The Fleet Foxes have a song called Helplessness Blues. It starts with a developmental dilemma in which the singer is saying he was raised to believe he was totally unique. But he’s starting to wish he could be a cog in a machine.

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

But I don’t, I don’t know what that will be
I’ll get back to you someday soon you will see

This has been me. I was always fierce about my individualism. I wanted to be different as a badge of honor. From high school fashion choices (like wearing Tevas year round) to being a rock climber to being honest to a fault, I wanted to stand out. I thought I was unique. And this posed problems: I was so busy being unique and taking on challenges to show I was unique, my future plans became very uncertain. I told my parents, in gratitude, upon graduation, that I felt like the world was my oyster. That I could do whatever I wanted. But what was that? Like a menu with too many good options, I was stuck in indecision. I had no idea what purpose I could serve.

It’s not like I hadn’t served others. I was an Eagle Scout and had done hours of community service in my life. I fell into a substitute teaching gig that was at an alternative school and found it very fulfilling to work with those youth. So I became a teacher.

A step towards being part of a machine, serving something much bigger than myself: the community. But even within teaching I was still stuck in the idea of being unique. I did things my way, had few people give advice, and I think my results were typical: I reached certain students and failed others.

Being unique is great. But being unique puts a lot of pressure on someone. Liz Gilbert has a viral TED Talk about how she wants to bring back blaming things on gremlins to escape some of the tremendous pressure to perform in an individualistic society. Uniqueness, being the hero, even just doing a really good job, is difficult on your own.

Being a cog in the machine is a relief. The pressure is spread around. In the song, the singer wants to be “certain there’s something beyond me.” When you’re part of something bigger than yourself, it can be comforting. And that’s one of the things I want to teach future teachers: teaching is a profession with a history. Teaching is a tradition. Teaching is a universal human activity. The history of teaching is big, deep, and wide.

In the song, the singer doesn’t know what it will be, that thing that will help him feel part of a tradition. In the end of the song, he resorts to the same kind of ending found in Candide by Voltaire: farming. Few human traditions are older. Yet he makes clear he’s still striving to find what’s ideal. I’m quite satisfied to be teaching teachers, in a tradition, trying to pass on the tradition, seeing myself as more of a conduit than a source. Yet I’m still striving, trying to expand my self-improvement beyond my work and family.

Helplessness can and does still sometimes define me. When I think about the 6th mass extinction and the erosion of democracy. But among my antidotes is trying to be helpful. How can I bring people together? How can I lessen their burden of individual uniqueness without harming their sense of self?