Unfinished Thoughts

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This month began with many doubts and personal issues, following a euphoric period over the holidays, it all seemed to be washing away again. Drifting out with the tide, I slipped into a malaise of depression, that started to fade away going into the second week of the month. Then just before bed in the early morning of January 12th I read something, something I didn’t want to believe; something that left me sleepless: Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide.

It was a hard blow. It knocked me back, back into the malaise, back into thinking and rethinking the same thoughts. Instinctively, I knew it was likely the immense stress from the case that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And yet, I wondered why? In my processing I wrote down two unfinished thoughts.

Successful Men

What is it like for the lives of men who sit idly by as time passes and watch as successful men struggle with failure? What is a successful man’s failure; to not have done more, to have done too much that wasn’t of import, to not know when he has done enough? Where does the successful man draw his line, or does he simply forget that there eventually needs to be a firm line? A line that he doesn’t have to keep punting, further away.

Stones and Metal

It is a triumph of history that we can look back millennia because of how our predecessors constructed their tools. Unlike the tools of today, that will likely fade almost as quickly as they came to be, stone and metal still stands only gently worn or hidden by the world around it. The only chances that we have of continued existence, at the millennial scale, is in our architecture and our cultures. Change has begun to progress at such a pace, even while it may feel glacial to us, that we are outstripping our own history in decades. There will be few who stand out in the test of time.

And here it is the end of the month, and another person’s gone who was out to change the world. I can’t comment personally on Jody Sherman, as I had never heard of him until just the other day. From the stories from his friends, he was a  “successful man” and I’m sure he’ll stand out in the test of time, not in one piece but little bits of him will survive in memories.

I just feel empty and tired. The past month, the whole of the year, has just been rough; every time I seem to get up, something comes and throws me back down. Maybe it’s time to make some changes. Time to find some balance. But I don’t know, this whole month can just be chalked up to unfinished thoughts.

Regrets Are Not For The Living

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One must not have regrets while living, to do so is a waste of time, since we cannot change the past from the present. No wrongs cannot be righted in some form, though not always brought back and mended to the original intent. If there is a regret for not doing, then the logical response is to do. If there is a regret for having done something, then to reverse it you must act with equal or greater impact in the other direction. This becomes that regrets are now actionable and somewhat dispossessed of guilt.

Teaching With A Purpose

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Something I have noticed is that lots of people have issues with math and other areas because they don’t know the ‘Why’ of it. What is the purpose for learning? How can I use it practically? I think this is one of the biggest cruxes of the education problem.

Sometimes a student will find something interesting and follow on in their own time, but often they won’t have the interest, so we need to encourage it. We need to provide the purpose, before, during, and after the study. Why do I need to learn a language? Why do I need to learn all of it? Where is it applicable to use this knowledge?

There are also points where students will get discouraged, and need help. Being able to encourage them to continue further, is another task – one complicated by increasing class sizes.  How can we enable this process in a manner that acknowledges the issues, as well as helping to prevent them to begin with? This is yet another question that needs answered.

Every case is unique, though, and I have no preconception that this would help everyone, but if it could help a student or two engage further in the class, it is well worth it. It has a cost in time, in prep and class-time, but if it can evoke passion for learning and bring it into the ambiance of the learning environment it can’t hurt. I wish I could be more firm in the conception of this idea, but I haven’t fully fleshed out how to best engage them.

This Is Me

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Some things gather under my skin, and no matter how much I wish to let them go it’s hard. They come from my culture that I have come from and exist in. I do not respond well to being demeaned and I do not respond well to being boxed into absolutist opinions that I do not hold. I don’t like being pushed into generalized areas, just because I hold a particular view. I do not like being told how I should feel, it is personal.

I have been called privileged, this is something I do not deny; I am privileged in many ways:

I am white.
I have a family that cares.
I was born in the first world, America, in a decent age (though, maybe not the best.).
I am healthier than many.
I know the value of a dollar.
I know the value of honest (and dishonest) work.
…
And many others.

What bugs me with this is that people will try to demean me because of one of these privileges, often the color of my skin, while I sit there aghast at their hypocrisy and ignorance as they hold privileges that I do envy. They have had opportunities from that privilege than I have never had, and will never have (at least in similar manner). It is something that agravates me.

I hold many views, and I am flexible to change in many, though maybe not entirely. I do not look up to any large entities; I find the government to suck and I find corporations to suck. I often will side with one of them over the other, that would be corporations over government; the reason for that is that corporations often have an alternative to choose from.

I do not deny the fact that corporations can do many bad things, anyone who says otherwise or feels me a corporatist knows nothing of me and the cultural history I have grown up in. I was born and raised in WV, it is a place I love, but this place holds some very gruesome stories that are no less than usurious. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, there was a culture of financiers and corporations abusing the people of Appalachia. In the many coal-towns created on land purchased by these outsiders, often essentially stolen via mineral right sales, they would pay with company vouchers, instead of true monetary funds, that could only be used at a company store. These companies had a lock on these persons, and their families, livelihoods; the companies had enslaved these men and done so legally.

I will not deny the capacity of increased rights granted by government or clawed back by unions in these and other circumstance. Yes, I stand critical of unions in this day and age, they have become in many ways a hindrance to necessary change. I do not feel they are bad in and of themselves, but they tend not to work in an effective manner, they have become an unnecessary bureaucratic layer.

I also do not deny that there are corporations who do some despicable things, e.g. Wal*Mart (which has a voucher system like that of the coal-towns, in Mexico), Monsanto, News Corp.; yet, I will often stand up to protect or support a corporate entity, its employees, or its actions, as I find reactions to vilify them often without proper consideration. This is often a source of strife for me, as people try to ascribe me to an absolute position of corporate privileges, something I would never do. I support corporations, as I said above, because they often offer a choice and the freedom to leave, while government actions I am beholden to as a citizen.

Growing up in small town America, that holds members at both ends of the income spectrum in a quite polarized fashion, and yet seeing them get along. I have grown to know many wealthy people, and respect them for their accomplishments; I know many hard-working people in the middle that will struggle to get by week-to-week, month-to-month; and I know many people that will struggle, sometimes not due to their own causes; Most of all I know that people in each of those groups will help each other out,  under just about any circumstance. There may be some animosity between the groups, but we are still friends and family, everyone is connected, and willing to offer help if you just ask.

I often think this might just be small-town culture, rural vs. urban living, but I don’t know for sure. All I know is that looking at it there seems to be more apathy, wanting, and strife that seems to come from urban areas. Maybe it’s because of sheer numbers, or the lack of capacity to fend for oneself in earnest due to the packing of so many in such a small space, or maybe people have had to shed their ability to care on a personal level about those they pass on the street because of frequency. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like such a dichotomy.

I also do not respect people who try to tell me what, how, or should I feel. They do not share my experience, so they do not know how I will or should react. They do not know what will hurt me, nor do they know what will make me laugh. I am often within my head thinking, trying to piece everything together into a logical expression of what I believe the world to be. If you try to tell me how to feel about something, you might be wrong; you likely will be wrong. My emotion can change with the area, with the persons, with the events before, during, and after; my emotion is up for interpretation by only one individual: me.

So this was just me blowing off some steam, maybe it makes sense, maybe it doesn’t. This is my life, though not all of my opinions, welcome too it. Oddly, a lot of the things that aggravate me are very similar to things that you hear of racism, but that doesn’t exist for white people, does it. Maybe it’s not racism, but it attacks the same places, they go for my sense of being, my sense of freedom, and try to control my personal emotions in an effort to dehumanize me, because I am not their ideal.

FUCK THEM. I AM ME. I WILL ALWAYS BE ME. THE VIEWS I HOLD ARE NOT ME. THE VIEWS I HOLD HAVE CHANGED BEFORE AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO SHIFT UNTIL THE DAY I DIE. I WILL TELL YOU FREELY WHAT I BELIEVE, IF YOU THEN TRY TO CHAIN MY OPINION TO A LOGICAL EXPECTATION YOU HAVE OF THAT OPINION I WILL LIKELY RALLY AGAINST THAT. I DO NOT RESPECT SUCH EFFORTS.

First Principles

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Everything must come from some logical point of understanding, unraveling into more complex forms. First principles are the basis, the irreducible components, of any logical system. If you can understand the basics, you can build up an understanding of incrementally more complex tools and systems. First principles are the foundation, necessary to build a strong structure of robust knowledge, without them you may understand how to use a tool, but not understand the tool itself.

Something of those with considerable, and respectable, intellect that also have successes to show is that they tend to refer to first principles as a huge part of their thought process. That is anecdotal, but over and over again, I’ve seen people bring up the concept of first principles, and it’s started to stick out to me. The most noted moment for me occurred when re-watching Elon Musk episode of Foundation, where he is discussing his various ideas and ventures with Kevin Rose.

For me, it’s not the first time I’ve thought of or heard the concept, particularly in an education perspective. I think it’s very important to understand the basics, at least at some point, to  build from on your own. With a solid foundation to work from granted by education one can learn and expand further from those concepts outside the bounds of education independently. The biggest key is to independent thinking, if you can reason the solutions and then process their expansions, you’re in good shape.

Sometimes you have to jump backward, saying, ‘No,’ to the commonly accepted ideas, and work your way back up. Doing this often means placing constraints within your path; once you know it is possible, the question is how to do it better, for some definition of better.  This is a tool for thinking creatively.