This is called "Form". I wrote it the last semester of high-school, or during part of that year anyhow. I told my english teacher that I was just not going to come to class any more, and that was that. He was hurt, but understood that that was what was best for me. I turned in this paper, and ran one of the last classes on things I had read and thought about (actually that day had a funny class-schedule and the teacher skipped class by mistake. I think he felt terrible about that). He was the best teacher I have had yet, I think. I wrote this paper back in the days when I didn't believe in revising papers so it's not well-rivisen I suspect. I have never read it. Someday I probably will. I remember how much I enjoyed writing it. A lot of what is in here is probably still in my philosophy. When I was young, in elementary school, I have this image of myself as being convinced I was always right. Sometime near the beginning of high schoo, I got confused because now the world seemed to be sending me some CRAP and I knew it wasn't my fault... but how could I solve it? So I felt less convinced of my self-image (very connected to my social dunceship). Finally, during the period when I wrote this paper, I got into Hampshire, new once again that I was always right and that the world was good. I remember the day so well when I walked down from the post office in the Spring Sun, my admissions thing in hand...Well, I think this was a growthful and fulfilling part of my life and I hope reading it shares something with you. Obviously as I was writing it I was reading Motorcylce Maintenence and Zen, or whatever that book is. -Jan 18, 1995 XX Begin document "Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking that freedom highway Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you me Was a great big wall there, tried to stop me Was a great big sign there, said Private Property..." 1 My bike tire somehow having flatted overnight, I change it, and as I do I remember thinking to myself yesterday how lucky I was that I did not puncture on a particularly glassy section of road. I quietly gwt the rest of my biking stuff together and take off. Somehow it took me an hour- from 9:30 to 10:30- to get my shit together, which really hits me hard. It already hit me hard enough that I woke up at 9:30, especially after going to sleep so soon, 11:00 on a Saturday night. I suppose I must have been fighting off some bug, because I haven't been losing sleep lately. I have about two hours to bike, which will bring me back in just enough time so that I can catch the end of brunch at 1:00, after taking a shower. I had hoped to do maybe eighty miles today, but so slow on the wakeup and so slow on the get-your-shit-together leaves me with little choice other than to take a hard forty miles. Even though I went hard yesterday- did a time trial- I'll go hard again today. Good practice for stage racing, I suppose. I get my bike down the stairs and outside and think hard about going back to fetch my glasses. It's days like this that glasses are meant for, when the sky is so bright all over you have to squint, but instead head right up to the post office to drop off some entry forms for a race next weekend: with so little time, I can grimace rather than waste five minutes on a task like getting and cleaning off my glasses, sweaty and oily from my workout yesterday. I ease my way down the entrance road and take u poff the hill on route 10 once I get there. I keep it in a really big gear and stand up to simulate really going for it in the beginning of the race. At the top, my legs are as hot as the noses of the guys who worked at the Roe Nuke, and it takes an incredible act of will power to push it over the top, into the next higher gear, and then all out to leave my imaginary competieion in the dust. Then I slow down and rest for five minutes to gain myself back before the next big effort. Sacred concert today...If I go, it'll be the first school assembly I've gone to this term...But to get four absences would certainly put me on warning, or probation, and if I miss some other stupid stuff I'll end up suspended. I can never tell those damn administrators what they want to hear. I just insist on telling them how they should be running the place, and that has yet to get me anywhere with any one of them anytime...Then I'll just have to make it pleasant for myself. Never got anywhere being negative...So I'll bring a book, and sit with Johnathan, and read, and just plain decide to enjoy it, and have fun with the words, and read when they have some piece by the orchestra... Time for another interval...A few grunts sets me off, and I cringe as my heart rate monitor shows that my intensity is inching up...160...165...170...180...and then at last I decide I have outdistanced the field again and rest once more. Funny how it's accepted that to go to a concert means to watch the faces of the choir, which for me translates into watching their mouths. They're always so big...The beourgois notion of art is fake invlolvement...What they know about art, all of it based of ethical knowledge, one of the great nonexistents of the world, but which we nonetheless insist on as one of our basic truths...And this dear school, whereas next year one will be on DP for lighting a match in a room, and whereas one will be restricted for two absences, and whereas teachers are require to keep a book with absences and send them in: rubbish!...And where we still have not even come to accept that grades should, if they are given at all, necessarily be defined by someone; for each teacher to decide themselves what grades signify and then for the colleges to assume this and such- by the time it's all done and through, we've no longer any real connection between the student and the college... A left turn and then another interval, this time the monitor reads 185 before I quit, and a right turn onto the road that stays on the west side of the interstate. Is the grade supposed to be a measure of the written work a student puts out, or perhaps of their class participation? Or, should it be of how well they could do if they tried- how good their potential is in such and such a subject? Maybe effort should enter into a grade- but there's always a separate effort grade, so often ununderstood by teachers. Or should the grade be a measure of how much a command they have of material when they leave the class? That sounds reasonable. But what about class participation? SHould people be rewarded because they make an effort to say something in class? Why? because they were born with words in their mouth and have nevver closed it, should they get a better grade? Shouldn't everyone who gives commendable effort get a 1 for commendable effort? What is commendable effort? What is not satisfactory effort? And these are what our goals in high school are reportedly to be, to get good grades, whatever the hell that may mean. For what? College? What do college admissions officers know about what these grades mean if we don't even know? If they're supposed to be our goal, then they should be equivalent to our participation in the role of education- what is the role of education?......... A right turn after another hard interval takes me down a quick hill, then around a right turn, and finally around a left. The orad leads through some pines, and on the left side is some sort of pond system, all dried up and all fenced in. An emergency flood control system? For Fish? Little kids? I go over the covered bridge, past the fly fisherman on the other side, and climb the quick, but still mean, hill in the big ring. I put the bike into the 19- a pretty big gear for a hill so steep- and then into the 17 for the last section- an even bigger gear. AT the top, I almost collapse on my bike as I turn left toward my destination, the foot of Peckville Road. Education in society...Quite a hefty topic indeed, and not to mention if you're just starting when the clock's about to click 1:13...Or, I suppose, right after a lung-hanging-out interval. But as I look at my past term, that's exactly what I see: a search for a concrete relationship between education and society... From opting out of senior year infavor of a something genuinely new, I'm saying that the relationship NMH is suggesting- is it even suggesting one? -is so far from the truth (and to think of the worse prep and private high and elementary schools) that I need to find something else...The basic rule of NMH is the idea that the established order is the one to prepare students for, and therefore put them into externally held together groups, because they should be in those groups...This argument helps fill the pond of fascism, that there is an order inherent in all things, and within a nation a state is the embodiment of that order, and Moussoulini just happens to be the ultimite embodiment of the state, and therfore, of the nation. Each nation has a state taking root within it..."This is the root of the selfdetermination of nations"...until they are dominated by other states?...Indeed, if the structures imposed by the school were indeed so natural, than why be imposed? Are they not natural at all... are they rather merely right?...this sidetrack is merely confusing me, and the turn is just up ahead onto Green River Road. Green river road takes me to the bottom of Peckville road, where I find an enormous sign requesting that I turn around "Road Closed" and even more convincing a concrete barrier just behind it. But I know an alternative path. And I take it. The road is not very steep, but I am going very slowly with great effort. Where I should be in my 17, I'm in my 21, and bogged down. I look down at my tire and see that it's rubbing against the left chainstay. Rats. I hop off and play aroun with the knobs on the back of the chainstay for making sure the wheel is sitting in the bike correctly. I tighten the quick release hard as hell and get back on. Twenty five hard pedalstrokes and one hundred meters later I feel bogged down again and have to get off to bitch and fix some more. I don't know what the hell's going on here...This time I put the tire so far over to the right it'll never bend over and rub on the other damn chainstay. An old fella walks down the hill "Quite a pump up this here hill, aye?" Vermont squirts through me for a moment, but I still know I'm in the commonwealth territory here. "Got a little trouble there? Chain freeze up on ye?" Nope. "What I got here is a loose wheel or slipping something or a weaker bike than it used to be" (Or stronger legs) "Be all right there?" Yep, I think I will be. "Aye, if you needs some tools, I live in the gray house at the bottom of the hill, with the white piclet fence." Thanks much. I think I got it, and I get back on, and off I am again, but this time it doesn't fall through on me. I grunt and push it into the 17, and take off like I ought to. The hill is not so long, maybe a mile, and I know it, so I go hard, and my heart rate stays at 185 until the end, where it jumps up to 187 for the last push. And there I get to rest, as I cruise along and take the left turn, and go past my own little Vermont- cow shit on the dirt road and everythin'... The role of education in the formal sence is to gain a control over the material, to be able to apply it to make this life as happy as possible...Now yoiu got more that weaves into this, because it always gives ya a much better sence of accomplishment to do something on one's own than to be told what to do...I wonder if we could get the same sence of accomplishment if we decided as a class what to read and write and how to do it, by consensus, or voting...I've never been able to decide which is better, consensus or voting...For sure, it's more either way than when you are told what to do... The only real way to be able to do something right is to understand and agree with the underlying form...To tell people to make pottery doesn't do anybody any good unless they know what it's going to be used for, and how the pottery react under such and such conditions. Sure, you can tell them make it look like this and follow these rules but really those rules are not the real underlying form; they're just one person's quick version...They're superficial...To get real quality you have to know the underlying form. Then you can adjust to that all along, rather than to a set of rules. Likewise with school. If students and teachers understand and agree about the underlying form of education and its relationghip to society, they'll be able to get quality within that classroom...OR then maybe, like I have, they will come to a conclusion that underlying form's needs are better met outside of the classroom...But the grade system is not based on underlying form. Either it must be changed so that it is, or meeting the goals of underlying form must be the new goals of education...But changing the grade system so that it is a real per se measure of the underlying form doesn't achieve the goal, because underlying form doesn't come through when put into other words. It only comes through in and of itself...Or is it good enough?...Indeed, some further looking into is quite necessary here. The last section of Peckville orad is just ahead. On both sides of the road is an apple orchard, and the hill is steep. My monitor reads 180 as I climb in the 19. I wonder just how I would be doing if there were a race here...Many years ago they did have a race here, I am told. I can see the ride3rs around me. I am keeping even pace with the junior pack, but I turn them into seniors and begin to loose ground. I switch into the 17 and stand up. Now I am going the same speed as all of them, and the top is within sight...The finish...but I know this hill has a false summit, and I jump from the front early enough that others who do not know about this false summit will kill themselves on this one and I can get them easily where it really counts, 200 meters further. The trick works and I come by them all easily at the top. 187, the monitor reads. Good job. I turn around and head back down the hill. Can our underlying form be real for people if they don't want it? In other words, can they achieve quality by following superficial rules, rather than the underlying form itself? This is a hard question, and I think I will have to sleep on it tonight. But it is nonetheless essential. The road I am on turns onto Green River road at the bottom of the hill, and I turn back towards Mt Hermon. I have about forty minutes of riding left, and I think I should do some criterium intervals- my kind of criterium intervals. A criterium is a race around a short loop, usually a couple city blocks, and after every corner you have to stand up off the saddle and accelerate. Nobody else I know takes this into account when they train, but I am convinced that to take it into account will give me more left at the end of the race. So what I do is every minute I put it into the 15 or 13, stand up, and pedal like hell for about twenty seconds. Then I rest for about forty and just keep going. After about five, my monitor reads 166 on the easy part of the interval and 170 after the hard part. My legs are tired now from both yesterday and from what I have already done today, and that is why I suspect my heart isn't beating too enthusiastically. I hope to do 30 of these intervals by the time I get back to Hermon...But they take all my brainpower and all I can really do is concentrate on them consciously. Most of what I have mentioned in this paragraph is below the level of consciouness for me. I am doing it all the time: checking the HR monitor, switching gears, standing for some short climbs. But when I go hard, I need to put my conscious to work too... ...I finish the 30th interval right before the entrance to West Gill Road, and I take it down to North Cross Road, slowly working back towards school, cooling down. No, underlying form cannot be met by following another's rules because underlying form is relative. It is dependant on the quality you are seeking, and it is the only way to get to the quality you are seeking, which is relative. (A momentary glimmer flashes through my mind as I cool down; I file it, and order it to lie low until the night when my conscious turns off and gives someone else a chance at their own reality unhampered) I turn up towards campus, push a big gear up heartbreak hill, past Vandervliets', past Wallace, towards Crossley, then right up to the door. I walk in, set my bike on my shoulder to carry it up the steps, and file it away, too, when I arrive at my room...I wonder sometimes what it is like to be a bike...I wonder if it is alive only when I am riding it, or whether it is alive watching me type away today...the same bike I have used for two and a half years...thirteen hundred miles...at least a thousand sprints...which has been under me when I could only ride 20 miles before falling over and now when 100 is comfortable...which has seen me at 125 pounds and at 170...with big legs and bigger legs...which was under me when I was dropped from races I would be embarrased now not to win, and which will be under me this summer in Indianapolis when I win my first national championship jersey and in the fall in Greece when I win my first world championship jersey... 2 My legs feel good today, Monday, and I am ready for a good ride. I played one hell of a frisbee game this morning, even though we lost 7-6. We were one man down, but the biggest thing is that we gave up the easy ones. The easy ones are always the hardest, because you turn off the part of you that sences conflict, and you lose everything it would have given you. I'm going to ride with Ryan today down to Bob's house, where he'll talk with Bob about the summer. I'll come back as soon as I get there, or maybe I'll talk to Bob for a minute or two. Bob is the president of the club. He used to be quite a bike racer himself and knows his stuff. The ride down is pretty average, about 20 miles an hour with no special occurances. Bob when we arrive Bob isn't home yet. (He is usually late). I take off back to school. How can I show that quality, and therefore underlying form, is relative? This seems to be my most difficult task yet, and if it requires faith then I will be quite chagrined indeed...What is the goal of life? Happiness, of course. And let us take any two people and examine the sources of their happiness. One may gain his greatest satisfaction from outsmarting fish. Another, however, may gain her greatest satisfaction by designing buildings out of carbonfiber. Now the fellow who wants to outsmart the fish may have read in a magazine that carbonfiber can be used for virtually any task, and that it is so much lighter than bamboo, which his fishing rod happens to be made of. The architect, on the other hand, may have just found out that there has just been invented a new kind of carbonfiber, and it only wieghs three quarters as much as the older kinds of carbonfiber, per unit of strength. So they both enroll into a course at the university, NEW CARBON FIBERS. Now we've got to remember that the goal of the one fella is to outsmart the fish, whereas the goal of his classmate is to design buildings. The quality goals of the two are different, and therefore so will be the underlying form of their study. The first day, the professor points out that all new carbon fibers are strands twenty meters long, and therefore they can be used for nothing shorter than twenty meters. This doesn't bother the woman much, because she's looking at using one hundred meter long carbon sections. The fisherman, however, is bummed. He asks the professor if she knows of any way to bend the carbon fibers, and the professor replies that researchers have been working on the problem for quite some time, and none has yet devised any way to shorten them, whether it be by breaking, bending, curling, or whatever. The question inherent in his underlying form "can I use this technology to make a five meter long fishing rod so light that I can yank it quick enough to be able to set the hook in even teh fastest fishes mouth?" has been answered with a no, but the professor says her friend right down the hall is working on an experiment with old fashioned carbon fibers, and perhaps she could help him. The fisherman thanks the professor and trots down the hall to meet her friend. He has followed consistently the needs of his underlying form, which would not have been met by following rules set ouut by the professor as to what she thinks the underlying form of students should be. Meanwhile, the architect stays in the classroom. She is ready to hear about stresses and fracutres and static bending. These are all important to her underlying form: can I use these to design a better building? can I use this instead of steel? would this work as a support running down the middle of a building, to hold up the roof? would its bend be so much different than that of steel that they could not both be used in the same building? or would their being used together create an ultimately stronger building? These are the questions she must pursue, and she will find out first whether she can get them answered in the class, then she will seek the answers wherever thay may lay, be it in this class, down the hall, or down the street, or maybe even in the bookstore. What I have just come to see is that underlying form is relative for adults. By just this one example, I have the grouinds to make that assumption. Now, only to apply it to what the beourgois would call children. If I could do it within the confines of beorgois ethical "knowledge", I would be thrilled. But I am not sure how I can show that. For beourgois, the business of children is to get ready to become members of what is in existence. If I could see how their underlying form would lead to that goal, then they could not argue against me...But for that to be true, a child's goals must be the same as the goals of society, for otherwise the underlying forms would necessarily be different. Yet anyone can see that the goals of a child are not the goals of the beourgious world...So I must attack the beourgois at their fundamental premise, that ethical knowledge is imaginary, and that the goal of education within society is therefore not to create people perfect for today's society, but for their own...This will be quite a task...But I have the feeling that it is yet possible, and therefore, true. However, the length of the entrance to the school does not quite give me enough time to perform this task, and I shall have to leave it for some other time. I pedal past shadow lake, where on Friday night I felt the cold water on my balls, and up to Crossley. I file away my cards for tomorrow. 3 Today is sprint day, which will give me quite a lot of time for speculation. Next to long, easy rides, sprint training gives you the best chance to think. On sprint days, you go at an easy pace for the whole ride, except for five to ten sprints of about twenty to thirty seconds each. The key to sprint training, they say, is to be completely recovered before each sprint. This makes sence to me because the purpose of sprint training is to raise the maximum force capacity of your muscles, and, to stimulate your muscles (to tell them you really need more force capacity), you need to go at your max. If you are tired before you start your sprint, though, your muscles won't be up to their maximum force capacity, and won't get the message that it's too low. I think I'll ride about thirty to forty miles, depending on how I feel and how the sprints go. I start out by going through Pioneer Regional School and out towards Vernon, spinning along. As we decided yesterday, the underlying form behind higher education is relative. The big question now is how that can be applied to lower education. I am at a loss to be able to say what exactly higher and lower education are; there seems to be no line, much like the comparison of the Occident and the East: everyone would agree that elementary school is lower education and PhD programs are higher education. But where does higher education start? With graduate school, or college? If with college, then what about AP courses in hight school? This system of names is becoming quite vague. Perhaps I should ignore it completely? But, because I am trying to find arguments to win them over on their terms, I am stuck with them; still, I must remind myself often of their lack of clear definition. The next real question that comes to mind is why are people going to pursue underlying form? All of a sudden, something slicks in my head. The pursuit of underlying form is enjoyable for healthy people. Curiosity provides me with some of the greatest joy I ever have. And a healthy person is one who has been encouraged to follow their conception of underlying form their whole life. Of course you could give the child suggestions, the same way you could give an adult suggestions, and when that helps their pursuit of their underlying form, and when they are encouraged to pursue it, then they will enjoy it, and continue to enjoy it, and get out of education what is really supposed to be gotten: whatever their underlying form tells them to get; and they are going to enjoy it. Time for the first sprint. I take a couple of deep breaths, put the bike into the 13, pick out a telephone pole, and go for it. I push down as hard as I can with every single pedal stroke and pull up as ferociously. Then finally that is over and I switch way down and inch along for about a minute before picking up the speed to 18 miles an hour or so. That sprint felt good, and as always my legs feel like they're about twice as big, probably because they are with all that extra blood sent right down. My heart rate had climbed up to 180, which is about usual for a sprint of that length, that is, when you start it at 120. If you start at 170, like in a race, on the other hand, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it ended up at 195 or even 200. I think in a race you also have the adrenalin to make your muscles go even harder. I take the left turn that will take me around the loop by the Brattleboro Rec area, where I will do my next sprint... So then it is really somehing inherent in people, wanting to follow up when they have an understanding of the underlying form at hand- which is curiosity. But we can see so many people slapped in the face anytime they try and pursue their own underlying form, and instead told to do what the class is doing-- is it a wonder that so few people can maintain their curiosity? What is equally bad is that the entire system fails to set straight what the underlying form behind its existence is, both globally and provincially. But I suppose that the school handbook has this bit about statement of purpose- though this is another example of trying to summarize underlying form with an outline. Last spring I remember suggesting that the school might want to change DLMoody's motto 'the hand, heart and the head' by appending 'and the wallet' as representative of the subtle, but always present switch from the ideas the school suppposedly represents to a good way to keep the bread flowing. "NMH: A Business", I titled the editorial in the school paper. But I do not know that there is a real underlying form behind the educational system. Now, if I were to suggest something, what would it be? Something like, to encourage people to follow their underlying forms to whatever conclusions it may lead. I remember something Bertrand Russell wrote once: "Noone can be a great thinker who does not realize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead." But this goes beyond the scope of great thinkers and intellect. This goes onto the realm of great persons, and at the risk of having a trite thought, to the great persons within each of us. Underlying form is present in the pursuit of quality poetry, quality photography, quality quantum physics, quality education, and quality bicycle racing. It is in our morning coffee and in the books we read and we eat it with our ice cream at night. And then locally- that is, within the classroom, the underlying form/purpose of existence of the class are first of all not officially set out by the teacher. Even if they were, they wouldn't necessarily be the same as those of the students. But it would still be a marked improvement for the teacher at least to ackowledge what their conception of the underlying form of their classroom is. The next sprint really hurts. I sent for a little longer this time, and the monitor said 188. As I go by the Brattleboro Recreation Area, I notice that the pool is filled and some peop;le are playign tennis...I wonder if the fish ladder is open at the dam just down the road. Last year, I thought they opened it up sooner. Maybe it was vandalized, and is actually open, just not the public anymore...The headwind keeps me slow, but still the hair whips around my ears. Ideally, in the contex of high school and beyond, what I would be looking for in classroom situations vis-a-vie underlying form is that the students themselves decide what it will be, using the teacher as a resource in this process, and using the teacher as a resource within their plan whenever appropriate. I think I would also find myself extending this to the earlier education as well, but as I have already decided, that will be taken up later. Once the first loop is complete, I take the road right back to Hermon, rather than going around again. I've a couple hard races this weekend, and I still want to do a eighty or ninety miler tomorrow. The headwind is still doing its chore, and the ride back is windy and slow. When I get back to Pioneer, I speed through the corners, as practice for cornering in races, and take the main entrance to school. Dinner is about halfway through, and I am getting hungry. 4 Wednesday. Endurance day. On Wednesdays, I ride both in the morning and in the afternoon. Usually my ride in the morning is thirty miles hilly, and in the afternoon sixty hilly. I don't usually do any intervals on Wednesday, above what is inherent in the hills themselves, because it's already a long day due to the miles, and tomorrow I don't want to be dead when I'm trying to do intervals. Today, though, Ryan wants me to ride seventy to eighty with him in the afternoon. So I'm only going to do twenty in the morning. Next weekend is a really big race, Somerville. Most of the good races somehow end up being in New Jersey, and this is one of them. I really would like to do well so that I can have some big-time results to show to the organizer of L'Abitibi, the biggest Junior stage race in the world, and which I'd like my team to enter this year. The only problem there is that it's going to be by invitation only this year, so I'd better build myself a quick reputation to get me an invitation. Considering the importance of Somerville, I will do my special Kawecki-criterium interval this morning for an half hour. I'll do it on the flat, because, frankly, I don't think there are too many hills in New Jersey. Since we had to go to Sacred Concert on Sunday, and therefore no school assembly on Wednesday, I'm don't have to have any scruples about going on a bike ride this morning and missing that wonderful required event. I wake up at 10:00, which is a surprise. I went to bed at 1:00 this morning- no make that last night. I think we should change our idea of night and morning, because we'd avoid a lot of confusion if we just accepted that night ends sometime between when we go to bed and wake up, which happens to be about the same time that morning begins. After an orange for breakfast, I set out on the bike to the loop I went around yesterday, what we call "the P". Genuinely, it's a "b", but some dyslexic must have named it quite some time ago, and we go on with the name, perhaps out of traditions sake, but, to add a real psychoanalytical twist to it, more likely because people hear it called "the P" a number of times before they are familiar enough with its shape to realize it's not. But by this time, they've already gooten so used to calling it that, that they feel awkward calling it anything else. Or then again, maybe I'm just looking at it from the wrong point of view. If I stood seven or eight miles below the surface of the earth and could see where the road was, I'd call it a "P" too. Now that I'm thinking about it, the most likely situation is that the leg of what we call the "P" isn't its leg at all, but rather that the leg extends on the other end of the loop. It would then be a genuine "P" to aviators like ourselves, especially if the one who named it came from Brattleboro, and mentioned the name to a rider from down south here, who got used to it- which seems like a very reasonable possibility. I wonder to myself whether I really should go for twenty seconds every minute, because in a race, you only go for about ten after every corner, but stick to the twenty seconds a minute option, because if I went for ten seconds, I'd have to sprint to really get a workout, and when I sprint in the morning I can't do hills in the afternoon for beans. If I do intervals in the morning, that is, if I don't use the maximum force capacity of my legs, then I can do alright on hills in the afternoon. Perhaps because sprints just tear the muscle fibers so much they can't mend, unless you give them a whole night. So I do my intervals, and have to concentrate so hard I don't get much time for thinking. But they speed by as if galloping ghosts riding on spurts fired from geysers, and are over in half of a jiffy, which leaves me twenty minutes before I'll be back at school. The pursuit of underlying form is enjoyable for anyone who understands the underlying form they are working on. Let us examine the case of a small child to see how this can be seen there. Little Joey one time decides he wants to build a sandcastle so big the waves can never destroy it (familiar anyone ?). So he starts out doing that. He's having a blast. He knows exactly what he's trying to do. Sometimes he might get sidetracked a little, or maybe a lot, but he knows what he is trying to do there, too, and has a blast there, too. Now after a bit, the waves' creeping gets them within reach, and they start to tear down the front wall. Joe man now decides the goal is to quickly build up the front wall, so it won't be the link that breaks and gives out for the rest of the castle. And he works his little butt off doing that. It's a new underlying form he's working on, but he's having just as much a blast being the boss of the bucket as before. Now maybe Joey's big brother Bif comes over and tells Joey he ought to use a smaller bucket, that that way he could make more trips, and get more sand- which may or may not be true. It depends on all of the specifics of the situation. But it is furthermore not important here. What is important, on the other hand, is whether Joey thinks it'll be faster, which is a very impoortant part of his underlying form- get that front wall built up fast so it doesn't lose it. (He may or may not be concerned with the rest of the castle right at this moment, which is also immaterial now.) But suppose Joey doesn't believe his brother, but decides he is going to do what Bif suggests anyhow so Bif doesn't knock his nose in. If he keeps believing he's not doing it the way that's right, he'll not enjoy it as much. It's not in accord with his underlying form. But if he ignores the advice becasue he thinks it's wrong, he'll keep enjoying the task. Maybe he'll think to himself 'maybe I should try that suggestion now', and maybe he does, and that is in line with his idea of underlying form, to get that wall built up fast, and he'll enjoy it. But now let's take Joey home, and set him on his bed. His room is as usual all messed up, and mommy comes in and tells him to get his shit together (perhaps in not so few words). He's supposed to have a clean room, all five year-olds have clean rooms, do you want to be a grub your whole life, do you think anyone is going to marry a guy who lives in a pen like this, etc etc. But Joey thinks that's a load. It's just a waste of time for him to clean his room, if he has to marry somebody he'll clean it then, and he knows where anything is anyhow. He doesn't understand the underlying form his mother is sure exists, that to find something quickly you have to have a neat room (which may or may not be true for her, you, me, Joey, Bif, or any other Sloppy Joe off the street, but as usual I'll regard that as immaterial because it's what Joey thinks that matters, not what's true. We can't even decide if there's really such thing as true, or if "it's all relative." Joey doesn't understand what the hell he's doing, and he won't enjoy it, but more importantly, he is being forced to do things that are not consistent with his underlying form. And this being forced to do stuff that's not consistent with our underlying forms is exactly what makes us lose our ability to understand underlying form, and when we can't understand underlying form, we will never enjoy it, and never be able to pursue anything effectively because of that. Now it's possible, of course, to not be able to understand some underlying forms, but to be able to understand others perfectly well. After talking with him last night, we figured out that this happens to be the case with my roommate Tim. For the vast majority of his school life, he has been told to do things not consistent with his underlying form at the time. But meanwhile, at home, he has been able to, and encouraged to, follow whatever path he might like. Now here at school, he is very comfortable with his life outside of the classroom- that is,he can handle his relationships with whoever extraordinarily well. He is highly motivated in that regard (I sometimes like to joke with him that if there were one thing I get some of his of, it would be his 'on base percentage', my pet term for one of the things he is apparently both very good at and enjoys very much, that is, wooing women), as well as in theater and in photography, two things which never fell under the 'school' category at home. In the classroom, however, he is not as motivated, puts his work off, and I am sure every single progress he has ever gotten here has been the following: Tim is a very bright student, a wonderful addition to the class. He is very quick, but yet must concentrate on setting himself down and actually doing the work- that is, if he did the work, he would be an A student, rather than a B student pulling through by scruffy hairs on his chinny chin chin, which happen to be quite connected to his brain in a very efficient manner. Perhaps I put a bit of my own humor into that one, but this ride has left my with low blood sugar, and I've not much choice. The biggest exception to this is his performance in Ancient History, which should have been titled ancient spirituality fit into an ancient history class to make sure noone gets ripped about it (ie the Department Head). Here, I am convinced he understood the underlying form behind his being there, because he and his teacher had a genuine solidarity of underlying form, which is unforrunately very rare here. Furthermore, the teacher did a very good job of letting Tim know what that underlying form was, and luckily he agreed wholeheartedly. What also helped here was that it was more than just a normal class, and more than just a normal student-teacher relationship, reaching far into the realm of personal relationships, towards which it has been made quite clear Tim is rather predisposed. As I ride by Shadow lake, on the entrance road to the Campus, I once again file my cards, though still in the today pile, so that I can continue as well as possible this afternoon, when I am sure I will have quite some time for that. 5 The afternoon ride, Ryan told me, will take us down to Bob's house, then somewhere with him, and then finally back home. Ryan still insists that it'll be seventy miles. We'll see... On the way, we stop at my sponsor's house. His name is Doug Bilodeau, and he owns Douglas Auctioneers. Among other things, he likes to talk (fitting job, indeed!), ride his bike, and go to races, where he just loves to see the guys with 'Douglas' written across their chests crossing that line in front. Just recently, Doug has bought a really nice bike- A Merlin Titanium with Dura Ace- which is about a good a bike, in durability, stiffness, and weight, as they come. He lets me try it, and I am convinced that I'm not riding any old bike, but a hot rod with five hundred horsepower at the touch of a pedal. The shifting, worked at the brake levers instead of on the down tube as most bikes are, works as good as the best cliche, but better because it's not ordinary...yet. It's sick what money can buy. I tell Doug that I have found a team who will go with me to do L' Abitibi, that junior stage race in Canada, and he says if I'd like to, I can use his bike then, or any other time I really want to, which frankly I can't complain about one bit. I haven't the nerve yet to ask him if he'd be so kind as to give us some money to help out with the 1,500 dollar entry fee, and I figure he knows it's there. If he makes some good sell of something, I'm pretty sure he'd give us a little help. Speaking of selling stuff, I think I remember Doug telling me once that he had only one person show up at an auction of some land once, and he talked so well he convinced her to keep bidding...Later he found out she was a drug dealer and was probably playing games with him, not the other way around. But he got his cut, you can bet on that. I like Doug. Doug has an uzi, which I suppose is a good thing to have a friend with...I leave Doug to go back to whatever action he was up to so I can go find Bob... As usual, Bob is late getting out, and it didn't hurt one bit that I stopped to shoot the bull for a little while with my main man Doug. He puts his clothes on as usual, and as usual I am mightily impressed with the size of that man's penis. He is hung. We like to joke sometimes that Bob's only problem is that when he tries to pee off the bike, he's got to make sure he doiesn't get himself hung up in the spokes. Of course, that weighs itself off because we figure pulling that baby up hills is the reason he's got such monstrous legs. There's always two ends of a good schlong, that's always been my rule. Also as usual, Bob offers up everything in his kitchen for us to chow while we're waiting for him to get ready. "You're just trying to make me fat and sick so as to let yourself keep up on this climb, aye Bob?" "Yisser, killer, I won't lie to you. That's the strategy here." "But don't you wants me to get across that line first and show that big Douglas shirt up front there so Doug gets good and excited an maybe gives us all a raise, or free bikes or something to that effect." "Oops," he admits, "I guess I looked over that. Well, you're welcome not to take it too." But how can you turn a good guy down? Niver kick a gift horse in the mouth, that's what I like to say I always say. We set off with Ryan and Matt right behind us and turn towards the hills. An 11 mile clomb, Bob tells me. But for now, we set ourselves up into a single-file paceline and start to cook, giving me ample time to do what I planned. That is, I'm good and ready now to tackle my past education, that's first. Then maybe tomorrow I'll get to my present education and from then on it's all speculation. Or maybe this is too...From then on, it's speculation about ideals, anyhow. Naw, that isn't right either. From then on, it's different, we'll worry about just how when we got to, and not before. Now when I was a real small bub, my parents went out of their way to do what was consistent with my idea of underlying form- the only rationality I knew, for anything else was irrational. Mom tells me she used to give me my own drawer in the kitchen, in which we kept some measuring cups and a few ingredients, so I could make some comcoctions of my own and play around with my own stuff when mom played around with hers. This really accomplished two things: first, it enabled me to have my own things, and having one's own things, I am convinced, is essential to not having a real bad ego problem, especially in relation to possessions, when we grow up; second, it gave me the general experience of following my own rational order. Sure enough, that order was provoked by my mom doing the same thing, and I was encouraged by her, but I was following my order- the only order-, I enjoyed it, and I genuinely learned- not the learned they artificially call this school business, but genuinely learned- following my order. Since then, I have learned that mine is not the only order, but being able to understand that underlying form is what makes me, and anyone else, enjoy doing something. You get a whole lot of people -mostly women in science, and mostly men in what we call the humanities, but not only- who have lost the ability to comprehend underlying form in those academic areas. The guy down the hall, Dave, has absolutely no interest in math and science. This could be due to lots of things, and probably a combination: his parents, or brothers could have said they were never good at math, or that maybe Dave won't be, and it doesn't matter, because math is dumb and doesn't matter (which would go against what he was thinking then, that he was enjoying experimenting with a scale, or even earlier, just looking at patterns on the linoleum); or, he could have been forced to take math when he was interested in something else, drawing, or maybe one day he wanted to go skating, but he had to go to a math class. This just seemed the dumbest thing to him then, and he lost the ability to comprehend the notion of math's underlying form. Now Dave's councellor's are trying to get him to take math and science again next year, when he is hating them this year, and not doing too well, though not for lack of trying (perfunctory trying, as if to avoid punishment, not from a genuine joy out of an understanding of the underlying form he is pursuing). They say he needs to show Columbia that he can conquer math for them to let him in, and the only way to do that now that his grades aren't so good is to take more courses. Horrible! The worst thing to do! He will only hurt even more his notions of science's underlying form, and his whole notion of academic and thinking underlying form is in jeopardy. But he really wants to go to Columbia, because he says they have good teachers. I have come to the point now that I no longer give much credit to teachers, mostly because I became a good writer and reader on my own, with much practice and self motivation, over this past summer. Genuinely, teachers have only be of any help as a recourse to me, and that is the only way they should be used. Our underlying forms should guide us through education, not theirs. Otherwise, we will lose the ability to understand our underlying form and the ability to experience joy by pursuing it. The road begins to climb, and Bob tells me that this is the bottom of the big climb. Bob, in his increasing years, has a considerably more exaggerated view of hills than I do, and I really don't think it'll be too tough. A light mist begins to come down, and Bob comments that we're in the clouds now. It feels that way, at least, I add. Before long, the hill gets a little steeper, and the three of us drop Bob. Ryan and Matt kill themselves up a short rise, where I drop back about fifteen yards. But I gain it back as soon as we ride over it and onto the flat again. I know it's endurance day and tomorrow is interval day. I know what the hell I'm doing here... Within the bounds of the public school which Mom worked at, she couldn't work as much towards the goals which she and I both agree wholeheartedly with, but yet fit in as much as she could- and with her incredible drive, that was a whole lot. The days were structured in terms of time somewhat, and skill level groups within the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade unit learned at their own paces, and as far as I know, the ones in the lower groups were not slowed down by seeing themselves in lower groups. In the higher groups, we moved at our own pace, and individual work was emphasized anytime group work did not meet the immediate goals as well. Activities of our choice were all over, and we took pride in helping one another. I remember we had a job called 'spelling checker' where anyone who didn't know a word during reading time would raise their hand, and a student would come around and help them, and if the student was no help, a teacher, and then, if need be, the dictionary was consulted. But I don't remember much more proudness and real comraderie from this exercise. I do not think I was hurt much, if at all, by the structure present there, because I was already quite a well-rounded person, and enjoyed doing nearly everything. At the teachers suggestion, I was perfectly happy to go and do some reading instead of painting because I wanted to do that, too. Writing I don't think I enjoyed much, and that dislike stayed on really until this past summer. I think the reason I actually came to like writing this summer was as much due to my being able to decide for myself what I was going to do, that is, I was fiinally able to write according to my underlying form ther, some traces of which apparently remained, and not because I found that I was good at it or whatnot. Mostly, I think I wrote letters over the summer, which is really a perfectly reasonable underlying form. And it brought me to really like writing. (I remember being somewhere sometime and asking my mom if she thought my two year yoinger sister would ever be better than me at anything, and mom told me that frankly she would probably be better at writing, which was really good politics on her part, because she knew for sure that I didn't take any immediate joy in writing. Also, I remember thinking that what she meant was that my sister's handwriting would be neater than mine, which, as far as I could see, wouldn't make any difference at all anyhow because it's what's in the words that counts, not the neatness of the letters. Hell, I figured I'd get rich and buy myself a million typewriters anyhow. (Maybe a million monkeys, too, and I'd have a Faust.)) The hill goes down really fast, and by the bottom, Bob, who is a little on...uh, well, hes' got a bit of a spare tire down around his midsection, has caught us. When we get to the fork at the bottom, I take a right to go back to school and make it a seventy mile ride, and Matt and Ryan take a left towards amherst to make it 85. I know what I'm out here for today, and it's not that. Besides, I'll just make dinner as it is, and I have to sit down and type my butt off today. I'm behind on this damn thing I'm writing on bike racing and educational philosophy, almost in danger of mot having it done by the time school gets out, which would be a real bummer, because then I couldn't see how enlightened my english teacher becomes...Bye bye, Matt and Ryan...I'll wait for you at the finish line... Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade had about the same format as the other one, and I had a teacher there who was motivated and cared too. Her name was Helen Dearden, and, though she wasn't even too hot on her algebra 1 even, she did everything she could, and kept me moving on the track where I already was on, namely that I had a hell of a head start on just about everybody else. There were some other smart fellas too...I remember Kate Hill, who goes to Deerfield now, Zeke Farrow, who goes to Andover- the three of us were the wizzes, if I remember correctly. Well, somehow I got to thinking too much about where these fellas are, and I'm already back at school where I gotta get a movon for dinner, so I'll finish this bit tommorow. 6 Thursday: Traditional Criterium Intervals, and lots. What I do on this day is I go for a minute as hard as I can, so that I couldn't go any farther, but yet so that I don't slow down at the end. I'm going to go for about an hour on the interval part, about fifteen minutes for warm-up and about fifteen minutes for cool-down. I don't really think theis warm-up and cool-down business is good for anything, because I just can't see how it can help me, but I do it anyway because I don't want to ride for only an hour, and I don't want to do intervals for much longer than my big races will be next weekend in New Jersey, because then my body might think I need a lot of endurance, which I really don't. I just need to be fast on the sprints. Or the final sprint anyhow. 500 dollars first place money...almost 200 for fifth... The most important thing for me, then, within any context, is to follow my conception of underlying form. This context- I guess I should say for anybody in any context. The most important is to follow their conception of underlying form. This responce, though it would give the greatest joy to the greatest number of people, is nonetheless apparently not the one that society brings up in its people naturally. In fact, as we have seen, it is repressed. Too bad, too. I'm reminded again of the Russel quote: "It is my deliberate expectation that the worst is to come, but I do not on that account cease to believe that men and women will learn the simple secret of instinctive joy." In fact, anytime I do not follow my underlying form, I am robbing myself. I must do everything in my power to follow that underlying form so that I don't dig the grave into which society can push my curiosity, self-worth, faith in others, and happiness. I cannot rob myself like that. Sometimes, I suppose I have to compromise some aspects of it so that others may flourish. During the real part of my ride, which is starting right now, I am just going to look around and take it in like it wants to be taken in, and not think, just observe. It's hard, and I can usually only do it for about ten seconds at a time, every minute or more. But I like challenges... ...That part of the ride went for more distance than I thought, because I ended up going faster. So here I am, turning into the entrance to the school, and I only have about two minutes to cool down. Bum deal. Or like what, hey, you know! 7 Tomorrow I will race in Keene in two criteriums, around a 2 kilometer circle, one in the morning at 9:00 and the other later, at 4:00. So, I'm just riding easy now. Last night, I helped out one of my friends with geometry. Lulu happens to be a bit afraid of math, though she is really damn good at it in terms of understanding math as it should be, not as the course is taught, but she has also fallen into the ...a poem that floated meanwhile in the ether... she having been made golden walking down the street and me seeing her eyes and her hand hesitation-free having met mine let our juices all shiver forth ...That is to say, she has fallen into the almost impossible trap tripped oft before, to think that classes are purely a waste of time, and the only reason we go is because it's required. Of course, sometimes there is a good class, but... Once we had finished the lesson, she said that she'd heard from my roommate and her boyfriend Tim that I only had six classes the whole next week (which was true) and that, therefore, I would have so much free time, that she would ask me for help a bit more. But I told her that really I didn't have a single second of free time, though if you would like me to work with you I would be happy to change my priorities. (I am wont to help anybody as much as I can anytime they actually take some individual initiative.) But my point still stands, that I have, in the last time, taken such control of my life that I resent a second wasted. But at the same time, I am so so happy that I have found ways to pursue my ideas of underlying form that I can disregard this resentment after only one more moment. I have found such joy in my own ability to do what I want to successfully that I have become indeed much happier. In a phone call from my mom later last night, I was asked how in the world I could have changed form being so negative to being so positive, and maybe if I could give her a short version she could give a couple of people a hint. (My sister, I am sure she was implying- perhaps her, though, too?) And I told her that it was thanks to the joy I received out of my own accomplishments that I became so much more positive. And I am sure of it as much now as ever I have been about any single thing. My twenty or thirty minute ride is over now, and I am going back to the dorm, up the hill to Crossley, and up to West HAll for a good supper. 8 --Perhaps I have gone so far that my intellectual underlying form has taken ove my spiritual(?) social life. --am I violating the people in my class when I make them listen to me sing? talk singing a while. Solution. Preacher Chris. --conversation with Ryan.- purpose of ed to acquire the skill of understanding purpose. (those were some things I thought I'd mention today.) It has actually been about five days since I've written. Today is Thursday. The computer just gave me a kick in the buns. It does that whenever you hit the key next to shift at the same time as shift, and the only thing to do is to let it do its thing: print out everything on the screen. Not bad, if you want everything on the screen, but if you don't, it's quite a waste of paper. Since I've had a long time since I've sat down and thougth back on this theme I'm trying to look at, my mind has undoubtedly made some connections behind the curtain, and I might end up with some interesting insights. But, (at the risk of using the word too many times, though. it being the right word, a worthwhile risk) since this is not only a look at education, but also at who the person is who is inventing it, I have chosen to include the journal entries I have written in the past few nights: the adventures of capitain Rookie, kissless, and before that last few days, absent of what I think Fromm called 'erotic love', love that can be only felt toward one person. Behold my first love. 9 may 18 92 This is going to be the biggest journal entry so far. That is, in terms of what it holds, not how long it is. Today is monumental. I have been seeing quite a good amount of Amanda Nims lately, and I love her. I really only met her last Thursday, but I have seen her for a bit of time every day since then. We talked today down by Perry pond. We like to talk in Gibberish, a language which she taught me. It is really fun, and we only revert back to english occasionally. She is a little taller than me, P C, blond, pulls it back a lot of the time, but not always, beautiful, cute, afraid of science, afraid of men, but wonderful. She has apparently had some bad bidagoo with some men in the past, perhaps her father included, whose drug and alcohol was apperently a big part of the reason for her parents' divorce. But for sure Dab, some black guy, no racism intended. But maybe with more. I don't know, and I won't speculate. Though it may seem that I am, I am not. I am not really suggesting that she was sexually abused by her father, and frankly I doubt it, but there is the definite possibility that she could hold a grudge against him for being the reason for the divorce. I do not know much about it, and that is just a little background. She may not like science, but I love her. And I told her so. I told her I thought about writing a poem or song, but decided that I would just say that I loved her, which I did. "I love you." She said it was a surprise, and that noone had ever said that to her before that. Which I think means, no guys. She asked me if I had ever loved anyone before, and I thought about it and said no, becasue it really did feel different. I told her it was good to say that, that it felt good. She did not say the same back to me. This makes me see her as a very rational person. She did not look at me, because she was afraid. Seh played in the ground with a stick, and I am sure her adrenyline was as high as mine. Why do I say then that that makes me see her as so rational? Or maybe that's not the right word, but because she did not let herself be forced into saying something she was not sure about yet. That is the right thing. She could have felt it, but I think she is porbably still a bit hesitant to let herself feel that way, and is very, very smart to hold back on something she does not yet really feel- that is, something she no doubt has some reservations about, though she may well feel it damn strong. I did not hold her hand and have not since Saturday, but I will again tomorrow if I get the chance. I do not know if it would have made her feel more or less comfortable, but I was a bit scared to grab it anyhow. In the spirit of good old Kawecki-type rationaliztion, I will say that she may have felt like her own person with me not holding her hand, but still she may have felt alienated too. She asked if she would see me this summer, and I said yes she would, and I aksed if I would see her this summer, and she said yes I would. Warmth. We sat in the shade of a tree, but the warmth between us was plasmic. I also somehow managed to squeeze in that I am a rookie. Now, she said said or suggested somehow or suggested that her past relationships with guys didn't seem to work out well. And she asked why all guys seto be like that. I don't think that she realized that would mean me too, and I didn't really answer her either, though I was both a little scared that I might have fit in there, and ready to change her view. Little did she know, a month ago I was looking at having a sexual relationship with Gwen Nell, who I really didn't find interesting at all. I can rationalize that one by saying that she would have benefited from it the same way I would have, because I dont' think she is even capable of love. How wretched can I be, to say that I do not say another person is capable of love? My PENIS CONVINCED me that it was worth it. But still I think we could both have benefited from it. Now I remember thinking that she could teach me, initiate me into sex, and I would initiate her into being a real person, into living life more as people should, with conceptions of morality and school, society, etc. Now that I look back, I do not know if I am the one Amanda was talking about, but I am ignoring that because I do not think I am that one anymore. OR rationalization? I have changed so much in this amount of time, and you shall see how it's a bit later. But really I think it was on my bike ride that I realized it, because it was only then that I realized that feelings were important again, now that I am with Amanda. I saw Gwen at dinner, before the bike ride, and thought lowly of her, and said to J-man that I should just figure some way to get rid of her, I even said push her off a bridge somewhere. I didn't really mean it, in fact I hugged her when we walked by one another. I just don't feel good with her anymore. I know I didn't feel as good with her as I do now with Amanda, though I am even less convinced that I will 'get some ' with Amanda. Ireally did think I was going to 'get some' with gwen - kiss, fuck, I didn't speculate, just some, and I am afraid that only on that basis, and a little of her being a gutsy person, I said I wanted her. Body. I said that, and I admitted it, but I had a reasonable exchange. I would not do it now, I wish I could say, and I don't think I would, for now my feelings, and love have again taken their place, and I see that they are the real ones behind happiness. I am now going to outline some of the thoughts from my bike ride. A brief outline is simply that the first stage of my life was emotionally based, especially because of my mother. As I grew, I also came to see much in the life of my father ostensible to me, that is, his unemotional most of the time, pragmatic, logical, life. IF there is a problem with his emotions, I saw him trying to do away with it with logic, and make a change within himself. This was different from the life of my mother, which was much more open about its emotions. I do not ever remember seeing my father dry, but I have myself made my mother cry- that is, I have been the 'needle on the camel's back' , and I know that at least once, I enjoyed my power over her emotion through my being able make her cry. After a while, and this is the time when the vast majority of my memories go back to and no further- my parents were divorced. This was due to a large degree to my father's going his own way, on the directions of going to airplane lessons, fixing cars, rather than doing as much with the family. At the same time, or close, Mom found Marty, who is almost entirely based on emotion, and women saving him, esp his mother, and when mom moved out he became her house bud, or whatever he is. I lived with mom then, but increasingly found more interest in Dad. This probably had in large part to do with my not meshing any more with my peers, which was in large part because they did not have my mom as a teacher any more, nor the classrooms she would have given us, much of which I got in the multi-age, though not as much as the pu. This conflict with my peers caused me to draw myself more towards my father, who seemed to be logically happy, and holding back his emotions. IT could have been that he was just really bummed about his divorce, I don't know, but he managed to, as mom says he always has, to almost always conquer his emotions with logic. The same trend continued when I came to NMH, and did not get a long with my peers too well, especially my roommate Ethan: I drew myself toward my fathers way of feeling, namely as little as possible. This is not to say he is not struggling right now to feel, and to gain that consciouness as a more real one than it is now, but just to say that it is now subordinated to logic. But today I am not that one anymore. I have come home to my mother, and I feel good. Now that I am with Amanda- I am saying with because going out seems too big right now, that seems to include more sexual contact as it is used (and therefore as it means) and also because I've never been able to accept going out as a rational way to say something. Damn. Whatever damn means. Tim said I say fuck a whole, whole lot. I wonder if I do around Amanda, or around people I don't know, or what. Back to what I started: Now that I am with Amanda, I feel that my feelings are important again. I am really real. They are not just tidbits to be subordinated to logic, as I felt before, nor are they physical desires. As corny as it may seem, I am really in love. I am really in love. I am really in love. I want to hold her hand right now a lot, but even that I am not does not make me any less happy than I would be if I had never met her- in fact, despite not being able to hold her hand right now at this moment I am still happier than before I met her. I wonder if once I become more sexual holding hands become nothing. I remember it used to be a lot more before. And then will holding each other be what it is now, then kissing, or the reverse order, then sex? I hope not. I Ihope this stays as wonderful as is is now. It is wonderful My imagination allows me to hold her hand right now. I smile as I glance. I am so happy- I have had a genuine revolution here. And it is true. I see her smile, and it feels so good. I want to go and touch her face to mine. I want to feel that warmth. I can feel it. I love Amanda, and I am not ashamed to say it. Amanda, Amanda, Amanda. I feel better right now than an orgasm has ever brought me, and I don't care if you don't believe me. An orgasm is purely physical, but damn this is aetheral. This is a real emotional orgasm, just to write her name. I have not masturbated for twelve days, and I am not at all wanting to do it right now. Not at all. I just want to hold her hand. Hell, I would love to hold her in my arms. I can imagine it well. Sex? Has no place in my mind. It is of absolutely no consequence. Has the wind ever blown through my hair and made me warm as a chicken patty right out of the fryalator ever like this before? I have altogether reached a new plane. I am alive. So this is life...again?... Next day, it turned out she had to catch the bus early today, at 6:30, to work on a physics report. I think ok, but too bad. But it still worried me a little because she seemed to get on the bus rather quickly. On my bike ride, I thought that I should have said to her when I left her lunch table, "I kin ye, Amanda Nims"- she just finished ....Little Tree- but then I thought maybe she would hve thought I was forcing somehtin on her, and that's the last thing I wanted to do. But then I wanted to tell her that when she left and got on the bus. She seemed sad. I don't know why, and I think it may have been from Johnathan saying something about rape at dinner. She is really hurt by something to do with that. Johnathan noticed too. But just now, at 7:10, she called me and asked if I'd be there at lunch. I said I would, and I said I kin ye, Amanda Nims, and she said what's that, and I said it's from Little Tree, and she said oh, I kin ye, Bonnie Bee, and I said, yeah, I kin ye Amanda Nims, to which she really didn't have much reaction. And so we said bye. And I will see her tomorrow. That is the first tima girl has ever called me on the phone. Ever. I feel much better now that I have told her that. I hope it cheers her up some, so she can get through that physics report. And I will see her tomorrow. I wished I could have held her hand when we were walking, but I felt awkward with Johnathan there, and also she walks with her arms both around her bookbag when she has it. 8.5 (A good chapter heading means something. This one means it's a continuation of 8, which was interrupted by an entirely different chapter, which I called 9) Now, I am back to about where I was before, I suppose. And the notes I left for myself are about to be gone through. The first one, that maybe my intellectual pursuit of underlying form has made my spiritual and social life hurt- My roommate sometimes like to joke that all I do is ride my bike and read communist literature. One reason that is so funny is because our library is so lacking in communist literature that the entire collection of Lenin's writings is some twenty pages long- not exactly incredible. But all in all, I am in the room a lot, reading, playing my guitar, and I am riding my bike a lot. I am looking to see this year if I really can be really good, in which case I will continue to pursue bike racing; otherwise, I will see that I have reached a bike racing plateau (which I reached in skiing, whereas I am no longer doing really well in higher and higher races, and which makes it not as fun) It is strange that I enjoy bike racing so much, because it really is competitive, and cheating is legal, something that really boges me out. I think competition just hapens to be the way being good is judged; if it was judged by how good you felt when you got into bed, then I'd see if I could improve that part of me. I guess what other people think really does matter to me, because I'm already stepping onto their territory here. If I were going to bike in my own back yard only, I would no doubt call it successful if it made me happy; but when I take the step onto 'their' way of doing things, I now judge success both by their way and mine. Well, what I was supposed to be getting at was that in fact sociality is just another underlying form, and should be treated as such. On the next hand (philosophers always have a lot of hands), as you can see, I have been on the social trail, too. My plan for my independant study in English, which I am doing this for, is to go in on the last day and talk about Woody Guthrie, sing some Woody Guthrie songs, and listen to some Guthrie by Dylan. I thought maybe that wouldn't be fair to the other people inthe class, but I've decided that I'm going to tell them exactly what the underlying form behind me doing it is, and they can leave if it isn't theirs too. On the last day I was in english class, I wrote 'preacher bill' on the board and told him why and that I wouldn't be back for a good long time. Since then, we've talked about what I'm doing instead. But anyhow- he had made a comment about how the preachers always seem to this and that, which fit in perfectly with what I thought about him. You can imagine what he said about them, so that it would be so fitting for my thoughts, because I frankly can't remember. So that's my solution to that one. Next, I have to write about this conversation I had with Ryan, one of my friends, andthe implications of it. We had sat down after dinner outside and he told me that he had a dilemma, and he told me what it was: he said his parents wanted him to get a 'good education' and that was why they were sending him here, and that he should do well in math, and he says he doesn't enjoy it, and whenever he sits down to do it he doesn't want to. So I explained a little about underlying form to him. I said it differently though. I said the purpose of education is to acquire the skill of understanding purpose, and I told him how that could really only be done by following our own conceptions of purpose, as I have already written. I also told him that he ought to tell his parents that the minute they decided to do the the humpy-dumpy late that night, they took responsibility for providing the resources that person will need- fiscally, and in terms of time, love, etc.- and their goal had better not be so self-centered that they want to create duplicate replicas of themselves. No, like Gibran suggested, and like I do not remember very well, you must house their bodies but let their souls roam wherever they want, for such and such (look it up, in The Prophet.). But anyhow- that's what I told him, and I gave him a copy of SUMMERHILL and DESCHOOLING SOCIETY, which he can read som eof, and the rest over the summer. And to all a gd night 10 I found out today, the day I will leave for New Jersey, that my bike team is all set up to race L'Abitibi. It's really too bad I have to go this weekend, because I would havbe certainly enjoyed spending time with Amanda. But it was planned before I knew the name Amanda Nims, and that's that. Johnathan told me his brother didn't want him to end up going to Hampshire because so many people didn't work. Well, inevitably in a free school, you will have a lot of people who don't work. But, would you rather have a free school, or a regimented one? True, at the regiment4d one, you won't have as many people blowing their work off, but you'll have many less following their conceptions of underlying form (likely none, and if not, then next to none), and you won't be able to, either. Boy, I am happy I am getting out of this jail. I didn't understand this back when I applied to Hampshire as well as I do now, but I am sure glad I chose it. In the context of the systems around, I am sure that it is the only real way. It is not perfect, as a good amount of academic work is required to graduate, but still you choose what you want to do very flexibly, and the diploma wouldn't mean anything to the outside system if it didn't require a certain amount of academic work. My dear world, thank you for making my life possible as good as it is. Thank you, Mom, thank you Dad, Thank you Bill, Bill, Bob Weis, thank myself for taking advantage of it all. And I will return it and more to my children and theirs. 11 My presentation for english class I enjoyed very much. During our sing-along of "This Land..." only Tom sang with me, but I still enjoyed it. So did he. Others did, I think. I said if they weren't interested they could leave, and noone did. I fall for idealists. This land is your land. This land is my land. In about a half hour I will meet Amanda. She will come over on the bus, and I am going to go down right before it gets there. Dylan is playing right in back of me. My classes are over. I am going to bring an orange for Amanda and I to eat, which we eat together often. She will see me this summer. I am in love. I am smiling. She is smiling at my side. "...But on the other side, it didn't say nothin' That side was made for you and me."