When I wrote the date “2012” for the first time this morning, my mind went back to dancing to Prince’s 1999 with Ricky in the large living room of our friend Robert’s home.

It was 1982. I was 24 years old and a significant portion of my social circle consisted of other couples who were involved in interracial relationships. It had only been 14 years since the Supreme Court ruled that outlawing interracial marriage—at least for heterosexual couples—was unconstitutional. But most of us would have been unaware of a court case that was settled before we had reached puberty.

As we drank and smoked and danced to Prince, we looked to a future of unlimited possibilities. Because 18 years is three-quarters of a lifetime for one who is only 24, the turn of the century seemed like a lifetime away and we were content to party as if it were 1999. While our bodies moved wildly in Robert’s living room, we failed to be fully mindful of that portion of Prince’s lyrics that reminded us that parties weren’t meant to last.

Today, 18 years represents only a third of my lifetime and it has been nine years since the Supreme Court decriminalized consensual sexual activity between individuals who were not married; including non-heterosexual couples. Today, Hawaii and Delaware join the growing number of states that recognize either civil unions or same-sex marriage; something that was once considered inconceivable in my lifetime.

I have completed my doctorate and gained professional experience in academia, the business sector, and with non-profits. I stopped drinking in 1983 and more than two decades later began practicing the Buddha Dhamma. From the prospect of a 24 year old, I have had more than a life time of experiences since we danced to 1999.

But more important than education and life experience, the intervening years since dancing in Robert’s living room have given me perspective. Not only do I have perspective in terms of my own life but also in relationship to the lives of others.

When I first started teaching, I was only a few years older than my students and we shared cultural cues and the same historical. However, it was in my third year of teaching, just after I turned 28, that I first realized that I had an historical perspective different from those of my students. It was 28 January 1986, the day we watched the Challenger explode shortly after takeoff. After I mentioned to my class that we would likely remember this day as we remembered Kennedy’s assassination, one student commented that he could not remember Kennedy’s assassination because that was the day he was born.

Awareness of perspective allows me to step back and to consider my own intellectual development in relation to that of my students. When I become frustrated and think, “Why don’t they know such and such,” I am able to consider whether I knew such and such at their age. Usually, I did not.

I began 2011 by reading W. Fred Graham’s The Constructive Revolutionary: John Calvin and His Socio-Economic Impact; a book I had originally read as an undergraduate and which served as the basis for some of my intellectual thought on how to approach American history. Although I had “understood”  the book when I first read it while taking a class from Dr. Graham, it is amazing how much better I appreciated The Constructive Revolutionary while re-reading it 30 years later.

Although I did not realize it at the time, one of the reasons that Dr. Graham was a wonderful professor is because he did not become frustrated when, as undergraduates, we lacked his historical background as well as the perspective to make connections between the text and contemporary socio-economic issues. I hope that I am able to model Dr. Graham’s patience when I work with students who lack my background and historical perspective.

I also have the perspective to realize that my priorities as someone who will turn 54 later this month are very different than those of my students. But I also know that I was not so different from them when I was their age. They have different hopes and dreams and anxieties and relationships and jobs and families than I did. But, like me, they are moving from adolescence to adulthood. And I can offer my perspective to both challenge them and to ease their paths during this exciting period of their lives.

As the fresh flowers I like to have around my home remind me, everything is subject to change.  Therefore, I no longer party like it’s 1999; not because the date is in the past but because I have learned that true contentment comes from being mindful in the present.

My perspective has changed and my life is more contented than it was while dancing with Ricky. But, on the morning of 1 January 2012, I was able to welcome in the new year by dancing to Prince in my living room.  And life was good.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

A Marginally Related Note

This observation did not fit into the essay, but I was amused to see that it was Liberty University’s advertisement on Prince’s 1999 video when I looked up the clip for this essay.  You may click on the image above for a better view of the advertisement.