaucrats and School Board apparatchiks... placed the Mathematics Department on life support... The teachers were instructed to follow all day seminars... So as government appointed teachers will teach our teachers how to teach... better...

I guess whenever the government feels pressured from parents comes up will ideas and lots of money to spend on things which will throw dust over the eyes of parents and victimize the teachers...

Teachers are always an easy target for scapegoating... No one loves or respects them... not even the students...!

So I was attending seminars 10-12 times each year... I had to attend because of my position... I was the Department Head... I was bored and I learned NOTHING new... But I had to attend... I had no choice... 

On one of these occasions I encouraged Ross to feel for one of the teachers... I knew that the teacher will be "sick" on that day... and Ross was a "mathematician without numbers..." 

He hesitated for a while... but eventually gave in to my encouraging pleas... he was going to attend...

So early in the morning we met at school and I dove us to the "seminar'  which was going to teach us how to teach... and all the rest of boring stuff... 

I wanted him to be there so as I may have something to do... Listening to almost nonsense all day is expecting too much ...
At lunch Ross winked and I did not know what he meant... Few minutes after he took a bottle of orange juice from his backpack... and gave to me... I realized what the wink was for... The orange juice was spiked and spiked real good... and Ross was happy like only a child can be... pure and zippy... He was indeed happy for his mischief...
Later he apologized to the Principal who had sniffed his mischief...
"I know him...," Ross said, "When he is not interested he will not listen to it... and I just wanted him to be normal... and get out of his boredom.
I know him and I know that he does not need anyone to teach him how to teach..." That was all the Principal would have from Ross...

Ross never gave up his rights... He never yielded to stupidity too... 

***

A friend sent an email...

When you were talking about how everything at the funeral was for the living, I totally agree with you. However, I find them very comforting. When I was still 22 I came home one morning from a party, obviously still disoriented and exhausted. I went to pick up my landline and call a friend in New York who was supposed to visit for the weekend but my cellphone started ringing. When I picked it up, it was another friend from PA and he told me I needed to sit down. That friend from New York had died in the night at a party. I was crushed. I collapsed and had to hang up and catch my breath. I couldn't breathe or speak or function for a good five minutes before I could call back. That friend who died was supposed to be with me! I had told him to switch the weekend! If he had been with me he wouldn't have been at that party!  The guilt that crashed on me like wave after wave made me feel like I was drowning. Obviously I went to the funeral in New York. Seeing all of that stuff for the living was a huge comfort. He's gone to a better place, a place where he doesn't need comfort. It was people like me who needed it. When I was walking up to his casket I collapsed, another friend caught me from behind. The only thing that got me through that line were the flowers and the distracting smells and music. Everything about those few days helped me realize though that there was nothing I could have done to stop this from happening. The people that spoke, I didn't care if they were being real or fake, I just needed to hear them so I could breathe again. So although these things are just for the living, it's the living who need it the most. It took me until recently to forgive myself. I still have his photo on my night stand.

Yes, Ross will agree with you also...
The ceremony and the flowers and the incense and the chants and the colours... in fact everything is created for the living...
The living can only create for the living... The living can only project forward whatever they know... and whatever they know springs from their experience... They have no clue what the dead person feels and if the dead person feels... The living people who have invented all the customs and the ceremonial departure... have projected their live knowledge... They have no clue what there is on the other side and how things are on the other side...

***

... and a Diogenes puzzle... 

Diogenes walking with the lantern in hand observed things... and of course asked questions about things...

They say India is the "world's largest democracy..." and it has always bothered me... that how come a system established in "castes" and a system which has the "untouchables" can be dubbed democratic...?
Yesterday, I was reading that at least 1000 females are acid attack victims in India every year... and it made me sad...
See few of the victims below...

Acid burns the skin and eats the flesh - acid attacks can blind and maim and leave a person's face disfigured and unrecognisable. In India it's estimated that there are 1,000 such attacks per year, maybe more... Can democracy exist where violence against women is tolerated by society...? A new initiative... In the shadow of the Taj Mahal a group of strong and determined women, all survivors of acid attacks, have come together to run a cafe and tell their stories to the customers... and to the world... "I even thought it would have been better if I had died," says Dolly an acid attack victim... pictured here. Now she wants to continue and study to become a doctor. Maybe even help bring democracy to India... I hope she will...

Ross told me once that "Democracy can exist only when the people are educated... He insisted that we read again Plato's Philosopher King... I agreed to reread Plato... Maybe you should too...