Reflections

Today started out decidedly bad. Woke up with a migraine and was feeling super tired and nauseous for the entire morning, for goodness knows what reason. Which meant that the three hour nineteenth-century seminar was, for the first (and I certainly hope the last!) time, a pain to get through... I didn't want to keep raising my head up to read off the slides or stare up at Prof G because I didn't want to excerbate either the headache or the nausea, but keeping my eyes lowered and head still for extended periods of time makes me drowsy. And for some odd reason I was disgustingly tired, so that my note-taking fury deteriorated into.. well, valiant attempts. Let's not get into that.

But that's not the point. Seminar, laden with rich information as always, was different today because of the digression that came right after. Prof G had already ended class for the day, and told us we were free to go as we wish, but that he had something to share with us. And share he did, for that brief ten minutes... His dad had just passed away last week, and there were lots of thoughts that occupied his mind over the past days-- thoughts that got him to decide to bring forward his usual end-of-term talk.

So he begun by asking us to figure out what kind of a life we really want to live--not career, he said, but the spiritual and emotional aspect of our lives. His dad was an immensely active person, he told us, but had a stroke that cost him his control over his own movements... which also took away a large part of his life, and essentailly his will to live. Which sparked the question of what is it exactly that we would want to live for, ultimately...

It's a very crude presentation, this sketchy summary, but I'm trying to sort out and recall, still. He did share a lot more, about his parents, whom he felt were never really compatible, or understood each other enough, right from the start... And he spoke of the impact an incompatible marriage would have upon the lives of two people, and subsequently their child(ren)... (so if we want counselling with regards to looking for a life partner we could go and see him as well, he added, and a ripple of light laughter coursed through the silent class.)

In all seriousness, though, it made a lot of sense. That these are things we need to think about, more so than just the pursuit for wealth. (If he were just concerned with that he'd have gone study law and live off big bucks he'd have sapped from lots of people--but what was the purpose in such an existence?) Which was why he taught, and why this particular course, he said, teaching about the levelling of society with the increasing fluidity of capital, of spirituality and morality of a developing (degenerating?) nineteenth-century Victorian society in which we are heirs to, of the exploding of the delusions of an increasingly unstable middle class and of machines and humanity and of... oh, a lot of things.

It matters, I think, that we know, that we understand, certain ways in which society works, that we draw from these and comprehend certain sets of values...

It's difficult trying to paraphrase or to explain what he says, but as a lit student you do understand, I think. What your teachers have imparted to you through literary works is much much more than literary analysis. It's an understanding... of people, of relationships, of values. And then from there you learn to weave your own story, suturing little things you've learnt here and there into your quiltwork of understanding.

But I digress. He was saying he would usually talk about these at the end of a semester, but the funeral over the weekend had got him to think about so many many things, that he thought he would bring this sharing session to us a lot earlier in the term.

And it mattered, I think, out of the blue as it was. It touched me to know that he was genuinely concerned for us and our future-- not just the future of brilliant NUS students with potential high-flying careers, but as individuals who need to find a proper anchor within their selves. And it moved me that he shared his personal stories to remind us not to be so caught up with pursuing all these material stuff in life that we lose track of ourselves.

It mattered, because I guess we all need a reminder, sometimes.