Off the rails

It’s traditionally a derisive label, branded upon those who have left the ‘righteous’ well-paved road to follow selfish paths to harm and antisocial behaviour: drug addicts; criminals; non-conformists; wayward youths. Perplexingly, I myself have been labeled so, although I suspect I fit only partially into some of the above categories. I am calling for a rethinking of the term, however. I am reclaiming the phrase, and even going so far as to extol the merits of going ‘off the rails’.

I recall the little golden book of my youth, entitled ‘Tootle’. In it, the protagonist is an overly adventurous baby locamotive, whose defiant desire to leave the tracks and frolic in flower-strewn fields leads him to a shameful demise, with mud clogged wheels and a strong rebuke from the engineer. Today, I wonder if Tootle didn’t have the right idea. What are rails? Cold, man-made lines of steel that carry men and women to an inevitable destination, single-mindedly and without diversion. I agree that much of society sits contentedly on these rails, awaiting the final station, resigned to make the best of the journey and satisfied that the engine knows best. The rails permit neither questioning of the direction, nor any deviation. As long as the train is on the rails, the way is set.

This is not the way it has to be. It is a philosophy of fate that more subscribe to than would admit it. The ‘rails’ keep addicts chugging mercilessly towards ruin. The ‘rails’ carry Indigenous children toward poor health and education, substance abuse, incarceration and an early grave. The ‘rails’ consign those who have suffered abuse to perpetuate the cycle by inflicting it on others. The ‘rails’ send developing countries into spiralling debt, and the ‘rails’ propel wealthy nations towards unfettered and unregulated economic growth. The ‘rails’ project the planet into cataclysmic climate change, and sink nations under rising waters. The ‘rails’ send religious institutions rallying onwards to self-sustenance, shuttered to the reality around them. The ‘rails’ send every one of us from birth to childhood to adolescence to adulthood to old age and to the grave, straining to entertain ourselves and taking advantage of the free buffet along the way. We are not born on ‘rails’. ‘Rails’ are man made. God is not on ‘rails’.

I consider the old adage, ‘Get off the grass!’ What a strange command. Why on earth would I want to get off the grass, when all that awaits me are the rails? I desire fiercely to get off the rails. Scandalously, I encourage every student I teach to get off the rails. I plead with them to ask questions, not to accept what I tell them IS. I hand to them the ultimate tools for derailment: hope, and change. Perhaps many of them will be more content to ride the train, as long as it’s going where they want to go. Hopefully some will jump from the moving carriages, look up, see the horizon, and the endless routes that will take them there. Certainly wrong turns will be made; unexpected chasms stumbled upon; impossibly high mountains encountered. But it is the rails that have taught us to fear our mistakes, rather than to know the deep human necessity of them.

Get off the rails, and on the grass, and let’s go from there.