Peace vs. Prosperity

Some people believe that war stimulates business as companies have to produce a lot of dispensable goods to meet military needs, and then, in the aftermath, new demand arises from people’s postponed desires for comfort and luxury. However, the effect wears out with time, and business slows down until it reaches recession levels.

This is not a very promising proposition, as it suggests that peace and prosperity cannot thrive together for long. Yet, some people believe that we can have both if we build some kind of sustainable economy. Such type of economy will, perhaps, challenge some of our ideas about prosperity, especially the concept of economic growth.

How do you think?

Why you should create a Gmail account

1. You need a new account anyway as you’ll be applying to college soon, and you need a serious looking user name, like “m.ivanova” rather than “sexie_girl_92”
2. You need to receive messages in Cyrillic as well, and you want to be able to read them rather than stare at strange symbols.
3. You need a lot of space to store important documents – almost 7 GB. On Google servers they’ll be safer than on your own computer, and you’ll be able to access them from any computer.
4. You can conveniently save photos, arrange them in albums and share some of them with your friends.
5. You need an office you can access from any computer – to take notes, work on documents, organize events, manage your tasks with calendars, etc. You can share some of these with friends.
6. You can chat with Gmail friends – no need to install instant messaging software.
7. You can create groups.
8. You can subscribe to your favourite blogs.
9. There are many other things you could do with Gmail. Most of them will make our collaboration on college application much easier.

Dreams don’t come easy

I substituted “dreams” for “goals”, as a goal sounds so scary – like something you have to roll up your sleeves for, something you might fail. It has nothing to do with playing safe, avoiding pain and frustration; it has something to do with guts.

Some people would have been glad to spend some time lost in reverie, visualizing themselves in contexts that have always fascinated them, being and doing what they have always dreamed of. Most of my students, though, are never keen on daydreaming. Why? Is it because they don’t want to cherish dreams that might never come true, thus getting frustration and disappointment? Or is it because daydreaming takes pro-activity, creativity and effort? Yes, dreaming is not easy – it’s like building a house on your own – coming up with the idea, the design, producing blueprints, laying foundations, and then brick after brick … It takes time, focus, passion and sweep. It’s a waste of time. Yes, developing a vision is costly. Taking orders to implement somebody else’s vision is cheap, unless you share in it, which, actually, makes it your own.

You don’t have goals? Well, aren’t you applying to college? Isn’t it a goal? Why do you want to go there? Is it because it’s the thing to do? Even if you don’t believe you have your own unique reasons, then think of common ones? Why do people go to college? What do they expect from it?

Let’s say it’s the trivial – a license to a well-paid job. We can dig further. Why do you want a well-paid job? What are you going to spend the money for? What kind of lifestyle would it provide for you? If the way you earn money does not matter to you, then focus on your leisure time – how would you be spending it – day in and day out, for years and decades? If the way you earn your living matters, then tell us how it does – what you expect from a good job.

If you believe college is more than a license to a well-paid job, then what is it? Hell, yes – isn’t it time to think what college is after all? Is it where you would like to spend four years of your life? How do you know?

Dreams and goals might be related to what you care about, what you are concerned about. These could be related to people and things outside you – the orphans and the alcoholics, landmarks, pollution, animals, energy, religion, family, etc.

If you have never cared about anything and lack the energy to build a dream, you might start in a reactive, rather than a pro-active way – by thinking of your likes and dislikes, i.e. “I would like to be surrounded by familiar people every day.” or “I would like to meet new people every day.” or “I would like to be away from people.”; “I would hate to spend time outdoors.” or “I would hate to spend all day in an office in a suit and tie.” Try to do that for every possible aspect of your life.

Why do it? Because the colleges you have chosen would like you to. Do you still want to go there?

transcendental dreaming

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

People say you should have big dreams because you can never achieve more than you have dreamed of. It’s not just a beautiful adage; it’s down-to-earth logic – if you haven’t dreamed of something, you’ll never make efforts to achieve it; should it come to you out of the blue, you won’t recognize it for what it is, so you’ll either let it go unnoticed or deny it. In order to get hold of it, you should have somehow been prepared. Unfortunately, many people are not prepared for good luck because too often it goes beyond the confines of their little world.

Most people around have not heard of so many facts of life that they don’t believe me when I speak about them. How could they dream of things they don’t believe in? Well, we all have limited knowledge, but some of us recognize their ignorance and have in their minds free space for the unheard of, so when it comes, they don’t deny it and might wish to explore it and give it a chance. Some of us don’t even wait for the unknown to come; they create it themselves.

There are so many careers my students have never heard of. How could they ever dream of them? Besides, they refuse to believe that there could be any career they have not heard of, and they cannot possibly imagine that new careers could be invented. Yet, it’s a fact of life: people do invent their own careers and businesses, offering unheard of products and services, thus positioning themselves out of competition – at least for a while.

If you only dream of what you know, and you know so little, then you’ll have tiny dreamlets.

Consider this text when you’re working on your GOALS topic.

Thinking about technology

Some people believe that advance in scientific discovery and technology would be provide solution to humanity’s problems. Do you think this is the field of human knowledge we should emphasize in order to make people’s lives happier? Are there other essential, useful fields?

Here is a list of suggested topics and bibliography from Williams College.

Reality check

I have just opened the balcony door, so I can hear the coarse voices of teenagers walking by. Opening a window might seem like peeping into reality; a young friend of mine once told me (passionately), “Open the window and look out. The world is not what you can see on your computer screen.”

Well, can I, by opening the window and looking out into the street find out what the world is like?

If I do it, I could describe the world as follows:

“It’s hot and noisy, full of dust and burnt gas fumes. Still you can hear the songs of thousands of crickets.

People are loud and ugly, especially men, who are made much uglier by a certain hairstyle.”

That reminds me of Jivka’s answer to the question “What do gypsies purchase?” Her reality check read as “They buy expensive snacks.” You probably remember the other guys joining in to prove her wrong with “They don’t buy anything because they don’t have any money; they steal.” or “They work abroad and send money to their relatives.”

Have you ever heard the story about the group of blind men who had to describe an elephant after having examined by touching it. Someone described it as an animal with a huge trunk; another as a creature with crinkled buttocks, etc. Who offered the right description?

Forget about these blind men and get some learned men. How would a vet, a circus elephant trainer, an anthropologist, a zoologist, a poacher and an ecologist describe an elephant? Wouldn’t they know better than the blind men? If they were reporting reality, wouldn’t they give us the same reports? If their descriptions vary wildly, then whom shall we trust?

How do we get a real picture of reality? Is it by opening the only window we have? Is it a good idea to stare at the computer screen, for it can open an infinite number of windows? Is it better to go out and do some field work, or is it better to sit back in our easy-chair, close our eyes, smoke a pipe and think or … sing?

Goals – reality check

As part of the college application exploration, I suggested Goals as the next lesson topic. Write homework assignments and be prepared to speak. In the long run I will expect you to follow these steps:

1. Dream.
2. Check against reality to find out:

a) if it is possible

b) how you could make it possible

Postindustrial?

Some people believe we live in postindustrial times. Others believe it’s the good old industrial age, just grown sleeker and more technological.

Which one do you believe?

What type of educational philosophy could be more pragmatic to choose in order to succeed in the context you believe is in store for you after graduation from college?

I promised to provide a link to the full text of the textbook article on laissez innover. This one seems to be useful too.

We also mentioned “Modern Times” (the Charlie Chaplin movie), Marx, Noam Chomsky, Peter Drucker, Richard Reich. I would like to throw in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” novel and the non-fiction “sequal”, “Brave New World Revisited”. A key word you should not miss is “knowledge society”.

Happy research!

Growth revisited

Colleges will expect you to discuss not just any incidence of growth, but one that is due to conscious effort and has influenced you beyond the immediate. Now that we have had fun with personal inventories and sharing anecdotes, let’s sift through our material to identify changes which:

are propelled by your conscious effort

AND

have had a “universal” effect on you, i.e. colored your whole life

speaking essays

I think classes this week were a breakthrough. I had never tried to approach application essay writing in such a format. It had always been just lecturing on my part and then confidential one-to-one correspondence. I had never expected people to be so brave as to talk the way you did.

Now that I am thinking of it, I relate it to Plamen’s story about the aikido class - I did not give you better instructions than the aikido teacher did about meditation; it was just as hazy and fuzzy and impossible to teach as art. Still I feel it is taking us into the vortex faster.

Happy application season!