I never see a movie without reading the book first.
When I see a preview for a movie whose book I’d meant to have read for a long time, I use the movie as an excuse to speed up my procrastination. The book moves up in my list and I avoid seeing the movie until I’ve had the chance to read the author’s words.
There are several reasons why I do this. One obvious one is that the movies often suck when compared to the original story. This often happens because it’s difficult to fit in every aspect, side stories, the thoughts of the characters, the full range of emotions expressed. The depth of a book is rarely represented in a several-hour movie.
More significantly, I cannot possibly read the book after I’ve seen the movie. Not because I already know the ending but because I cannot use my imagination. One of the most delightful aspects of reading a novel is getting to visualize the characters and the settings. Knowingly or not, I attach a lot of information to the characters in the novels I read. Some of the traits may be mentioned by the author but others aren’t. If a book is written well, by the end of the story, I have a world of information on the characters and they are three-dimensional in my mind’s eye. A movie limits this infinite world and disappoints me often.
I’ve taken my imagination for granted. Until recently, I wouldn’t have considered myself an imaginative person. I’m not particularly creative. I don’t paint, compose or write poetry, and my fiction isn’t that good. I always thought that imagination and creativity were correlated. And that if I lacked one, I must lack the other.
But now I realize that as an avid book reader, I do have extensive imagination.
As with everything, practice tends to strengthen my imagination. And since I read a lot, imagining the characters feels like second nature to me. I never even notice that I use it. I have a friend whose imagination isn’t very active. And talking to him makes me realize how much I use mine. It also makes me wonder how we, as adults, can learn to stretch our imaginative muscles.
Some things come much easier to children and I wish we could capture the overflowing energy and imagination. And hold on to it.
Previously? Priceless.
I lost my bracelet yesterday.
My sister gave me a diamond bracelet a month ago in honor of my engagement. I got a lot of presents in February but this one was my favorite. It was delicate, beautiful and my sister gave it to me. I can’t tell you how sad I’ve been since I realized it was missing.
Earlier this week, I bought myself a swatch. My friend Michelle took me to the store cause she collects them and she got the idea in my mind. Two days later, I went back and bought myself one. It’s a skin swatch, one of the new James Bond series. It cost me 75 dollars.
After I bought the watch, I agonized over it endlessly. I already had a great watch, did I really need another? Weren’t there better ways to spend my 75 bucks? I won’t making a lot of money next year and it was really spendthrift of me to blow it over a watch. Especially when I already have one. I can’t tell you how much time I spent worrying about this new purchase.
I came home and asked Jake if I should keep it. I called two friends and listened to lectures on what a total dork I am and how I should, of course, keep the watch and stop worrying about it. I deserve the watch, they persisted. Stop thinking about it, they insisted. You are insane, they laughed.
I was still slightly worried but I kept the watch. I’ve been wearing it since Tuesday and I love it. But I didn’t truly stop worrying about it until I lost the bracelet last night. The watch was 75 dollars, the diamond bracelet: several hundred. Not to mention the sentimental values attached to it, which are irreplaceable.
It’s amazing how it takes something major to put one’s life in perspective. Why does it take a disaster for us to realize the value of our lives? How come we need a family death or illness to bring us closer? Why do we need a terrible excuse to be nicer to our fellow men?
Did I really have to lose my bracelet to stop worrying about the watch?
I think we, humans, lack perspective all too often.
Previously? No Strings Attached.
I’ll give you careless amountsof out right acceptance if you want it.
I will give you encouragmentto choose the path you want if you need it.
You can speak of anger and doubts,
your fears and freak-outs and I’ll hold it.
You can share your so-called “shamefilled” accounts
of times in your life and I won’t judge it.
And there are no strings attached [to it].
You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give you.
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have.
I give you thanks for receiving, it’s my privilege,
and you owe me nothing in return.
You can ask for space for yourself
and only yourself and I’ll grant it.
You can ask for freedom as well
or time to travel and you’ll have it.
You can ask to live by yourself
or love someone else and I’ll support it.
You can ask for anything you want,
anything at all and I’ll understand it.
And there are no strings attached (to it).
You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give.
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have.
I give you thanks for receiving, it’s my privilege,
and you owe me nothing in return.
I bet you’re wondering when
the next payback shoe will eventually drop.
I bet you’re wondering when my
conditional police will force you to cough up.
I bet you’re wondering how far you
have now dancid your way back into debt.
This is the only kind of love
as I understand it that there really is.
You can express your deepest of thruths
even if it means I’ll lose you and I’ll hear it.
You can fall into the abyss on your way to your bliss,
I’ll empathize with.
You can say that you’ll have to skip town
to chase your passion and I’ll hear it.
You can leave and hit rock bottom
have a mid-life crisis and I’ll hold it.
And there are no strings attached (to it).
You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give.
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have.
I give you thanks for receiving, it’s my privilege,
and you owe me nothing in return.
You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give.
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have.
I give you thanks for receiving, it’s my privilege,
and you owe me nothing in return.
Alanis Morissette – You Owe Me Nothing In Return – Under Rug Swept
I can’t stop listening to it. My favorite line? “This is the only kind of love as I understand it that there really is.”
Is it possible to have a friendship with no strings attached?
Previously? Falling Off.
If we live once, as many people would have us believe, I think it’s crucial to make the most of this only-try that we get, don’t you?
I stress a lot. I worry about the smallest things. I yearn for the correct answers. The right path. I regret stupid little things. I wonder many what-ifs. There are times I am scared to walk down a path that looks appetizing because I spend too much time on the possible negative consequences.
I spend most of my time ensuring for my future. I save. I work. I take the right steps, I say the right words, do the right things. I invest in people. I work on my career. I am careful, calm, collected and thoughtful. I am organized, planned, and well-prepared.
And then there are those crazy moments. A glimpse of randomness. An unplanned purchase. Playing hooky from class. Spending seventeen hours with a friend. Dying my hair. Testing out how it would feel to let go.
These things may seem frivolous to you. The might not sound crazy. But they are to me. And each day that I do something small, I worry and then I get mad at myself. Life is to short, I try to remind myself, it’s a collection of moments and it’s best to enjoy as many of them as possible.
Even if I didn’t have the issues I have with letting go, I think what’s excruciatingly hard is finding a balance between the ‘living today’ and the ‘planning for tomorrow.’ I do think that it’s a good idea to be cautious and have enough money to pay bills and have a consistent enough income. It makes sense to plan for a family if you’re interested in having one and put some money aside if you’re planning to have children. Commitment and responsibility are part of life and I’m okay with that.
Yet, so is spontaneity. I want to be able to take the plunge every now and then. I want to be able to let go. For a while. Take a risk. Try something new. Something uncharted.
The trouble is figuring out the consequences. Walking the thin line between the two. Hopping back and forth but being okay overall. How exactly do I manage that?
Previously? Rediscovering.
A while ago I wrote about the rush of making new friends and yesterday I had the incredible joy of rediscovering someone I already knew.
There are people you meet at different points of your life and depending on how you feel, the conditions that brought you together, the kind of interactions you have, you either click or you don’t. Some times you have the impression that you might click but the opportunity doesn’t come. Other times you never even get that far. This person is in the periphery of your life for a while and you have a vague recollection of them but it never becomes more than that.
This happens to me a lot with friends of good friends. People that I see on occasions where my good friend collects all of his friends, sometimes leave me with the impression that if only I saw them more often or in different circumstances, we could be more than acquaintances.
A long time later, for some reason or another, you find yourself with this person again. Maybe you called them to ask a favor, maybe you ran into them in a street and felt in need of company, maybe they called you. That’s the moment when the occasion arises. That’s the moment you realize maybe this person isn’t the way you remember. Often times, you remember the person vaguely since the last time you saw them was at some occasion for your friend or a gathering where you both happened to attend. For some reason or another, this time you sit down and talk. Without the presence of other people or the superficial gatherings. And you realize that this person is someone you should have gotten to know a long time ago. Someone who gives you the same rush of knowing a brand new person but the comfort and familiarity of an old friend.
The best of both worlds.
The nice thing about having an old acquaintance become a new friend is that since neither of you remembers each other all that well, you don’t make any assumptions about each other. When you see an old friend after many years, he tends to assume that you’re still the same person since all the memories from the last time you hung out are often still vivid. I find that most really good friends that I’ve disconnected with are harder to bring back into my life. Even if they can move past the assumption stage, they rarely bother to get to know me again. Especially if the qualities/interests that brought us together in the first place are no longer there.
The person at the periphery of your life might have some ideas about the person they thought you were, too, but since they are vague, it’s easier to wipe them and start over without feeling a major loss. It isn’t so threatening because if you don’t click this time, it’s no big deal; you’re not destroying a past relationship.
Reconnecting with an old acquaintance is like discovering a treasure that lay before your eyes the entire time.
Previously? Pendulum.
With all that’s going on in my life lately, my mood is behaving like a pendulum.
On the whole, I am happy. Most of the work for the wedding appears to be under control. We’re almost exactly on budget. Jake and I are getting along fantastically. Work’s going well, for the most part. The exams are over, and I don’t get to find out the results until April so I have a month of relaxation. I have to wait on the TB tests and the medical checkup for the wedding. We think we might have found a house.
So it all sounds good right?
Except for, I am stressed out all the time. I spend my nights looking at apartments all over New York City, hanging out with brokers whom I could go on and on about. Every second I am home, I feel this sense of urgency like I am not getting enough done and I am so overwhelmed that I just turn on the TV and do nothing, which, of course, makes the next day exponentially worse. I have a mountain of eleven books checked out from the library and the books are just not being read fast enough. My knitting has come to a temporary halt. My bills are strewn all over the coffee table. Dinner tonight is pretzels and almond butter. Not to mention all the unknowns of where I will be living in a few months, where I’ll be working, where I’ll be attending school, etc.
So I tend to swing back and forth between joy and crippling fear. In the last two weeks, I’ve found three major sources of help.
The first is specific to me. Yesterday, I was working at the bookstore and saw that someone had brought in the Teach For America book. In this book, Wendy Kopp, the founder, talks all about her struggles to start and maintain the organization. She outlines its goals and explains why certain teachers are more successful than others. I had read the book cover to cover on the floor of a Borders a month before I applied. Leafing through it again reminded me why I wanted to do this in the first place. Not only do I have no doubt that I want to do TFA, I am proud to have anything to do with such an organization. I’ve decided that each time I have doubts, I’ll walk into the nearest bookstore and leaf through the book.
The second is much more general. Amazingly, music can put a smile on my face in a matter of seconds. My mp3 player goes everywhere with me and even when I’m simply walking across the street to drop off my mail, I listen to music. It makes me want to dance. It erases all the stress and negativity. I am amazed at the power of a few notes each time. But my mp3 player has never failed me.
The last way is also not specific to my situation. If you’re a consistent reader of karenika, you’d know that I am a bookworm. Reading books, like music, transports me into a separate world where my wonders don’t exist. Fiction or non-fiction, it doesn’t matter. I am so engrossed in the writer’s world/concerns/issues that I don’t think of my own. I used to be able to read at home, but lately I’ve had ample distractions. On Saturday, between exam 1 and exam 2, I had an hour free so I went to a small cafe across the street and read my book while I ate. Even when I was about to have an exam in less than an hour, the book erased all my concerns. I did the same thing twice since then. A small restaurant, a tiny coffee shop, one of the multitude Starbucks’ in the city. Me and my book. It’s a match made in heaven.
I love the fact that I can escape my world without physically leaving it.
You have any ideas on what’s a good way to temporarily forget your troubles?
Previously? Parental Guidance.
It must be hard being a parent.
Here’s a recent theory I’m developing. The imperative word being “developing.” The impression I’m getting is that parents observe their children and try and fit them into certain ideas that they have in their minds.
For example, if their kid is a good student and the parents weren’t, they imagine a path where the kid goes to a good school, gets good grades, graduates and then moves on to a successful job, gets married and you know the rest. Now, if the said kid decides to take a year off midway through college to travel (or something similar) the parent’s idealized world has just fallen into pieces. This was not in the plan. What is this kid doing? The parent gets worried and decides the kid’s screwing up the future.
If the kid is significantly different than the parents, then it’s even harder to figure out what’s best for the child so I think the parents struggle even harder. It’s hard to give advice when you can’t relate. You want to be helpful and you want to guide but how can you advise on something you don’t understand?
When the plan goes awry, the parent panics. What if the kid’s ruining his life? What if this is a mistake that’s going to cost a lot? What if it’s the wrong choice?
The fact is, the kid is also an individual and as soon as he thinks he’s ready to make some decisions, he wants to make them. The idea, or illusion, of having control of your life and your path is really important to a young adult. It’s also crucial to learn to make mistakes as part of making decisions. If the kid never makes a mistake until he’s much older, the mistake will have bigger consequences and often a harder impact.
I have a friend whose parents sheltered her for a long time and such she never realized how mean people can be until she came to college. Trust me when I say that it’s much harder to swallow the truth at twenty. I learned the same fact at like six or seven when my classmates were mean and it hurt but I had years to get over it and build a shield for future protection.
I imagine it must be hard to let your kids do what they want to. The urge to protect must be overwhelming. The even more annoying fact is you have no idea what’s right and what’s wrong for the kid. Every person is an individual with his or her mind, luck, wishes and hopes. It’s nearly impossible to tell someone what the right move for that person is. The best thing to do is try and teach the right morals and a solid thought process to the child and hope that he uses it well. And also to trust.
The rest is up to them.
Previously? Savages.
“As worker’s comp benefits have become more difficult to obtain, the threat to workplace safety has grown more serious. During the first two years of the Clinton administration, OSHA [ Occupational Safety and Health Administration ] seemed like a revitalized agency. It began to draw up the first ergonomics standards for the nation’s manufacturers, aiming to reduce cumulative trauma disorders. The election of 1994, however, marked a turning point. The Republican majority in Congress that rose to power that year not only impeded the adoption of ergonomics standards but also raised questions about the future of OSHA. Working closely with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, House Republicans have worked hard to limit OSHA’s authority. Congressman Cass Ballenger, a republican from North Carolina, introduced legislation that would require OSHA to spend at least half of its budget on “consultation” with businesses, instead of enforcement. This new budget requirement would further reduce the number of OSHA inspections, which by the late 1990s had already reached an all-time low. Ballenger has long opposed OSHA inspections, despite the fact that near his own district a fire at a poultry plant killed twenty-five workers in 1991. The plant had never been inspected by OSHA, its emergency exits had been chained shut, and the bodies of workers were found in piles near the locked doors. Congressman Joel Hefley, a Colorado Republican whose district includes Colorado Springs, has introduced a bill that makes Ballenger’s seem moderate. Hefley’s “OSHA Reform Act” would essentially repeal the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. It would forbid OSHA from conducting any workplace inspections or imposing any fines.” – Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.
Amongst many others, one of the issues “Fast Food Nation” made me face was the drawbacks of capitalism. In the book, there are quite a few examples where large companies, which are major revenue sources and employers in a state, push around the congressmen of the particular states. When a corporation, regardless of its size, gets to tell a political figure what sort of law he can and cannot introduce in a state, I think it’s fair to say that there’s something wrong with the system.
I’m not against capitalism as a concept. I think there’s much to be said for the motivation provided by the knowledge that hard work can yield to a wealthy life style. Same goes for healthy competition. Often times the lack of monopolies provides for a more fair price for the consumer and allows for materials to stay close to their market value. I think incentives and personal benefit are better motivators than pep talks or long-term promises. Competition also promotes the push for better results. More efficient ways. I think in recent history, much scientific and electronic progress has been made in capitalist societies.
However, and you knew this was coming, it appears mankind is not necessarily exemplary in its behavior. There appear to be intoxicating effects of the money that encourage people to bend the rules far enough to break them. It appears the rich have no problem taking advantage of the poor, less educated or less advantaged. It appears there are some people who will do anything for the right amount of money. Even at the cost of human lives.
Until human beings grow up and grow a full-time conscience, I don’t think it’s possible to live in a fully democratic and fully capitalist society. I think organizations that watch out for the benefits of the thousands of people who don’t have a voice are crucial to our society’s life cycle. I think the government needs to remember its purpose and protect all of its citizens equally. Most importantly people need to care more. Humans are not an endless commodity. They are not a commodity. Humans have rights. Humans need to be treated like humans.
Sometimes it feels to me like thousands of years have changed little and we’re still not much better than the savages we started out as.
Previously? Eat Meat?.
Fair warning: the following excerpt is graphic and it’s recommended that you don’t read it while you’re eating or before you’re about to.
“I see: a man reach inside cattle and pull out their kidneys with his bare hands, then drop the kidneys down a metal chute, over and over again, as each animal passes by him; a stainless steel rack of tongues; Whizzards peeling meat off decapitated heads, picking them almost as clean as the white skulls painted by Georgia O’Keeffe. We wade through blood that’s ankle deep and that pours down drains into huge vats below us. As we approach the start of the line, for the first time I hear the steady pop, pop, pop of live animals being stunned.
Now the cattle suspended above me look just like the cattle I’ve seen on ranches for years, but these ones are upside down swinging on hooks. For a moment, the sight seems unreal; there are so many of them, a herd of them, lifeless. And then I see a few hind legs still kicking, a final reflex action, and the reality comes hard and clear.
For eight and a half hours, a worker called a “sticker” does nothing but stand in a river of blood, being drenched in blood, slitting the neck of a steer every ten seconds or so, severing its carotid artery. He uses a long knife and must hit exactly the right spot to kill the animal humanely. He hits that spot again and again. We walk up a slippery metal stairway and reach a small platform, where the production line begins. A man turns and smiles at me. He wears safety goggles and a hardhat. His face is splattered with gray matter and blood. He is the “knocker,” the man who welcomes cattle to the building. Cattle walk down a narrow chute and pause in front of him, blocked by a gate, and then he shoots them in the head with a captive bolt stunner – a compressed-air gun attached to the ceiling by a long hose – which fires a steel bolt that knocks the cattle unconscious. The animals keep strolling up, oblivious to what comes next, and he stands over them and shoots. For eight and a half hours, he just shoots. As I stand there, he misses a few times and shoots the same animal twice. as soon as the steer falls, a worker grabs one of its hind legs, shackles it to a chain, and the chain lifts the huge animal into the air.
I watch the knocker knock cattle for a couple of minutes. The animals are powerful and imposing one moment and then gone in an instant, suspended from a rail, ready for carving. A steer slips from its chain, falls to the ground, and gets its head caught in one end of a conveyer belt. The production line stops as workers struggle to free the steer, stunned but alive, from the machinery. I’ve seen enough.” – Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.
I’m not a vegetarian, but after having read this, I thought long and hard about my choices. If you read Fast Food Nation and find out what goes into the meat that you eat, not to mention the conditions under which the meat packers work, you might seriously reconsider your choices, too.
Previously? Eyes Closed.
There are days when I get depressed.
I’ve never been a big social activist. To be fully honest, I spent the first eighteen years of my life oblivious to much around me. Years of childhood hazing combined with an ultimate escape land provided by the millions of books made sure that I spent my days unaware of my surroundings. I don’t mean to imply that I didn’t care. As a kid, I tutored other, less fortunate, kids in math, and later on, English. But, even as a teenager, I never got involved in the political or social conversations that many people around me debated over. Just like I didn’t feel at ease with the lipstick-brand-name-jeans-and-ski-in-Switzerland crowd, I didn’t find a home with the people who wanted to save the world. Or at least talk about saving the world.
Back then I knew too little to be disappointed.
During college, I started getting a little more involved with those around me. For the first time in my life, I felt like my surroundings invigorated me. I wanted to suck it all up. After drenching myself in it, I wanted to get others hooked on as well. Thus, I became an Orientation Counselor. I joined the Student Dormitory Counsel and organized part of the on-campus carnival entertainment. I signed up to be a Pre-college counselor. And later, a Resident Assistant. As part of those jobs, I got more involved in community service. I did Habitat for Humanity a few times. I went to a food bank. I became a sexual assault counselor. I moved up to organize school-wide programs like sex week, where we tried to address important issues and raise sexual awareness. I worked for the school newspaper. I taught computer classes. I served on the residence life judicial board. While I wasn’t very involved in the city or outside community, I was mad about my school. I knew a lot about it and worked hard to make parts of it better.
At that point I was too intoxicated with the possibilities to get distraught.
Upon graduation, I moved to New York City. I signed on with an investment bank and got to work. In my first year, I became involved with two volunteer programs: Everybody Wins, whose goal was to instill the love of reading in elementary school children and Young Women’s Leadership Club, whose goal was to teach high school girls the skills necessary to get accepted to college or to find a job. The work took about six to eight hours a month away from my jam-packed schedule. I became a member of the New York Public Library so I could checkout children’s books that my third grader and I read during our lunch hours. My first year, I convinced a bunch of my friends to volunteer for New York Cares Day. By then I had also joined Jake in returning back to City Year for the Serve-a-thon in Boston, each year. My firm started a community service program where they gave each employee a day off, paid, to do community service. I went back to Habitat. I did Junior Achievement. I volunteered at pet shelter dog shows. I still didn’t think I was affecting my environment as much as I could have, but I felt good about giving some of the little time that I had.
I think the sorrow might have started when I saw how my third grader couldn’t read.
A year and a half ago, I decided I wanted to reduce my hours considerably so I could spend some time volunteering at the New York Society for the Deaf. I’d been taking classes at NYSD and wanted an excuse to improve my sign language. I asked around and found out that almost all the opportunities were during the day, so after a lot of searching, I changed my work to a 3-days-a-week arrangement and started spending one of my other days at NYSD. I didn’t care about what I did, I just wanted to be of help. A few months after that, I started spending part of my other day at Housing Works used bookstore, where I help run the register and do other necessary jobs. I’d say I’m still not involved with my environment as much as I want to be. My life is still pretty much the same, except for the wonderful people who’ve added color and insight into it. The people I’ve met in my multiple volunteer opportunities.
They’re what make me worry.
A few months ago, I decided the few days weren’t enough. I wanted to make more of an impact. I wanted to educate myself. I wanted to learn about what makes parts of our society fail. I wanted to make it a better place. I talked to a lot of people. Many told me I was naive. A whole bunch told me that I could do that with my money. Others told me it was a fruitless endeavor. A few encouraged me to give it a try. I looked around a lot and finally settled on Teach For America. I was inspired by what they stood for and figured I’d be proud to be a member of an organization with its goals. I applied. I got accepted. If all goes well, I will be an elementary school teacher by this September.
Now, I’m reading a lot about education and the plethora of the issues faced by educators today. I’m reading about racial bias and gender bias. I’m reading about poverty and parts of United States that would, should, make some people ashamed to call themselves American. I’m seeing that ignorance is bliss for many people. I’m finding out that a lot of people whine about how bad things are but don’t do much about it. I’m realizing that there’s a lot of work to be done. I’m horrified by the way many children are treated.
And I get depressed.
I see why people tell me I can’t change the world. I know many have tried and failed. I know that it feels like an insurmountable undertaking. I get annoyed at the disorganization of some non-profits until I try to remind myself that most of these people are working practically for free in a job that’s often under-appreciated and definitely under-employed. Tons of people have told me that it’s not my job to fix the world.
But it is.
I live in this society. I reap the benefits of many people’s hard work. I take for granted that someone grows the food I eat, that someone collects the garbage I accumulate, someone drives the subway I ride to work. I make money and live in a well-insulated house with doormen and elevators. I’m surrounded by people who make enough money to afford big houses and expensive vacations. It’s easy to lose perspective in my environment. And that’s exactly what many people do. Yet, if any part of the society decided not to execute its function, my world could crumble. It’s my job to make sure that hardworking people get rewarded. It’s my job to make sure that we can offer excellent education to everyone so our society as a whole can improve.
Most importantly, I plan to bring children into this society. It’s my job to make sure that my kids can grow up in the best society I can provide. I don’t want my children to have to worry about racial or gender discrimination. I want high quality education not to be an option that only the rich can exercise but a necessity and a guarantee to all children. I want my kids to be proud to be a part of their society. I want them to grow up secure of their abilities and opportunities. And I don’t want all that to be tied to my income.
It’s just as much my job to make this world a better place as it is yours. The more I read, the more I see, the more I hear, the more depressed I get. The sadder I get, the angrier I get. The angrier I get, the more determined I get.
My eyes might have been closed before, but they’re wide open now. And it’s never too late.
Previously? Dumb For Life.
“Intelligence is genetic.”
I have had conversations on the nature of intelligence with several people in the last few months. The talks start softly, rise to animated levels and end without a climax. If I’ve concluded anything it’s that people don’t know enough to argue one way or another on the subject matter.
The first problem we stumbled upon was the definition of intelligence. What does it mean to be intelligent? Does it mean you can solve mathematical problems easily? Or that you pick up new information quickly? Are you intelligent if you have several college degrees? Or is it related to street-smarts? What about an amazing painter, is he intelligent?
I find intelligence to be extremely difficult to define. Everyone seems to have his or her own mis-definition, misconception, or bias. But no one can give me an all-encompassing definition. And don’t even get me started on those so-called intelligence quotient tests.
Even though one cannot talk about how a characteristic is obtained when one cannot even define the attributes of that characteristic, we can move to the next issue of how one becomes intelligent. The idea that intelligence is inherited is too limited for me.
If intelligence is inherited, then why do we bother to push the limits? Why do we go to school and work so hard? It’s all a useless endeavor to grow gray cells.
If it’s something passed down from your parents, how come the world has intelligent and stupid people? Wouldn’t the stupid people be weeded out by now?
The idea that you’re locked into an intelligence level at birth is so depressing to me. That means, no matter how hard you try and how much you work, you can never improve your level of intelligence. Doesn’t the idea make you want to cry too?
I like to believe that intelligence is a multi-threaded personality trait. It’s like an octopus with lots of tentacles, each defining a different aspect of intelligence. I also like to think that we’re each born with a capacity of unlimited intelligence, whatever that means, and all we have to do is water the seeds given to us.
I understand that different people have knacks for different things inherently, though even that can possibly be attributed to nurture but that’s a side issue. Even if one person is quicker with addition than another, it doesn’t mean that person was born more intelligent.
Maybe I’m too optimistic or naive, but I’m going to keep believing that everyone is capable of being extremely intelligent until someone can prove me otherwise. In the meantime I’m hitting the books on this subject matter. Howard Gardner seems to have written a lot on the issue. Do you know of anyone else?
Previously? Special Moments.
In between all the stresses of this past weekend we’ve had a few special moments.
As we drove to Rockport, Massachusetts, Jake and I decided to take some time to stop and enjoy the beautiful weather and the most amazing little town. The sea was calm and the sky only had white clouds. Jake couldn’t believe the sand was really on the beach naturally. He claimed it must have been imported there.
   
The same day, I caught sight of the geese and begged Jake to stop. Much to my delight, he did and I spent the next twenty minutes watching the awesome animals.
  
On Sunday, the weather was getting colder but I still made Jake stop by Jamaica Pond, one of my favorite spots right by Jake’s house. Ducks and seagulls were enjoying a little nap on the half-frozen lake. Earlier, we went to visit another photographer in Andover, MA and just as we exited his office, it started to snow in lumps and I decided it was important to catch a glimpse.
  
As stressful as this weekend was, we had a few special moments and made sure to enjoy every second of them. It’s always a good idea to remember the little things as they’re what make the world go round.
Previously? Uphill.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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