Over the past few years, I’ve felt surrounded by the world’s grand demise, but didn’t know how to process much of what I was encountering. Eventually I knew I had to get involved in fighting these large-scale injustices. I was too afraid of the idea of being silent, yet too overwhelmed by the idea of committing myself to making change…. Read more »
Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from. — Al Franken As humans, we are bound to mess up. Luckily, most of these mistakes help us to grow and learn. As… Read more »
I came into this course with a very self-centric point of view. I wanted to know what I could do in my life so that I would make a difference and do something good for the world. While my search stemmed from wanting to help others, along the way I somehow forgot about the fundamental interconnectedness of life. I shied… Read more »
Creative Project Link I sought to illustrate “Earth as it is”, and the trajectory on which humanity, and industrialized, individualistic societies in particular, has been on to create and perpetuate our current ecological and social condition. It is our prerogative as members of the global North to become aware of how our obsession with material accumulation and our ignorance of… Read more »
Alex, Willa, Simone, John, and I assembled an informative and interactive website for our action project on the topic of climate refugees. The topic seeks to draws awareness to the interdependent nature of our global system. Climatic crises, caused by Western overconsumption, will displace millions of people in historically exploited areas, to flood countries that enabled their displacement. Ultimately, our responsibility to… Read more »
Throughout the discussion, creation, and implementation of this project, I have learned that taking the things we learn in the classroom and bringing them to the larger community is easier than I thought. I have been worried for a long time about finding the “right” organizations to support and the best career that will not only interest me but… Read more »
Image from: https://philosophersforchange.org/2012/06/05/philosophy-as-critique-and-ideology/. There are three common perspectives that people take on the world: optimism, pessimism, and realism. Of course, people are rarely ever strictly one thing, and will experience a mix of worldviews depending on their day and major life events. Why does it matter how we frame the water in the glass? The water remains the same amount whether it… Read more »
Hello fellow anthropocene victims. Written below is my most recent journal entry from after one of the classes group contemplative practices. Enjoy and good luck. When opening my eyes from my class’s most recent contemplative practice, I felt like I had been gone four hours. I almost could not remember anything I had even thought, but stuck with me was… Read more »
Sitting 11,000 feet above sea level I realized how people affect me. Perched in front of a Buddhist monastery in the village of Upper Pisang, along the Annapurna Circuit Trek, in the Nepalese Himalaya I found my collectivist agenda. While I sat at this ramshackle monastery thousands of feet in the air, two Russian travelers sat beside me…. Read more »
Educated in a school insisting students had the power to change the world, I was fed guidelines that would save us all. We should consume less plastic, bike more, and eat less meat to limit our carbon footprints. The “important single agent” concept struck me as a movement without the solution to the issue: the menacing drought of climate change… Read more »