Back in the day, I was pretty involved in the FRAT. Still am, but as an advisor to the current group of brothers...but my involvement isnt nearly what it was when i was active, or a National Officer. i look at how life and death the current group makes EVERYTHING. I remember how we did the same thing...how slights, percieved and real, became so important that they clouded the true purpose and meaning of the fraternity. How one "they did this to me and i lost" turned into "i'm going to get them back eventually"... How pledges didnt become brothers simply because somebody got done wrong at sometime in the past. How people would profess to love each other, and not even try to show that love. how peope would talk about each other and what they were/were not doing and how that effected the fraternity. But somehow...somehow...never actually talked to the person who was doing the supposed wrong things.... about how people did really crappy things to fellow brothers, under the guise of bettering the fraternity. Dont get me wrong, the FRAT was all good far more than it was all bad. And it still is. The FRAT, its old version, and its newer version is awesome. But people take this WAY too seriously.
You see, people go to college to learn. There are so many arenas to learn at college. Leadership positions... student teaching... Co-op...the actual classroom.... but those are not the only places....Huddle House, Tiger Town, the Amphitheater, the Dike/levee...on long bus rides, trips to the Mall, late nights talking in the dorm.... parties at 4AM, or on AIM at 9AM...standing on a ladder in front of 80,000, or being one of the soldiers way out on the 35 yard line... being a section leader or just being... those are but some of the arenas for learning....then there is the FRAT.
if you are in the FRAT, you are offered so many avenues to learn things such as leadership... and also how to follow. you learn things like trust, and also how to communicate...and how NOT to communicate. Some people lead one way, some people lead another. Some people learn that they are effective. Some people learn that what they are doing is not being effective, and figure out what IS efective. Some people eventually get IT. Some people never do.... My outlook is that the college experience, and especially Kappa Kappa Psi is engaged learning. That it is an excellent training ground for so, so many things....
but you have to have perspective. And you have to learn at some point to look at the big picture, and not just at where the party is this weekend. Do you act like you are in the 10th grade, or act like an adult? Do you approach someone who is having a problem or you have a problem with ,take them aside and have a meaningful conversation? or do you lay in wait and drop the bomb on them, ruining not only a valuable experience for them, but your own experience?
Oh, i know how difficult it is to look down the road when you havent even seen the road to look down. been there.... but at some point, the best of the best have to. You gotta look at where this puts everybody. And trust me, if you dont you simply end up wasting a lot of time and 5 years down the road you are left wondering what might have been....
Over the past year i have seen so many babies born to people 5 or 6 years ago i was sitting in the circle with arguing over whether or not to let this or that person join our precious little band service organization. Or some other CRISIS of the week. I spent time at my little brothers wedding a couple of weeks ago. Not much, if all, was even spoken of the fraternity, but it WAS THERE. THAT BOND. you dont drive 13 hours for just anybody. She knew that, i know that. You dont even have to speak it. The FRAT is bigger than that. i spent time with another brother in the CITY. He bought tickets for me to see John Coltrane's son play tenor Sax in a little dive on Time Square. this is the same guy who once threw chairs in a meeting because he was having a coniption over some silly constitutional something or another...so insignificant that i doubt we could ever remember... he was the best man at my wedding and the GODFATHER of my son... The FRAT is bigger than that. It is everything, and it isnt. It is truly special because it is part of Music.
To simply blow somebody out of a position because you think they are a jackass is wrong. Especially if people havent sat down and talked with that person. especially if you havent walked up to that person and asked them if you could sit down somewhere quiet for 5 minutes and express your concerns with them. No one is perfect, and sometimes people need to learn from their mistakes. if you dont give people a legitimate chance to take criticism and change, then you havent lived up to the Oath that you took. If they are stil a jackass, then you have a right to tell them that they dont have to go home, but they got to get the hell out of here. But you gotta talk to them. You cant just say "here is a list of stuff you havent been doing, so you got to go, depspite the fact the the rest of us have been slack too."
oh i dont know...maybe the FRAT has passed me by. I am sure some of the current brothers think so. But i dont think so..but i do know that the FRAT was the basis for many changes that I made years ago...changes i feel made me a better person...not better than you, but a better person...not a perfect person, but a better person.
You gotta look at the big picture. And the big picture is that if you want to use this valuable learning tool and leave it for others to use, you have to use it for the betterment of yourselves and the band program. if you blow your trust out of the water, then in a couple of weeks...NO-ONE will trust anyone.
ah hell...what do I know....
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