I had started to post this a long time ago and I thought better of it. I ran across it last night and was again reminded of how absolutely kewl this poerson I wrote to is. I have edited the information that made it too personal to post and would like to share.
A little background is that I was terribly wronged and this teacher stood up and fired a man who needed an ass kicking too IMO regarding his treatment of me as a student. It really was the first time I have seen someone with no vested intrest in me stand up for me and well to tell you the truth...with the way the world works...just do the right thing.
I have this box of letters never sent. It contains notes of thanks or explainations to people that I cannot send them to because of death or perhaps circumstances...or my own fear prevents me. I plan to make them all into a book and keep it anonymous someday and well......here is one that would have been in that box, but I ended up sending it.
I have kept this box for years and as I get older I find I dont have as many going in this box. I end up telling people exactly how I feel. You would be amazed at the response and the people I have gained back into..or just into my life. I wish it were this easy for our family and friends that are JW.
"Hello XXXXXXXX
I am writing this in place of a letter for the best teacher award we were admonished to write. I felt to nominate you especially when you are my current teacher would be a bit apple polishing. I also write this because I have all these things that really are perhaps some of the meats in the learning process that adult graduates may be afraid to admit in such raw and unabashed terminology. When a person believes what they speak of, the reaction is phenomenal.
I hope that your night brings a bit of peace and relaxation to you. Get what you need to get done and don't worry about having changed the appointment for study. I too have spun in a million directions and I have so many questions I thought I should formulate a list. So I did and then I drowned in a backpack of lists. Death by Post Its! The extra few days allow me a bit of time to organize my thoughts. Then perhaps I should go see what I can answer myself instead of taking the easy route.
So on a note of honesty, I have to come clean. I would not offer this information had you not noticed a change and awkwardness in my behavior last week. I was prepared to fight a ton of bears and climb huge mountains and do something profound, you know, really make an impact on the world as I prepared to drive home after the last night of US Constitution class. I could just hear myself accepting the award for humanitarian acts as I take a space in the list of great people that have changed the world. For just a moment I was Rosa Parks and my feet hurt. I was, as her pastor Addams spoke, going to stay seated so that others may rise.
It was your manner of unconventional teaching gave me back the interest, motivation and joy that I allowed Mr. xxxxxx to take from me. Then you told me of firing Mr. xxxxxxxxx and I actually was pretty drugged up on medicine from having been sick, so I thought it best to refrain from talking until I felt better. Who knows what will come out of my mouth. Here it is. I must confess I cried all of the way home. (Not over xxxxxxx) The first reason is totally unrelated to his evil self. First I noticed you had an arsenal of medicine that it seems you have to take on a time schedule. I had this fear and panic rush through me after observing this. Please do not take that statement as an overdramatic psychological syndrome, it is just a prelude to understanding my being shaken up so extremely hard. An adjective of sorts. I have a few friends that carry such bags and it is not good at all. They really have to fight for most every day. Some are ‘family’ and have to endure terrible diseases that permeating our world. They struggle each moment, even as I write this. Another is faced with brain cancer and tumors on his spine. Children I know have diabetes and have to adjust the whole way they will live to satisfy the illness. These are very humbling situations that constantly keep me grateful for all I have. I have lost within the last few years the closest and most life impacting people I had in my life. In this loss I found an awareness of people’s plights. It is not for me to ask you questions and not for you to have to say anything. Just know the absolute concern for you that flows in my thoughts, coupled with one very selfish thought that I am not done learning from you.
Now I am going to get really smarmy, so bear with me.
Have you ever had a thought so horrible that the mere presence of it can make you feel physically ill? I cried till there were no more tears and yet my face would still not stop going thru the enactment of sorrow. It may have been the medicines or the experience of the very first time justice was shined in my corner, or I am just a worry wart…but I truly lost it. For I feel that you are a person that most anyone would be privileged to know and learn from. There are so many awful people in the world that it just broke my heart to think that you may have to deal with any of the health problems my friends do. You possess a skill in your capability to stir up the good stuff in people. This is apparent when people in our last class could not help but respect and actually enjoy you in spite of the straight laced, corset like outlooks they have diligently maintained; polishing each brad in their arguments and opinions till the only thing they can see is their own reflection. Your character stands tall and bright. So do not forget that when you are drowning. You make an impact, I am sure; on someone everyday you are on the face of this earth. Even by your absence, people will be affected.
Had you seen how deeply I let him, Mr. xxxxxxx, get to me, you might have an appreciation for how much I needed to see that there are people in the world that "DO" listen. You heard all of us and did not take it lightly. To tell you the truth, I can not recall seeing that happen... ever! I was in shock, and thus my reaction. I could not believe my ears and I was trying to hold the full force of emotion from coming to the surface. I was for once given an example of doing something right because it is the right thing to do. This was improved upon by the fact it was done by someone with no vested interest in my life. What people preach, rant, and spout for the sake of the business world is often just talk. The veneer of political correctness they shalack on for the sake of the position they hold is striped off the plank immediately upon exiting the public eye. That is my sore point. The thing that gets to me and makes me loose all shreds of common sense I possess. Hypocrisy! It will make me behave as if my sensibility knob is stuck on, ' Actively stupid.' All the lectures and classes that are given to us every day in so many a forms seem to be only a shell to cover a disgusting mass of deception. I hate it when people of such character cloth themselves in their cloak of unfounded self righteousness.
People have so many motives for things they do; usually having duped even themselves into buying the brightly colored capes they weave. I was forced to face the way I had internalized most everything that had ever raked on my last nerve. I happened to get to see a film on the experiment of the blue eyed and green eyed children. In that alone I saw how deliberate certain actions were done to make a person feel insufficient and unimportant. The whole cycle was self fulfilling. ‘You say that I am bad so I must be. So I am bad and you are proven true.’ It opened my eyes to my own reactions to people’s wrongful deeds. It was a new dimension into a characteristic I had taken as strength for so long. I now had a paradigm shift and I saw that my giving, turning of the cheek and “being a bigger person,” had made me the perfect victim.
The hardest thing I think for a person to do is to actually not just fix the surface but to delve deeper and replant the soul. This is a journey I have been and remain on. This is a chore I started to attack with fervor as I ventured into this school. I have not really devoted my all to classes, but I have devoted all of the classes to myself. Even Mr. xxxxxxxx validated my theory on respecting a man by his merit and not his title. I at times watch as I get bulldozed over by the mental leaches in everyday life. Often I have felt that in order to succeed; there must be a sellout of values. This creates a quandary in my sense of what is right. I have fought to stay on that less traveled road, not for the eccentric oddity of it, but because I have this conscience that will beat the shit out of me as soon as I become cognoscente of any errors I make in analyzing my own motives and actions. Throughout all of this I have had some terribly humbling experiences and with each bit of knowledge I gain, although welcome and needed, there is opened up so many catacombs in my mind that were never filled. The more I learn, the less I know.
The allotted parameters I thought would be filled as I gained knowledge have, much to my surprised been moved. Boundaries that my mind had set up as being “the goal” are taken out of the equation as I see how much I do not know. I do not believe a skunk knows that it smells. It is a skunk and that is what it had always done. I am finding myself bound by kindred spirit with that skunk. I sit as a demon upon my own shoulder arguing about all the injustices that are poured as hot tar upon the underdeveloped countries of the world and their lack of education. I play devils advocate with myself, just to discover that I too, am underdeveloped. So here I sit, just my skunk friend and me, stinking, and both of us painfully aware we need a bath. We did not know we stank, let alone we had all these parts. Now we find these parts have names and that there are different types of soap and the list of unknowns continues on and on.
How does one know what questions to ask to get maximum benefit out of a study if he did not even know the study existed? How does a person choose a cause to pledge to when so many are now laid on the table for a smorgasbord of mentally stimulating delicacies? How do I concentrate on one subject when everything causes me to run around the learning table like Helen Keller?
There was a time that just the awareness of my stench would have mortified me. The best part of this whole learning experience to me is the skills and tools I gained without enrolling in an actual class. I feel that I have attained a tidbit of knowledge that is priceless. I find in my quest for justice and parity amongst the people, that I had chosen a path and rallied for a cause that had no solution. There is not a defined fix. Furthermore the actual awareness that there is a problem is a good portion of therapy. The whole center of my thoughts tonight is this: There is no wrong nor shame in being stinky. The shame or degradation of a person’s spirit happens when one gives up on the fight for improvement. Tonight, my proverbial skunk and I are going to take a long, hot, bubble bath and ponder on the thought that maybe a bubble bath helped the creativity input into the Bessemer process.
That is all."
Overall you can see my ADD kick in, but what I am trying to say is tell the people you feel inclined to what they may be waiting to hear from you. Send these letter before it is too late. Don't wait. You may be amazed!