Walt Williams: How’s Your Homeostasis?

It’s just time.

Right, I mean, we go to school on a schedule, get married on a schedule, have kids on a schedule (sometimes). If you have a crap job, hopefully you quit it on a schedule, and when things line up, you start on a schedule. So, let’s talk Homeostasis.

As a grown adult, you have about 30 trillion cells in your body. Yes, that’s trillion, a thousand billion, a million-million, and yes, the amount of money one South African immigrant was briefly worth immediately after his latest IPO in our beautiful capitalist country. 

Each of your cells lives for a period of time: Stomach lining 2-6 days; Liver Cells 10-16 months; Neurons a lifetime. And in that time, they function best when homeostasis is taking place. Homeostasis is also the favorite word of a certain teacher and coach and father and husband who has spent the summer trying to achieve a sort of personal homeostasis only to realize that, well, read on, because, I’ll get to it eventually. 

Let’s start with why you should care. BTW, I use homeostasis to explain the health of the earth, organizations, education, even government, because it’s all about balance and we work better when balanced. BTW, I also love acronyms, like BTW, because I work with high school kids and they have learned their own language which adults don’t understand but should. Like the music of the Clash in 1978, and the time I was order number 67 last year after a golf match and the entire In-N-Out went bananas when my number was called. Why should you care about homeostasis? Because balance is all we have.

“Shit is broke Walt” 

This is the one line I remember from last year in the classroom, nine months teaching Science, Art, PE, Golf, Tennis, Empathy, to the largest graduating class from Creekside High School, and all I remember is this line. And why? Obvs, because it is broke. See, my job is improving little brains, and to do that we need others to work together, just like in your cells. Ever woke up hungover or tired or ill or angry? All you want is to get your balance back.  

I realized the other day that my philosophy is pretty simple: Help kids thrive. From teaching to coaching to protesting war to supporting immigration to, well, I will rage against anything that hurts kids and adults (even if they sometimes choose the hurt). And you should too. Because we’re not alone, and why should it even be a thing, wanting to help kids thrive? Smarter kids mean a smarter society means smarter decisions means a smarter future. And it all starts with smarter teachers teaching smarterly.

So, it’s time; a new platform after a lifetime of screaming into the darkness. And please respond often. I quit all social media last year (and you should too) and without that dopamine hit from my posts, I can become a sad little man. 

But, so far this summer, I won four salamis with six potatoes at the boy scout tent on the 4th (I train all year), and pulled seven trout out of the Stanislaus River and just built new IPE stairs for our studio, and have the best job in the world and the greatest family in the world and, well, let’s just say, my Homeostasis is doing pretty good.