Arizona Western College - El Matador Yearbook (Yuma, AZ)

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hey, that Vl0l'C osed :God iests gion war, illed iests they it in the mar- aiah, erity nk a at is e in- irch, ther- leav- ,king dent. itch? r:0Dle eally omf, ut in 55 to ionS, in- ches free' these Ill See J be' - tllei' want to be free. We want to be free men, instead of secure men. El Matador: Do you think, however, that the masses are really seeking security and not freedom? Ahearn: The masses. Wow. Gee. You are talking about everybody. I want to be free and you want to be free. David wants to be free and Scott wants to be free. Groups of people don't want to be free, individuals want to be free, 8f0l1ps of people want to be secure. El Matador: Where are today's young people going fOr. this freedom, if they are not going to institutionalized religion? Ahearn: They are going out on their own. They are making decisions for themselves. Some of them are cruel and hard and they are suffering. But I also think they are going to make mistakes. In the long run, how- ever, they are going to be a better human being when they finally find themselves. El Matador: What about those returning to the Old Eastern ways of living and the Hare Krishna movement in order to obtain freedom? Ahearn: It is an attempt to find themselves, but I think they are going to be disillusioned because all of these movements began in the East, in India, in North India, and China. The goal of these philosophies is to flow back into a oneness, into a nirvana thus losing your identity. So they are making a mistake here. Many of them are finding this out. You are going to lose your identity. Thus they are confused with the Western way of living, which is an Aristotelian way of life, so they are going to the East. But, when they find out what is really over there, this is the Eastern philosophy, they are going to come back and say, thank God I am a Western, be- cause we have a goal and we are going to be individuals, we are going to be a person. Over there, the goal is not to be a person, not to be an individual. El Matador: The Eastern way oflife is so much slower. It is more tranquil than the Western way of life. If you ask an Easterner, When are you going to get the boat done? their reply is It will get done when it gets done, not before and not afterf' The Western way of life re- quires a specific answer. It will be done by 8 o'clock tomorrow morning? We run on time, and they are just existing. That is one of the reasons why the Westerners can't cope with this or can't relate to it so well. Ahearn: Yes, a simple yes. They are not concerned with it. We live in the tomorrow. This is our big mistake. The Western way of living is not the perfect way of life. We are not living for three o'clock, we are living for six oiclock, or the weekend, or Thanksgiving or Exodus. Some of us are living for the end of the year, for gradu- ation, for marriage, for retirement. Even today, young people think about retirement for security. We don't enjoy this beautiful moment right now. It is a beautiful moment-birds, bees, flowers. This is the moment we enjoyg not next week. Hell, next week will never get here because we will be thinking about the week after that. You know, it is the present moment that we must look for. El Matador: Presently there are five religion clubs on campus this year. Was it always like this or have they just become more active all of a sudden?

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John James Ahearn, professor of philosophy, sees himself as a guide first and a teacher second. But few will argue that his choice as a guide as his primary vocation hurts his teaching abilities in the least. An enthusiastic teacher, Ahearn feels that the more experience an edu- cator brings to the classroom, the greater his students, enthusiasm will be for the subject. He feels experience in life is paramount, even if that experience includes raising cows, chickens and horses. We need to know life before we teach it, is Ahearn's philosophy and he feels no person can have lived life by going to school from kin- dergarten through the doctorate level without having experienced anything else. How a person goes about living life to its fullest A- hearn did not say. But he feels living life centers around understanding people and that is what a guide attempts to do. Ahearn is a novelty in today's complex world: his life is simple, yet challenging, basic, but full. El Matador editor-in-chief Michael Starrett and staff member David Schuman along with staff photographer Scott Wong talked with Ahearn last October in an inter- view where he shared what he feels to be the more im- portant sides of a person. Professionally, the native-born Chicagoan has been at Western since 1968. He came to AWC when he re- signed from the priesthood after six years of pastoral service. The 44-year-old Ahearn has taught on the junior high level in parochial schools in Arizona and New Mexico. Ahearn, a licensed pilot and a veteran of the Air Force, teaches philosophy and comparative religions here. Last school year he was honored as the 1970 homecoming dedicatee. He also serves as director of the board for Awareness House, an anti-drug effort in Yuma, is a member of Somerton Rotary and El Toro Foundation. To Ahearn, teaching involves becoming a complete human being before all else. In no way does he feel it must include bearing the label professor. As he con- siders himself a guide first and a teacher second, he also feels that a teacher should be a human being experiencing as much of life as possible first and a teacher second. This interview was conducted on his ranch-style home near Somerton on the front lawn with birds chirping, cows grazing nearby, an occasional neighing from a horse, and the pitter patter of life-children at play. Novelty: A rt 0fEffective Living An interview with John James Ahearn