Mr. Barker

"Just the other day I was reading a sentence by Jean-Paul Sartre. He says that life is like a child who is asleep in a train and is awakened by an inspector who wants to check the ticket, but the child has no ticket and no money to pay for one...The child is also not at all aware of where he is going, what his destination is and why he is on the train. And last but not least, the child cannot figure it out, because he never decided to be on the train in the first place. Why is he there? This situation is becoming more and more common to the modern mind, because we are somehow uprooted, and meaning is missing...I know that everybody one day feels like a child in a train. Yet life is not going to be a failure, because in this big train there are millions of people fast asleep, but there is always somebody who is awake. The child can search and find somebody who is not asleep and snoring, someone who has consciously entered the train, someone who knows where the train is going. Being in the vicinity of that person, the child also learns the ways of becoming conscious."
-Osho

How uncannily appropriate that this was the page I opened to in Osho.
It seems as though it has happened again that "when the teacher is ready, the student presents himself." It seems as though I've found a child on the train.
But I also get to be that child, at the same time, learning from another child, the ways to become conscious. When the teacher is ready, the student presents himself it seems. To reacquaint the teacher with the wonder and beauty of learning and curiosity.
Certainly this young man has resparked my interest the culmination of music, art, poetry, and literature, and the magic it brings to leading a richer life. Another young person with the desire to capture that beat generation feeling and weave it into your own unique quilt of what life's beauty will look like for you. He has reinforced in me the desire to always find something educational and mentally productive in nearly everything one does. But most of all, the simplicity of letting things flow and not forcing them upon yourself or anyone else for that matter. And these aren't things I'm interpreting as I want to, these are actual statements and conversations that were had! The overwhelming satisfaction I'm getting out of simply connecting with a young individual with such wisdom to realize the really important things in life at a younger age than even I did. He says to me "If I want to stay here and just take classes after I complete all of my requirements for my major, is that ok?" and when I explained the expectation of the school for a student to graduate, he saw and stated the irony of an institution of higher learning that squelches your enthusiasm and desire for "lifelong learning." Especially ironic when the tagline for the institution is "Learning for Life."
At a time when I'm questioning the necessity and achievement of my own job satisfaction, who is getting more out of this acquaintance?

p.s. And don't even get me started on the Jazz!