On some random early morning a few years ago a particularly cheery student asked me a deeply thought provoking question; one that has stayed with me for years:
“Mr. Schroer, what’s the meaning of life?”
I mean, we hadn’t even cleared the morning announcements yet, and I was being asked about the existential nature of the human condition rather than checking for IDs or pretending to listen to yet another excuse for why so-and-so was late.
I thought about it for about 30 seconds before giving an answer that for some reason has stuck with me. Come to think of it, I probably interpreted the question incorrectly and just ran with “what makes life meaningful?” Ah, oh well.
“Ok, step 1 - do something with your life that you enjoy. Step 2 - find some other creature that loves you and you love it back. Step 3 - make enough money to buy a boat.”
I’m not going to go in order here, but I just couldn't help myself with the snarky quip for Step 3. Boats are pretty freaking cool though. After all, cars are kind of mundane, everybody has one, and traffic sucks. Plus, humans have a longstanding history filled with fun adventures while traversing the water. Just like in Jaws or Titanic.
Step 1 is easy enough and somewhat of a cliché. My mother and stepfather were exceptionally successful individuals, both working as executives for a manufacturing company. However, I vividly remember my parents talking to me, multiple times, about how their jobs made them miserable. For all of their career success, they never thought that their jobs were particularly meaningful. They didn’t particularly care about the product that they were involved in making, and their bosses by all accounts seemed like ignorant corporate jerks. The compensation was nice, but they warned me that seeking out a career where money was the only thing worth waking up for in the morning could lead to a life left unfulfilled. So ya, follow your passion or whatever (step 1). Life is so much better when you’re doing something that you feel has a purpose. However, be realistic. We live in a society where things cost money (that’s where step 3 comes in). Those senior students who have attempted the eye-opening personal budget activity where you find out exactly how much being a functional adult costs know exactly what I am talking about.
But we’re not really here to discuss any of that. We’re here to discuss Step 2 and this ferocious creature:
-This is Rey, and she is a demon-dog-
Humans are social creatures, which is how I arrived at Step 2, but I don’t mean social in the sense that humans must seek out other HUMANS for comfort and companionship. I think that the construct of modern humanity is changing a bit in the digital age. People need to interact with other people, of course, but that can be accomplished in a variety of ways, and not all of them are face-face. Thanks to technology, our days can be filled with communicating very intimate and personal things to people we’ve never physically met. Endorphins of oxytocin that are released in our brains when someone “likes” our social media content make us feel good, wanted, even loved. Those same oxytocins that are released shortly before your teacher tells you to put your phones away for the 10th time are also released from human to human contact and human to animal contact. It’s associated with trust and relationship building, earning oxytocin the nickname of the “cuddle chemical.” It can all be kind of addictive. In the end, oxytocin creates the inseparable bonds between mother and child and is responsible for the bizarro feeling that is “love.”
Some humans are alright. Some of us are insufferable, but there’s just something special about a pet. The photo above is a picture of my dog, Rey. If you’ve taken a class with me, you probably have heard me talk about her. My wife and I rescued her a few years ago. Orphaned and alone, Rey was so scared of the outside world and desperately needed a haircut when we first met her. She had minimal socialization with other dogs, let alone humans, but she had spunk and personality. While I had my doubts at first, I turned very quickly once I saw her. As it turns out, there was something working behind the scenes to bond Rey and I together.
Anthropologists believe that the first pet was the domesticated dog. An off-shoot of you guessed it…the wolf first appeared next to humans about 15,000 years ago. We know this because there’s dated archaeological evidence of dogs being buried next to human remains, which implies that dogs were so important that the humans wanted their companions to journey with them into the afterlife. This dates the domesticated dog to before humans had figured out how to grow plants, let alone domesticate a cat (A CAT?), a cow, a horse or even build cities. How'd humans and dogs become so intertwined that they would be buried next to each other?
Turns out that dogs had some use cases that helped early humans out quite a bit. One theory is that wolves were excellent hunters and nomadic humans learned a lot by studying the animal’s ability to find food. In turn, the wolf would feed off the scraps that humans left behind. Come to think of it, that still happens in my house…
This loop, over time, merged the two species together in a reciprocal relationship, and the dog started to warm up to mankind as a companion, and vice versa. Gradually, they started to become comfortable living closer and closer to one another and the rest, as they say, is history.
Yet, the modern dog cannot survive on its own, and like us they need a purpose, a sense of meaning to their lives. They are not an independent pack of wolves and mankind’s technology has advanced so rapidly that the dog wouldn’t survive alone in our world. They’re vulnerable. They need us. We need them, and perhaps that is why the connection between humans and pets is so powerful. That reciprocal relationship some 30,000 years in the making is still running strong. We can’t exactly talk to them or speak their language, but I’m getting pretty good at fake barking. In turn, my pup does a decent job at barking at me and biting my toe to get what she wants. Come to think of it, who domesticated who here?
Today we have all kinds of dogs with all kinds of wonderful uses. Sure, there’s the stay at home dog, but even they take their job of protecting the house at least somewhat seriously. There are dogs that are trained and skilled hunters, bomb sniffers, and therapy dogs. There are dogs that help humans with mobility issues such as blindness and dogs that can detect diabetes. I saw a video of a dog who was trained to maneuver its body under the head of its owner when they have a seizure so that the human’s head does not impact the floor causing serious injury. There are dogs that are famous on the internet:
(Great Meme)
There are even dogs that are trying to be extras in period dramas like Downton Abbey:
The point is, that despite whatever crappy situation you may have going on in your life, when you get home to your dog it’s a simple calculus: noggin pats and a smile, some kisses on your face, and the look of excitement noted by the unhinged wagging of a tail. I think this relationship is applicable to all pets and their owners, even you weirdos that own reptiles (I’m kidding, kind of). We are taking care of each other, and in a world that is changing so rapidly that young adults are questioning their own purpose, we should remember that the answer for your pet is easy and pure. It’s one step. Their purpose is you.
The Time I Failed Math Class by Dr. Dartt
Most students don’t expect to hear that one of their teachers failed a class, let alone a class that they teach. But that is the case with me. In fact, I failed in such a spectacular fashion that I would have needed about 30 points from my college professor to earn a passing grade. I attended college at the University of Hawaii. My ultimate goal was to be a high school baseball coach, and in order to do that, I needed to teach. I didn’t love reading, and my writing skills resembled that of a fifth grader. So that eliminated both Social Studies and English. I enjoyed science, but after taking AP Physics my senior year, my goal was to never step foot in a science classroom again. Math was always my strongest subject, and it came easiest to me, so that was the path I took. The education courses were a breeze as were most of the core classes that everyone on campus was required to take. The college-level math classes, however, were a different story. Things started out okay. Calculus 1 and 2 were fine, but Calculus 3 kicked me in the teeth. In fact, the first time I registered for Calculus 3, I dropped it after a week and decided to take it when I wasn’t in the middle of my baseball season. That ended up being a wise choice. Then something happened. Most of the math classes that I was required to take became proof writing classes. That meant 18 straight weeks of writing college-level proofs. First, I registered for a class called Abstract Algebra. Three weeks into the course, and I had grades of 19%, 30%, 33%, and 100% (I’m not sure how that happened). I was past the drop date, and I decided to take a Withdrawal (W) on my transcript (students are discouraged from doing that too many times). Then I registered for Introduction to Advanced Math. The teacher would assign 5 or 6 problems for homework. During the next class, he would write the problems on the board, sit at a desk amongst the students, and send students to the board to work them out. He, along with the other students, would critique our answers. Since I had no clue how to write a college-level proof, I essentially never went to the board unless I was forced to do so. When I did go, it was five minutes of getting my ego smashed. I attended his office hours any chance that I got, and he always assured me that no matter how poorly I was doing, as long as I could write an adequate proof on the final exam, I would pass the class. So I stuck it out. The only problem was, I never learned how to write a college-level proof. After the final exam, our class was told that final grades would be posted online. I returned to Atlanta, told my mother to check my grade, and she started laughing when she saw it. I went to look for myself and saw that I had the second-lowest grade in the class (how someone scored lower than me I will never know) and was 28 points from a passing grade. At that moment, I did what most high school and college-age students do, I blamed the teacher. No way was I that bad at math, so it had to be the professor’s fault. Never mind the fact that 6 of the 18 students earned As and 7 others earned Bs. It had to be the teacher. So there I was, three years into my college career and still needing to retake and pass that class and also take Abstract Algebra. I truly believed that I needed to change my major. There was no way I could pass both of those classes. I prayed and asked for guidance. My father (who was a valedictorian in high school and has a Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree from Princeton and MIT in Chemical Engineering) told me exactly what I was going to do. I was going to take both classes in the fall, and I had no choice but to get a tutor. They would pay whatever was needed. Taking both at the same time did not seem very wise, but clearly I needed someone smarter than me to make this decision. That fall, I walked into Abstract Algebra. Immediately, I saw a student who was in several of my education classes (James) and sat next to him. He introduced me to another student in the class named Ephraim (he was later a teacher’s assistant in math at Oregon State). James told me that many students feared this class and that Ephraim agreed to help a group on Saturdays. I am not exaggerating when I say this, but every Saturday, for 17 straight weeks, while living in Hawaii, from 10 AM until 5 PM, I worked on Abstract Algebra. Ephraim had a whiteboard and taught us how to think through the problems. Amazingly, the material got easier. In fact, when the semester was completed, I earned a B in the course. I was able to apply what I learned in Abstract Algebra to the class I had failed and managed a C this time around. I did a literal happy dance after passing those courses. My counselor told me if I took Calculus 4 or the second semester of Abstract Algebra that I could earn a double major at graduation. I politely told him that he was nuts and that my days of taking college-level math classes were complete. So what did I learn? When at an impasse, sometimes you need someone wiser than you to guide you through. Thankfully, God brought my father and Ephraim into my life. As a result, I am likely the only teacher at Spring Hill teaching students in the subject area in which he failed.
Haiku by Mr. Collins
Haiku by Armaan Verma
There, a willing mate! She cuts a dark silhouette I am only harmed