Losing the Forest and the Trees
on tuesday, maci and i went to new york's metropolitan museum of art.
as i carried maci and her stroller up the steps that led to the entrance, i got that pre-museum buzz again. remember tim, this is thousands of years of incredible art. you'll be strolling through one of the world's greatest collection of artifacts. this is your academic mecca, your everest, everything that makes you go 'huh!' don't waste this opportunity like you have in the past.
as we passed through the doors and into my afternoon's intellectual playground, i was confronted with the hoards. (please note well: a rainy day in manhattan + hundreds of people who've been walking around in that rain = incredibly fowl b.o.)
then, i was told the suggested price was $10. "suggested?"
"yessir, pay what you can."
so i backed off to talk myself into paying nothing. you can do it! you're just going around for a little while maci sleeps. don't feel bad--there are thousands of paying visitors. plus, you contribute to society already in so many ways: you're a teacher, you pay taxes, you've never been thrown in jail...just say you'd pay, but you're a poor father and teacher who is just here for a minute to get out of the rain.
after the pep talk, i strolled over to a different entrance--ancient greece.
"$10 is the suggested price. is that okay?"
"yeah, that's fine."
coward!
then it happened. i was bored. as we strolled through the various galleries, i found myself trying to be interested and inspired. unfortunately, i felt nothing. if someone around me posed in front of a piece, i would too--hoping to feed off the scraps of their intellectual musings. if a tour was going on, i'd listen in, believing that perhaps a guide could spark my curiosity. still, i felt nothing. then finally, as a last ditch effort, i took photographs of paintings i didn't even like only because the couple in front of me had. (i'd post them, but they've since been deleted off my camera in disgust at my sheepish attitude.)
so we left. back to the rain. back to our one bedroom hotel in queens. back to 45 minutes of watching maci play on the exercise equiptment. good bye hall of learning! and thanks for nothing!
now, as a high school history teacher, one who teaches my students that one hour in a fine museum is better than a whole day sitting in a desk, i was unsettled. why is it that every time i go to a museum, especially a famous museum, i leave disappointed?
that night i mused upon this very question in the bathroom. here's what i came up with--
if i were to take one or two of the artifacts from the met, say an Andy Warhol screenprint of Mao Zedong, and put it in my house, or my classroom, or a library, it would be a huge draw. everyone would marvel at it. an invaluable addition to any location. however, place that same print in the far chambers of the met, and it loses some of its potency. surrounded by so much, the warhol print's value changes.
so, to explain part of my boredom, i appeal to the law of diminishing returns-with every artifact i look at, my pleasure will marginally decrease.
taken alone, this shouldn't result in the total boredom i experience in museums, as it should yield at least some pleasure to start with. why the absence then?
i also try to see too much.
i secretly fear that if i don't see everything, i'll be called out for it. that is, years of industrialized education has brainwashed me into thinking there will be a test on everything academic i accomplish. did you see that incredible pollock piece? or the monet's? what about that rembrandt? i'm driven from gallery to gallery, forever unsettled by the thought of the next gallery i need to see, never really enjoying the present one i'm seeing.
my solution = limit the scope of what i choose to see, and increase the depth of what i do see.
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