Thank God They Never Listen

At one point last semester, in the middle of a class, a lecture took me to a particular point where I began to speak about the socio-political status quo, and the possibility of change. I can't remember what the precise context was, but I believe that I was trying to provide a political background for a piece of writing that they had just read.

The time and place for those writers were different, tumultuous and uncertain, yet full of possibility. And as a means of bringing the material closer to life, I compared it to their time... our present time.

I don't know if you realize this, I said, but this is it. I'm sorry if you have ideals, I'm sorry if you want to change the world, but this is it. The end of originality, the death of personality, possibility... gone. Facebook, Deal or No Deal, Transformers... that's what we have, and that's all there is.

It was an apolitical argument actually, though I've never shied away from integrating politics into a humanities class. Politics make things relevant. And if you do it logically, if it emerges organically from the course material, and if you're self-assured, no one gets angry about being talked down to or preached to and everybody thinks.

I drew a few chuckles as I spoke. Some were just taken aback with a sense of: "Aren't teachers supposed to encourage optimism?" A few eyes drifted over to Ashley, the dreamer in the class who sees the world as how it should be. I saw in Ashley only doom -- the impending horror of dashed hopes and stark realizations of the world as it is.

Then came this.

"They said this day would never come.

They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.

But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.

You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008...

I know you didn't do this for me. You did this -- you did this because you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it...

I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep, little pay and a lot of sacrifice. There are days of disappointment. But sometimes, just sometimes, there are nights like this; a night that, years from now, when we've made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children -- when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a planet that's a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you'll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began."

What a speech. As someone who in a way, essentially writes and speaks for a living, I had to admire the beauty of those words. The rhythm, the construction, the care that went into perfecting them, and utter joy that the writers must have felt to hear them delivered beyond his and her wildest expectations.

But how could I not feel ashamed at that moment, to have taken away my own desire, ability and need to see the world in the same way?

I picked up my cellphone and sent Ashley a text reminding her of that day in class. "I take it back."

The message was returned, replete with exclamation points. She heard me that day. But thank God that people like her will never listen.