Fishing and dancing? It’s a question of balance
Ruda Landman
In 1912, textile workers in America organised one of the country’s first strikes. At that stage they were working 56 hours a week for a wage of between $6 and $8. When the government shortened the working week by two hours, the factory owners cut their wages and let the machines run faster to make up the time. The workers therefore earned less and worked harder and, because of the new intensity at which the machines worked, more accidents took place. Under the leadership of a 21-year-old woman, and in reaction to these developments, about two-thirds of the workers went on strike for nine weeks in the icy American winter. They demanded better wages, shorter working hours and payment for working overtime.Their motto consisted of two simple words, but contained a deep existential truth: bread and roses.1
I think this is what we all strive for: a combination of bread and roses – and, as I will indicate later, a combination of fishing and dancing. Bread: everything that feeds and maintains us on a practical level. Roses: those things with no practical value (except their impact on a girl’s heart!), but which touch your soul and make living worthwhile.
Time to make your own choices
Why is it that so many of us – everyone, generation after generation – underutilise our university years? It is such a rich environment: so much to learn and discover; the best opportunities for sport, for music and drama and every possible form of word use, for science and experimentation; a place where you are surrounded by people who can become lifelong friends, people from all backgrounds and with every possible interest … and so many of us simply let it slip by.
It is all about choices. After all – as the saying goes – if you are going nowhere, you definitely will get there. If you simply let opportunities pass, without really thinking about the possibilities they hold and which of those possibilities you want to use, you will look back many years later and curse yourself. You could have done so much, you did so little. Because we do so many things in life without ever making a decision – we simply drift into it.
It is understandable that first-year students are not really in the mood for making big decisions after their matric year. There are not many periods in your life when you are as busy as in matric. Managing half a dozen or more completely different subjects, sport, debating, drama, art, ballet, leadership positions and, of course, an active social life is not child’s play. No wonder that the vacation after the final matric examinations is enjoyed to such excess! School is an extremely structured environment in which you know exactly what is expected of you when, and in what form. Work, sport and whatever extramural activities are divided into daily and weekly units and there is always someone asking about your progress, and making life unpleasant for you if it is not what he or she thinks it should be. By the end of matric you are sick and tired of this. You want to be your own person, determine your own priorities, go your own way.
“Just leave me alone!” is probably a regular thought, together with quite a few other, less acceptable remarks under your breath … But at the same time you also know that there is a phalanx of older people who are concerned about you and make an effort to ensure that you make the right choices (in their opinions!) and utilise your potential as far as possible to make your matric year easier than it could have been. And herein lies the rub. You want them to leave you alone, but not entirely.
The transition from school to university is literally the beginning of the rest of your life, when you and only you are in control of your choices and your decisions. You no longer have the same support that you had at school. Although your parents most likely are still playing a big role at this stage, your friends’ views are important, and maybe even those of a teacher who became a mentor to you, in the final analysis it is your life. You want to make your own decisions, and you must make your own decisions.
We all tend to blame others for our decisions. “I actually wanted to be a ballet dancer but my father said it was not a job for a man.” “If I could do what I wanted, I would first have worked on a yacht for a year, but my girlfriend (or boyfriend) said then it would be over between us.” “I wanted to study physics, it’s my passion, but my mother said my life would be too lonely; no man wants to marry a scientist.” “I actually wanted to go to a university of technology, but my best friend convinced me to come here – and they do not have the technical subjects which really are my strong suit.”
Each of these statements is probably true. All those people have opinions on the choices that one makes. They are probably not shy to express them over and over again, with great conviction. But if there is one thing that you have to understand now, and remember for the rest of your life, it is that your decisions are your own.
Say the ballet dancer’s father had said he would not pay for such a ridiculous project. That would mean not only emotional pressure, but a change in actual circumstances. The young man would still have a choice: follow the easy path and study with Dad’s support in a field that does not really interest him; or find a way (just like thousands of South African students whose parents cannot support them financially) to fund himself and do what his heart desires.
What about the one who wanted to work on the yacht? Yes, your boyfriend or girlfriend probably does not like the idea. But it is still your decision whether you satisfy him or her, or realise your dream. Do you want to continue in a relationship with someone who wants to control your life? What do you think will happen in the long run? If you have it in you to consider the possibilities out there in the world in such an adventurous way, what would happen if you sacrificed this vision at the age of eighteen or nineteen for the stability and familiarity of a relationship? It is not your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s fault if you give in!
The same is true of the future physicist: once you have considered your mother’s viewpoint, your decision is still your choice. In the first place, do you agree with her? In the second place, if your interest in physics is really that strong, would you sacrifice it for the sake of a man who only exists in someone’s (your mother’s) imagination?
This is true every time: other people provide input, but you make the choice. One obviously asks other people for their opinion before you make decisions – your common sense tells you it is a good idea to do so. But eventually the decision is your own. It is your privilege, and your responsibility. As long as you think you are a prisoner of the convictions or preferences of the people around you, you are going to let your life slip through your fingers.
On the one hand, this new freedom to make your own decisions is very exciting. On the other hand it simply is a harsh reality that, at university no one else is going to do it for you, which can be somewhat terrifying. Even if you live at home, there is no communication between the lecturers and your parents, which means that no one else will know whether you are doing what you are supposed to be doing – you are in control. You can study or not, take part in sport or not, go out every night or not, play computer games all night or not. Are you going to participate in rag? How often will you bunk class? Are you going to do all your reading, or only just enough to pass? So many possibilities. So many choices. And the greatest danger is that you don’t think about it and don’t make a conscious decision. Because six months later you are going to find that you have established a pattern, whether consciously and deliberately or not.
Time to determine your own priorities
Many students at South African universities have to repeat a year or never finish their courses. Are you going to be one of them? How do you feel about this possibility? Does it matter to you, or do you regard your time at university as a sort of finishing school before you start working in your father’s business, or play professional rugby or soccer, or open your own restaurant? On the other side of the scale, do you regard it as important to perform academically? Does it bother you if your marks drop below 50%?
One can put it very simply: what are your priorities? Are you going to get up for your eight o’clock class, and also for most of the classes after it? Are you going to help build the float tonight … and do an all-nighter? Are you going to play rugby for the residence this semester? Are you going to apply to join the editorial staff of the campus newspaper? Are you going to go out tonight? How much are you going to drink? There are no right or wrong answers, but there definitely are consequences.
Your priorities determine the choices you make. Students often make their choices based on their budget. Decisions are shaped by one question: what does it cost? If I do a, I cannot afford b and c and d. We understand ‘opportunity cost’ long before we learn the term. But there is something else of which we also have a limited supply: time. In fact, it is much more limited than money – one could always borrow money, or convince Mom to pay something into your bank account, or look for work as a waiter. Time, on the other hand, cannot be bought or sold by anyone. If it is gone, it is gone. Anyone who has tried to convince a teacher or a lecturer to move a deadline knows this all too well!
Every possibility that we mentioned above – even those that do not cost any money – has a price tag marked in weeks, days and hours. Tonight’s all-nighter building the float will cost you your concentration in tomorrow’s class. Rugby twice a week means less time spent with your girlfriend – or else you must study less, or spend less time with your friends. The work on the campus newspaper will use up time that you could have spent otherwise. It is actually quite logical … if you just think about it for a moment. The problem is, too often we do not think. The rugby team is discussed over coffee, there is an opening, someone remembers that you played well at school, and before you know it you have tied yourself down for six months. You meet a cute guy who writes for Die Matie or works at UJFM, you enjoy your shared interest in words and debate, and before you know it you are sitting through the night editing copy.
Correct priorities + correct choices = fishing and dancing
I began the chapter by making the point that we need bread and roses to truly live, and I followed this by saying that it does not simply happen to us: we must first think carefully about our priorities and choices to find this balance.
Let me tell you an old fable that I believe illustrates this pursuit of balance best.
***
In a cold northern country there lived a lonely fisherman. He was so lonely that his tears had carved deep furrows into his cheeks. He went out fishing every night, but his life was without meaning.
One night, as he was rowing across the cold water all by himself, he heard the most beautiful sound: the laughter of women. He went closer, his heart in his mouth. What he found were seven women, dancing on a rock in the moonlight while they laughed and talked with voices like music. He rowed even closer. Hidden underneath a rock nearby he found seven seal skins. He took one and hid it under his parka. He waited. The women ended their dancing and came to look for the skins. They were seal women who could live on land and sea. Six of them put on their skins and slid into the water. The seventh remained standing, trapped on land. The man approached her. He begged her to stay with him and become his wife, to end his loneliness. She pitied him, and against her will she gave in – but on condition that it would only be for seven years. Then he had to return her seal skin and she would decide what she wanted to do.
Together they made a home, and they had a son called Ooruk. His father taught him to fish and make tents, and his mother told him stories of seals, whales and dolphins. Seven years came and went. The women’s eyes became dull, her hair started to fall out, she started limping. One night Ooruk woke up and heard his parents arguing.
“I must have that of which I am made!” It was his mother’s voice, still like silver music, but now thin.
“And then? Then you will go away, and leave me without a wife, and the boy without a mother! You are bad!” His father roared like a bear and stormed out through the tent flap.
Ooruk lay in bed shivering. Suddenly he heard his name in the wind: “Ooooruk! Ooooruk!”
He jumped up, put on his parka and his bear-skin boots and ran out, following the voice. “Oooooruk!!”
The voice led him to the rocks at the edge of the water. There he stumbled over a seal skin, and when he picked it up, he saw an old, silver seal sinking below the waves with something like a smile on its face.
Ooruk carried the skin back to his mother with tears in his heart. She took it and put it on. Then she took the child’s face in her hands and blew her breath deep into his lungs. Holding him under her arm, she dived into the sea, and the mother and son could breathe easily below the blue waves. They found the old silver seal, the child’s grandfather, and spent seven days among the seals. The women’s skin grew shiny and smooth again, her eyes grew bright, she swam easily and gracefully. Her father asked her about her life on the land.
“I broke a man’s heart by leaving, Father,” she said. “Without me he is just half a man. But if I stay there I will die.”
“And my … grandson?” His voice broke with pride.
“He is both of us. He can live there, but yet share in what I have here.”
On the eighth day she and her father took Ooruk back to the land.
“I am always here,” she assured him. “Come, and we will talk. Use my knife and my fire sticks, and you will know I am with you. Come to me, and I will blow into your lungs a wind for the singing of your songs.”
Over the years the young man because famous as a strong and skilled fisherman, but also as a poet and singer who sang people’s hearts into his song. And they believed that it was because he was taken away to the land of the seal forefathers when he was a child, and because he returned from there.2
***
I believe the first two characters live inside each of us: a fisherman, and a dancing woman. We have to fish – we have to work, study … to do everything that can be described as ‘duty’. It is no accident that the expression “to make a living” means to work and earn money. Without work and the money that we earn from it, life will be tough – just ask the man at the robot with the begging board around his neck.
We not only have to work, we also want to work. We want to use our abilities. Just think of the joy it brings if you have a talent for sport and you use every muscle to achieve your absolute best, walking off the field dead tired at the end of the match. The same happens when you use your intellectual abilities. You want to extend yourself, see how far you can get, what you can achieve, just as you want to use your muscles so that they do not waste away and become useless. But work alone is not enough. That is not the way to a complete life.
Because we also want to dance. We have to. Otherwise our eyes grow dim, our hair fall out and we start dragging a foot; the fisherman becomes so lonely that his tears cut furrows into his cheeks. It is necessary to dance. We must have bread, but also roses.
Some students have no problem putting the emphasis on the dancing and the roses. You don’t have to be convinced that it is necessary, it comes naturally. You want to limit the fishing part to the minimum, particularly now, just after school, when you probably feel that there still is a lot of time before you have to look after yourself – and maybe after others.
However, for many young people it is important to put as much emphasis as possible on the bread and the fishing. Many young people in South Africa have had to take responsibility from an early age, sometimes responsibility that is much too heavy for a child’s shoulders. Under those circumstances you finish school and go to university with the fisherman’s tears etched into your cheeks already. For you, the idea that it is necessary to dance, and to play, is almost abhorrent. After all, you got to where you are, with the doors of the university open in front of you, through work and even more work. You have to discover at university that people cannot live on bread alone.
Whatever your background and your perspective at present, the path to balance, to a meaningful life, is to accept that both these parts of your self need time and space. Ooruk, the strong, successful young fisherman with the song that touches people’s hearts, expresses all that he can be. This is the ideal. Working all day and every day as a student will lead to depression and loneliness. On the other hand, playing all day and every day will be boring and empty – apart from the fact that it probably will cut short your time at university! In fact, alternating between the two gives each of them flavour and interest.
There are also less obvious benefits in a combination of work and play, of fishing and dancing, of bread and roses. As described in other chapters in this book, a university is actually more an idea than a place – as you know, one can study by mail; or do it subject by subject extramurally; or just take a short course and leave again. Seen like this, the university is about acquiring new knowledge through research, and the transfer of existing knowledge through teaching. This is what your ‘work’ entails in your years as a student: mastering as much of the available knowledge in your chosen field as possible. Never again will you have such easy and direct access to so much knowledge. Knowledge in books that are brought to your attention; knowledge on the wonderful internet to which you are directed and guided; knowledge in the form of teachers who have spent a lifetime working on their subject. As a full-time student you have time to immerse yourself in it, to surf the knowledge and information network just as you surf the internet. It is like the sea: as long as you are scared (or lazy) and remain in the shallow water, it is terrifying, cold and hostile. But once you have mastered the surfboard, standing up so that the water can carry you, it becomes exciting and compelling – and it carries you further than you ever thought possible. One book leads to another; a web page refers to an article that refers to a book in which someone is quoted who made a speech that is available on the web … and the first time that you ask an intelligent, informed question or make a contribution to a class discussion is a high that is worth every ounce of effort.
Attract the fish through your dancing!
One discovers unexpected things about yourself when you learn to work and to play. You may paint a float for rag and discover a creative talent you never knew you had. You may run for the residence committee and discover you can organise people. Someone may convince you to take part in the first-year concert and you find you are the hit of the evening. These talents be as important in your career as the content of the course you have chosen. We live in a time when few people stay on the same career path throughout their lives, and in which many of us have to create our own work. If you try everything and anything in the relative safety of the university environment, you will be giving yourself many more options when you have to choose a job.
And if you participate in something you have never tried before, you might just discover your ‘passion’, something that you do much better than most other people, and that makes you feel as if you were put on earth to do just that. This idea has become such a cliché,that one can easily become cynical about it. Most people work for much less poetic reasons. But just imagine…! What a joy if you could develop a career built on something that makes your entire being sing – or, to return to the metaphor above, if you could lure the fish by dancing!
In summary, therefore: to a great extent, university means the freedom to do (and not to do) what you want, when you want. Take responsibility for your own priorities and decisions; attach value to your time; and find a way to work and to play; to fish and to dance; to make space for bread and roses. At the basis of all of this is respect for who and what you are and can be. If you do not think that you matter, then your time and how you spend it also will not matter.
There is a famous quotation that is often ascribed to former president Nelson Mandela, but which actually comes from a book by Marianne Williamson: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”3 In this country, with so much at stake, each of us matters. Only four per cent of South Africans over the age of 20 have a tertiary qualification.4 We who have the privilege of being part of that small group do not have the luxury of questioning whether we matter. Use your years at university to discover all your possibilities, all the light and power that live in you, and give it your all every day for the rest of your life – for the sake of all of us.
A Google search using the keywords “bread and roses” strike 1912 gives a whole range of excellent articles on the topic. I took my references from Debra Pawlak’s article, “Girl power: The story of the Bread and Roses Strike” on www.themediadrome.com.↩︎
I have summarised the story on the basis of the version in Women who run with the wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Random House, 1993.↩︎
Williamson, M. 1996. A return to love: Reflections on the principles of a course in miracles. New York: HarperCollins.↩︎
Statistics SA. 2005. General household survey July 2004, 2005; as quoted in South Africa survey 2004/2005. Johannesburg: South African Institute for Race Relations.↩︎