Getting to the Essence

“I counted my years and realized that I have less time to live by, than I have lived so far. I feel like a child who won a pack of candies: at first, he ate them with pleasure but when he realized that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.

 

I have no time for endless meetings where the statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be done.

 

I no longer have the patience to stand absurd people who, despite their chronological age, have not grown up.

 

My time is too short: I want the essence; my spirit is in a hurry. I do not have much candy in the package anymore….. It is the essentials that make life useful.

 

Yes, I'm in a hurry. I'm in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. My goal is to reach the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience. We have two lives and the second begins when you realize you only have one.”

 

~Mário de Andrade (São Paulo 1893-1945) Poet, novelist, essayist and musicologist. One of the founders of Brazilian modernism.

 

I love this so much. I don’t know any of Mario de Andrade’s work, but here he captures the gifts of maturity perfectly. That hard-earned gift of cutting through the bullshit and getting right to the essence. In my own lifetime of trying to find the language to define what’s important in teaching, I keep whittling it down to simpler and simpler essences. Leaving aside the technical terms and long sentences and getting right to it. Things like:

 

• Watch the children.

• How else can we do this?

• Sing what you hear, play what you sing, hear what you play. 

 

And so on. No one has yet suggested that I’m too old to teach or am washed up and hopefully the reason is that those still taking workshops with me feel the power of the way I can get to the essence of the activity and the essence of how to artfully present the activity and remind teachers of the essence of their calling. 

 

Retiring from school has helped. No distractions of staff meetings, report cards, powerpoint presentations. No extra duties or evening events. Now when I teach children—as I have been so happily this year— it’s straight to the center of what we’re here to do. I am tasting the candy of essential intensity and I can testify it is delicious indeed.