Mary scorns Neil, Neil questions reality...

I am a CL. A Community Leader. We're asked to think about "what it means to be a CL" at every training session. They ask us this question of us as if it they actually think we're going to be able force the ideas of annoyance, that comes with having to show up at school 1 or 2 weeks ahead of every other schmuck we're stuck in classes with has to, out of our heads. (ok, oK, OK! I actually do like it... but I'm a stooge for the man...)

But I guess I think about it.

I remember telling Dr Shushok, in a moment of self-riteousness (you're shocked, I know it) how the great things about the CL's we're hiring is that, for the most part, they don't need to be told how to be CL's. These people were singled out to become CL's because they were already, in one form or another, doing the job. I had the arrogant thought that being a CL was just going to be a continuation of me being me. The best and worst thing about arrogance is its self-corrective nature.

Whether I want to admit it or not, [sharply inhales] being a CL has changed me. I think it has changed FUNdaMENTALly in so many ways. I mean, in very basic ways.

I don't want to say that being a CL has "taught me a lot about life" because I don't really see it that way. I don't think we can really learn that much about life. I don't believe that's the way God ever really intended for us to think that way. That life is something we can learn about. That there is some way we can empirically prove anything. Its a lie that we all buy into.

Its like in the Matrix movies. I there were a lot of things that a lot of people found absurd about those flicks, but the one thing I couldn't get my mind around was the fricken screens. Y'all know what I'm talking about, the ones where the dude with the headset is able to decode the matrix by looking at the screens. That's ludicris to me that they can process that much information through just some cool-looking icons falling down a screen. Now, I always get annoyed with people who rip movies apart like that (cough-cough Andrew Telep cough-cough Brian Rowe), however, that did weird me out. What I mean by that is there is just so much going on in the world. When I think about all the things I've learned, I'm impressed. However, when I think about all the things I've forgotten or just let go through one ear and out the other... I'm floored. But I digress...

Back to the point, I don't think that life is really something we can learn. -or if it is, anything we learn is incredibly insignificant, like forgetting to read the book for the book test we're about to take until 5 minutes before we take said test. Reading the first page isn't going to help you. -Much like assuming that there are things we can know about life.

We're looking at it all the wrong way. Our brains aren't computers storing information, reading the variables and making decisions. I think its closer to being a lens through which we see the world. Every piece of information we process puts another chip in our lens, affecting how we perceive our world.

I imagine this idea isn't really all that new. Theories of ethnocentricity and such have been around for a while. I'm just trying desperately to make sense of how I see things. So while being a CL hasn't taught me that much about life, it sure has chipped the hell away at that lens.