CP wrote a most lugubrious post on commitment to debate, and I’d have commented on it directly if his blog allowed comments, but his basic mantra is, if you have an opinion on something he says, keep it to yourself.
Sure.
It does, perhaps, behoove those of us who do this for no discernible reason to, on occasion, attempt to explain ourselves. If that explanation causes us to stop doing it, however, then that could be a problem. That’s not really Chris’s case, though. He does a hell of a lot through tabroom.com and the organization of the college venues, and if you ask me, that’s more than enough behind-the-scenes work for any one person, and he intends to keep doing that. He is more bemoanful of the other responsibilities that seem to accrue to people like him who are willing to take on responsibilities. This is a fact of life, that some people tend to do more stuff than other people, and the people who do more stuff end up doing even more stuff, until sooner or later they can’t do any more. In situations like Chris’s or mine, where there is a Day Job to be considered, one has to set limits. I encourage that he set limits where 1) he is concentrating on the important non-forensic elements of his life to the proper extent, and 2) that he stick with some forensic elements of his life, also to a proper extent, because he has been one of the great motivators of good in the activity. And I guess 3) that he leave enough time beyond important and meaningful and businesslike to have some fun, some R&R outside of all of it. I’m a firm believer in getting down and getting into things. I’m also a firm believer in getting up and getting out of things once in a while. Batteries need recharging, and lives need vast inputs from as many stimuli as possible. It’s great when your main activities provide that stimuli, but it’s always good to go beyond the expected and the everyday. That’s what life is all about.
Anyhow, if someone wonders about my own commitment, i.e., why the hell someone who is not a professional educator devotes as much time and effort to this, well, it works for me. Debate is, for me, the unexpected stimuli in a life that, quite honestly, already had plenty of stimuli in it. I started doing it simply to support my daughter, but I stuck with it because I was, at the time, interested in community service, and this happened to be there. It’s a good personal fit for me, drawing on skills I already had from my experience as an editor. And I firmly believe that the skills that debaters get, which are virtually unavailable anywhere else in their official education, are among the most important they will acquire at this point in their lives. I find satisfaction in helping them acquire those skills. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t think I’d be so active in the community as a whole, however, if we didn’t have, as CP points out, an awfully good group of eggs running things in the region. Our traveling tab room comprises people I really like, without exception. I look forward to hanging out with everyone when I can, because they’re good and interesting people. If we didn’t have our excellent, congenial group of coaches in the region, I’d probably be a lot quieter and just work with the students. I’m lucky. I like the students and I like the adults. That’s rare for me. I usually don’t like much of anybody. And now I get to like all sorts of people. I guess it’s because, as I say, debate is a good fit for me. I did, admittedly, debate a little in high school (and pretty successfully, until I started working after school). I guess I have a debater’s brain, as do most of the rest of us. So I feel at home with this bunch, young and old.
If I wasn’t doing this? Beats me. I wouldn’t be golfing more, I’ll tell you that, or goofing around more. I’d have found something productive, because I like productivity. More novels, maybe? Literature’s loss is debate’s gain? Anyhow, I have said that I’ll cut back a little bit this year, because I do need to keep a couple of those non-debate, non-business weekends open to keep from going crazy. But other than that, I’m in for the duration. I mean, if I were to leave, I wouldn’t be able to torture O’C anymore. That, alone, is worth all effort.
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