contents - Gallatin School of Individualized Study - New York ...

Kenneth PauljajouteReflections on the Presentand the Pastwhen I work in clubs, I look around. I walk through the crowd, back andforth, confused from the music ringing in my ears. People are clingingand embracing. I note the power of the music. I see the bodies in the shadows,some swaying to the drums, to the rhythm. I feel like a sentinel among them, fromanother time and place, lost in the sound, the noise and the smell.But, in my mind, I am in the old world. They turn around the campfire withits amber sparks, in the dark, dark jungle, surrounded by the trees. The peopledance in rhythm, drinking, taking drugs under the rising moon, trying to free theirminds and bodies, dancing under the moonlight, but with a religious purpose andceremony.But now, we are here in present times, surrounded by steel and iron in amodern jungle. The drugs, the drink, mangle people. They hope in the music theywill find truth and freedom. But they are hopeless in the search.I contrast the new world with the old; now people are searching, but findingnothing. Everyone is impressed by how modern they are, but they have no direction,no consciousness of the meaning of many things in life. They are pulled in differentdirections. They have no ideas. They are lost in a world of light and sound.Gaining Perspective115kenneth pauljajouteKenneth Pauljajoute is 30 years old and was born and raised in New York. He studies atthe Adult Learning Center of LaGuardia Community College. Miriam Fisher is his teacher.“I have had many jobs. I love the ocean. I love science,” Kenneth Pauljajoute writes. Headds, “I find people very interesting to observe.”