December 1, 2005

• Topic: the nature of the beast

  
  

  Just a heads up…the following link is quite hysterical…the following post, I can’t vouch for it…but feel free to give it a shot anyways.

  
  

  http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1131440198/Family_Guy_Osama_bin_Laden

  
  

  I want to frame this post by saying first of all, I’ve been busy booking and changing people’s flights in my office all day, so I haven’t really had time to put togheter a solid theme or idea for this post, and especially haven’t put much thought into making it interactive for all of you…so i’ll just say this is an impromptu, stream of conscious post, regarding work, society, culture, people, and organization, or something like that…feel free to respond to anything or nothing that i write, or to add your own impromptu stream of conscious thoughts about whatever you’d like to write about…

  
  

  Now that I’ve been working for a few months, and out of college a couple of years, I am ever more conscious of what it is people do.  Virtually everyone works, even if they don’t talk about their jobs, even if you’re not really aware that they’re working.  For example, when I call Staples to order things for my office, I’ll have a chat with the guy on the phone about sports, or the weather, usual bs, and for a moment I forget that I’m working, and I forget that this person is at his job.  Same thing with a friend of mine who owns a PostNet mailing center near my office, I go there everyday, and I don’t even pay attention to the fact that my friend is working there.  Or the other day…when I was volunteering, the people that work security, and they just for the most part sit and stare at the ceiling.  Yes…even those people, seemingly doing nothing, are actually working.

  
  

  But when you get home, at 6pm, 7pm, whenever you get home, you’re home.  Work is over.  How was your day?  Your day was whatever you happened to do for those 8-10 hours you were at work.  What do you think doctors do on a given day, or lawyers, or teachers…they all do their jobs, and when they get home, they’re regular people.  As I prefaced this post…I’m not quite finding the point I want to make, but I think the idea that was scratching in my mind was the idea of defining ourselves by our work, by our jobs, our companies, and our titles.

  
  

  I’ve begun to see through the surface of people.  Begun to get past the initial impressions and descriptions.  Beginning to define people by what they say, how they act, the experiences of their life.  What difference does it make if someone is a doctor/lawyer vs. a secretary/garbage man?  We all know their are differences, notably in the required knowledge, skills, and training that go into their jobs.  But beyond that…beyond that what are the differences? 

  
  

  Along this same issue, I’ve been thinking a bit about the concept of celebrity.  What makes celebrities different from everyone else?  Like doctors/lawyers, celebrities possess a unique combination of knowledge, skills, training, and most likely good luck/breaks/connections.  But beyond that, how is John Stewart different than someone equally as intelligent and witty?

  
  

  Along this issue, I had a conversation w/ a friend last night about intelligence.  We both basically agreed that intelligence, while to some extent genetic/biological, is mostly a result of reading.  Why does John Stewart come off as so intelligent, and where does most of his wit come from?  It comes from the fact, that as I once read, “he’s read every book on the Brown curriculum.” 

  
  

  Along this issue, I’ve been thinking about the relationship between people of different levels of knowledge.  When you’re in grade school, sometimes being smart is looked down on, and as you get closer to college, oftentimes “how smart you are,” is looked at in a competitive ego boosting light.  However…when it’s all said in done, there is no room for the proud or the (opposite of proud?).  Knowledge comes from the accumulated learning experiences of a lifetime.  In that manner, when I speak with my father, I realize that he’s gonna amaze me everytime with the knowledge he has, but in a situation like this, I should neither feel daunted by the knowledge gap, nor in awe.  What a person needs to realize is that virtually every moment of every day, there is an opportunity for knowledge to be passed on from person-to-person. 

  
  

  Along this issue…reading the newspaper.  Reading the newspaper is merely the passing on of knowledge from those who have observed and analyzed something, to the reader.  Newspapers are to some extent bias, and fail to tell the full story, but reporters are the most important link that people have to gaining knowledge that they cannot easily gain themselves. 

  
  

  I guess the point is that most of life is simply the free-flow of knowledge and ideas between people.

  
  

  I guess the point is that sometimes, in order to get to what you really want to write, you just need to start writing.  I honestly have no idea what the f#@# i was just writing, but I just haven’t had the time today to think, so I just needed to jog-loose what it is I really wanted to write about…

  
  

  Which was Outward Bound.  Specifically, Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound.  I got around to re-reading some of the booklets I’d been given about these schools, and what immediately struck me was the obvious.  The fact that these schools actually have a philsophy, and that the philosophy is deep, and that the philosophy is passoinate.

  
  

  To give some background again, Outward Bound was founded by a German Jew (although I believe he converted) named Kurt Hahn.  He originally founded a progressive school in Scotland called the Gordonstoun School around 1933, a school that was dedicated to developing the whole child.  Hahn was full of great quotes, including the one that used to be the headline for this site, “your disability is your opportunity.”  Another idea of Hahn’s was the importance of impelling the young into value forming experiences.

  
  

  “I regret that I cannot bring about a world war in every generation in order to rescue the young from the depression of peace.”

  
  

  That last quote was a jump-off from another famous quote, that as a society we must find, “the moral equivalant in war.”  For in wartime what we so often see is an awakening, a passion and zeal for life, adventure.  Hahn wanted to take that zeal and apply it compassionately to education.

  
  

  When I first read about Kurt Hahn, he carried a kind of celebrity about him, was kind of a mythical figure.  But…like John Stewart, he was just your avg. person, who was reasonably educated and passionate (like many celebs…Kurt Hahn had many political connections which helped him to put his ideas into practice).

  
  

  Josh Miner, the first American to visit Hahn’s school, remarked, “Hahn was putting into practice what I’d thought about for years.”  Along that line…my friend and I were discussing how there are very few ideas at all that haven’t already been thought of.  All of us, alive today in 2005, especially us idealists and those w/ a bit of spark to create something, or do something, need to remember that things have been tried before. 

  
  

  Which brings me to another idea…what matters in life.  Most people have a basic idea of what matters, but as Morrie talks about in Tuesday’s With Morrie, we so rarely take the time to stop, think, write, or talk about what matters.  I’ve concluded, that what matters most in life, are communal meals.

  
  

  You see, what I most remember and loved about college were communal meals.  What I loved about summer camp…communal meals.  Travelling and staying in hostels…communal meals.  At work…communal meals.  There’s simply something about getting together with people to share in food, drink, and conversation, that simply represents what I believe to be the highest for of life.  And…while we should engage in conversation about how to better society, and how to do more for our children and those struggling in developing countries, I think we need to not forget the importance of communal meals in all of this.

  
  

  For what good is it if we help South Africa townships grow up into “McMansions?”  Have we really bettered the world by isolating these impovershed communities?  And…what harm is done if we live in sprawled out suburbs, if we still use our weekday and weekend meals as communal gatherings?  Now that’s a platform worth running on…in the long run, how does political issue A-Z effect the quality of my communal meals…

  
  

  I’m afraid to re-read this rambled on post, but…do w/ it what you will. 

  • 5:12 pm
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