There's a saying that you can call something yours only when you set it free and hope it comes back to you.  If you give it wings and let it fly away, and if it returns to you, then it's yours.   That sounds like a really nice little proverb, right?  Lots of wisdom there, it seems at first look.  Well, as far as I'm concerned it's lacking in wisdom, wit, and perspective.  I've given lots of things wings that flew off and never came back, and that left me waiting and wondering what kind of idiot would do that. 

Here's my revision of that old proverb.  Let's say the thing you want to keep is a young bird you've trained.  My notion of how you give it wings is that you tie the end of a long string around one leg, and then you set it free while you hold onto the other end of the string.  If the bird doesn't take the hint and come back when he runs out the slack in the string, then you can always  yank his little ass back down.  That's the smart way of giving wings to something - freedom on a string, so to speak.

I mean, come on and use your head.  The term bird brain didn't come about on its own.  Somebody had to observe that birds aren't too smart, and if you turn a bird with wings loose, he's likely to be gone for good.  That's not true of all birds, of course, because lots of people in the pigeon business turn them loose on a regular basis and usually get them back.  But we're talking about birds in general here, and the average bird out there ain't likely to become a talking parrot that has figured out quantum physics.

I think the training string concept of giving wings to things holds water.  It just makes sense that freedom, something we all crave, is not a thing most people handle well.  Give a person wings without training, and he might fly off and get lost in the wild blue yonder . . . or the dumb shit might fly into an jet airplane engine and get vaporized.  Yeah, I hate to make the comparison, but people are just as dumb as birds.

We got tired of a back door at our house some years ago and installed some big glass sliding doors.  Within hours of it being put in, birds started flying into it.  I'd be sitting there in the den, would hear this loud thump, and would find a wounded or dazed bird on the patio.  And as long as I lived in that house, birds never stopped flying into the glass door.  So, I've got to ask you, have you ever walked into a glass window or door?  Don't lie to me and say you haven't because almost everyone has.  Birdbrain.

I taught college for 35 years and made the observation within the first ten years that teaching was for the most part a waste of time . . . if you plan on reaching most students.  I'd get so frustrated with them from time to time (usually when I was handing back  test papers) that I'd even ask, "Is there a conspiracy on this campus for all the dumbasses to sign up for my classes?"  If you teach in the hopes you're going to make a big impact on most of the kids who take your classes, you're due a big disappointment.  When it gets right down to it, you're probably reaching only a few of them, and it was the few that gave me satisfaction enough to stay with it.

You can give wings to some birds and expect to see them again, and the same is true of people.  My attitude about teaching was the same as it is about almost everything in life.  I like the training string thing, but I couldn't put strings on my words.  All I could do was offer what I have to give, and then do the best I could to see to it they landed somewhere.  In other words, I put the string on the student.  If I saw a student talking when they should've been listening, I yanked their string.  "Are you having trouble hearing me?  Am I boring you?" I'd ask.

I was a good lecturer, and I tried hard to explain to young people how government works.  That was my job, to teach political science (and some sociology), and I tried to do that the right way, the professional way.  In other words, I set the words free, gave them wings, then tried to make sure someone heard them.  I did that by controlling the enviroment of my classroom.  I tried to make that room into a place where ideas could flourish, where people wanted to listen to them.  I wasn't always successful in doing that, but I tried to do it. 

As a writer, I can't do that.  I write all kinds of things, even some blogs, but these days I don't worry much about what happens to my written words.  I don't make an attempt to find a home for them, just give them wings and let them find a place of their own.  All writers want their words to be read, just as much as a speaker wants his words to be heard.  As a teacher, I knew who heard my words, but as a writer, I have no idea where they go.  I don't aim that at any particular public, just give them wings and watch them float away.

And of all the things I've ever done in this life, doing that takes more faith than anything I've ever engaged in.  Do I think I'm making an impact on a large number of people?  No, I think not.  Do I have enough faith to give wings to words hoping they'll influence just a few, the few who always are eager to learn more?  Yes, I surely do.

So fly, words.  Go find one of the few . . . and if you run across some of those dumbasses out there who don't care about words, just give them the bird.

PMC, 2/27/08