The optimism of life

Years ago, I came across a book (I'm sorry that I don't recall the title) by a biologist who'd decided that she had found a pattern which was pervasive in biological systems. Her conjecture was that life followed a sequence of events, repeatedly, in its evolution. The stages are: 1) innovation - a new biological technology comes into existence (by chance) that is favorable for reproduction given environmental conditions. (so far, we're right with Darwin on this one). 2) gold rush - blessed with the new technology, this particular system proliferates, following an exponential pattern of expansion. 3) competition - after sufficient growth, the system, faced with the impending resource crisis, begins to self-limit. In ecology, we have something called "density dependent mortality" to describe this, though her idea applies to molecular interactions (advent of certain proteins, cell structures, etc.) equally - in other words, this applies to all biological systems, on any order of complexity. 4) cooperation - only the portions of the system which develop the capacity to maintain an equilibrium condition persist, and they do so, consistently, through a mutualistic arrangement which gives a distinct advantage to those who embrace or "discover" this strategy. The alternative(s) would result in death/extinction. Thus, she argued, arose all the complexity of the modern biosphere; tiered arrangements of cooperating systems (molecules, cells, tissues, organs, bodies, populations, ecosystems), each one dependent on the participation, and continued cooperation, of the subsystems 'beneath' it.

"Oh, but there are clearly non-cooperative arrangements extant in nature, some of which have been going on for millions of years," one might argue. For this idea (from the previous paragraph) to be acceptable, it relies on a particular interpretation for the idea of cooperation. You might think that sharks and seals are not cooperating, or, better yet, that sharks and orcas are clearly competing, but let's remove ourselves from the situation by looking at a lower tier. In your own body, similar arrangements are occurring all the time: cells are destroying one another, different systems all demand access to the same resources. Without some of the more violent dynamics within each of us, we would succumb to any number of terrifying disorders and inevitably die. In this same way, ecosystems, while apparently ruthless, can only persist with a balance between creation and destruction (a fundamental tenet in many religions). That balance is what the arrangement is all about. In more classical mutualistic situations, such as a lichen, it is precisely because no individual overexploits the arrangement that they can persist. While the mechanisms of that limitation are less violent (on a macroscopic scale), they serve the same purpose.

I like this description, as it seems to portend a more desirable future for humanity, wherein cooperative social organization would arise out of the pending resource crisis that we, with our exponentially increasing population, and increasingly competitive interactions, seem to be wrestling with.

On the recommendation of a friend, I recently read another argument that supports, or maybe expands, this idea, called "non zero, the logic of human destiny." In it, the author uses a mathematical game theory approach to analyze biological systems, and then human behavior. He contends that there are many sorts of relationships in both strata, some of which are zero-sum (one party's gain is another's loss), and some of which are non-zero-sum (both can gain, or both can lose), and that history has favored the non-zero-sum arrangements in which both parties gain. Evolution, he argues (both biological and social), involves repeated exchanges, and that over time the exchanges that result in positive-sum results are more adaptive.

There was a mathematician in the 60's who conducted a computer simulation which pitted innumerable programs against one another in non-zero-sum games. One program would encounter another and choose to be either benevolent or selfish, and depending on the choices of the two, would walk away with some amount of gain or loss. The prisoner's dilemma was the scenario: if both programs choose to be benevolent, both gain some; if one is benevolent and one is selfish, the selfish one gains a lot and the benevolent loses a lot; and if both are selfish, both lose some. Different programmers had decided what would be the most advantageous approach to such an arrangement, where they played repeatedly and at random with one another. There was a broad array of approaches, from totally vicious programs to absolutely generous ones, with some complicated in-between sorts of behavior patterns. As you can imagine, the really "kind" programs quickly lost to the really "mean" ones. But what was interesting was that the ones which persisted were the most "just." That is, they would respond to other programs according to what the other chose in the previous exchange. The really great twist was that the ones which overtook the entire game board were just, but also a little nice. That is, they occasionally tried trusting, even if they'd been wronged. As you can imagine, when these guys would encounter one another, they'd gain gain gain, as they'd be benevolent to one another. When they encountered mean programs, they'd lose some, but so would the meanies. The mean programs, however, had no chance to ever exploit a mutualistic arrangement for shared gain.This supports the idea that the desirable systems (from an evolutionary perspective) are those which have the capacity to be mutualistic (but aren't suckers), and among that group, the subset of those which have a little more likelihood of cooperating end up dominating.

Here's the bottom line: in the difficult times to come for humanity, according to the patterns of biological and social evolution, those who will persist will be those who can figure out the best way to work together with one another and with the biosphere. All others will eventually perish... perhaps.

Economic theory

A while back a friend gave me a book called Freakonomics. Maybe you've heard of it. Apparently there is a spinoff radio show, and I heard that they even made a movie a while back. The premise is this: economic modeling - which is essentially evaluating data to determine cause and effect relationships involving human decision-making - can be used to consider any human action or desired action and thus modify our social structure to encourage or discourage said behavior. The idea is fundamentally applied behaviorism: humans respond to incentives, either positive or negative, so if you wish to understand or predict human decision-making, all you need to do is determine what the incentives are. It's a fascinating read, though nearly the whole of the book was off-colored in my mind by something that I read near the beginning.

There was this problem with a preschool wherein every day at least one parent would be late to pick up their child, resulting in extra (unpaid) work for the preschool staff. To discourage the behavior, the school instituted a $3 fee for every incident. The result: a significant INCREASE in the number of late parents. Levitt's (the author) conclusion was that the moral/social incentive was greater for the majority of parents than the meager 3$ monetary incentive. Perhaps the school might have had more luck by charging more, maybe $20 per incident? But then they would have risked driving clients away to other preschools without a charge. This situation raises my first thought: for most people, intrinsically human motivations, based on social expectations or morality, are significant, but also require a level of personal responsibility. In other words, most people inherently impose greater consequences on themselves than they are willing to accept from another party.

Here's where the story gets really interesting though. After a few weeks of this failed experiment with a financial penalty for tardy parents, the school removed the fee, hoping that the situation would return to normal. What did they find? Parents continued to be late exactly as they had been with the $3 fine. Apparently, they learned that tardiness was only a $3 inconvenience for the school, and thus they felt less inclined toward responsibility than they had when they were simply responding to their internal/intrinsic social obligations. So here is where my 2nd thought emerged: by imposing a contrived motivational scheme, you insert an artificial valuation on a thing that sticks with it.

Here, is another idea - one that is widely accepted as true: as a species we are successful in large part because of our social nature. Humans are inherently driven toward social interactions. Any real despair is invariably linked to some sort of social/emotional isolation (loneliness). Death of a friend, divorce, failure at work, etc., all carry with them a sense of separation or alienation and thus, loneliness. 3rd thought: So if we value social connection so much, whether consciously or not, we will therefore prioritize the values necessary to maintain our connections. This is a very strong motivation, and one which often transcends material or monetary incentives. We are doing society a disservice if we substitute something artificial and material.

4th thought: people no longer take responsibility for their choices once the consequences for those choices are imposed for them externally, even if that valuation is removed. This is particularly the case when the natural motivation, one that is subconsciously imperative, is replaced with something wholly contrived and lower-order in significance. When we construct a system of regulation where inherent morality could be used, we run the risk of disempowering people; removing from their conscience the need to self-regulate.

5th thought: rather than regulate, perhaps there might be a means to alter the value system of a community, such that behaviors that are undesirable to neighboring communities can be replaced with an intrinsic moral tendency.

6th and final: Since I am an educator by profession, I can't help but think about this through that lens. Grades. Let's assume that as educators we work to create and maintain a culture of learning, wherein it is socially expected that members of our community engage in a disciplined process of discovery. But then, we institute an artificial incentive scheme involving something that is at best highly subjective and at worst somewhat arbitrary - the assignment of abstract symbols representing some degree of aptitude as determined by variable metrics. What do you think the result might be? Maybe students, instead of engrossing themselves in the process of intellectual and personal development, as humans can so readily do, focus their attention on satisfying the structures and desires of their instructors. Perhaps students give up responsibility for their own process in favor of the administered incentive scheme. Maybe students resent the assigned tasks or even fail to see their value beyond appeasement of the governing authority. Maybe those students' ability to think for themselves suffers as a result.

Mental superpowers

This will begin as a departure from my usual theme(s) - quite a bit more nerdy - but bear with me as I am building toward a point that has relevance.

Last year I came up with a final exam question for my high school physics students that I thought might help them put all the complicated ideas associated with electromagnetism together to form a big picture. It's a tough and abstract topic, and my idea was to inject some fun and imagination into their studies (because imagination is required to think about something so abstract in the first place). Here is the question:

If you had absolute control over the electromagnetic force, what sorts of things could you do with your superpower? Justify your answer(s) based on your knowledge of electromagnetism.

That's a pretty hard question. I've been thinking about the answer for about 6 months (off and on). Here's a portion of what I came up with:

I could move objects at will by aligning or increasing the magnitude of like charges on objects' surfaces near one another. Air is such an object, which could be used to continue the propulsion if you don't want to fiddle with the fairly complicated task of increasing the repulsive force properly as the objects move apart from one another. The air trick would be tough, as with such low mass air particles would tend to be the things moving, but if an object were bombarded with sufficient air particles the conservation of momentum would continue the propulsion (though there would be a sort of "exhaust" wind that would result).
I could also change the physical structure of things by altering the positions and/or motions of electrons on and in those objects.
I could change the appearance of anything by altering the frequency and/or amplitude of the electromagnetic waves entering the eye (or emanating from an object(s)). This includes invisibility - from either mimicing the light from behind the object in front if it or by bending the light from the object around the viewer's eyes.
I could create super-dense projectiles by either: a) pressing the adjacent electron clouds of atoms together to create "electron degeneracy" such as is found in white dwarves, or b) crashing electrons of atoms into the protons to create chunks of neutrons and pressing the resulting nuclei together. The problem with the latter is that I couldn't propel a ball of neutrons with my power. It would just fall through the earth with this crazy density.
I could create powerful laser beams spontaneously (harmonized and directed electromagnetic waves)
I could produce nuclear explosions/radiation by increasing the positive charge on protons within a piece of very "heavy" matter flying the nuclei apart and potentially causing a chain reaction (if the nuclei are unstable enough to begin with).
I could fly apart anything at will by increasing the same type of charge on its various particles causing them to repel.
There's more, including tons with magnetic fields and electric currents, but I'll stop there to keep from boring you. Feel free to try to add to the list - I would very much enjoy that.

But there's a problem. All of these changes would require an input of energy, as they would work against the natural condition of things. In other words, you'd have to create oppositional situations from relatively balanced situations, or work against the tendencies of nature. In most cases, since we're talking about visible effects, we're dealing with macroscopic scales here, which means that a tremendous amount of energy would be required indeed. Where would this energy come from? I think you'd be pretty much impotent in the face of the conservation of energy unless you wanted to consume your body or something to perform one or two "amazing" acts.

Ok, this conclusion got me thinking about something more relevant for everyone. It seems like the problem is that making these things happen requires that aspects of nature be shifted into an oppositional arrangement. That is, you'd be altering nature's tendency to balance. This reminds me of one of my primary operating principles: conflict is universally destructive and draining. Nature is not designed for conflict, it is all about flow. Flow is collective action - cooperation.

This makes me think about what we currently do with our minds; our existing 'superpowers.' They are super, by the way. Think about it. We can conjure up thoughts and ideas, and even project them out into the universe, we can manipulate large objects (our bodies, and other things that our bodies interact with), we can imagine things that we've never experienced, we can even love.

What are the energy consequences of these things that we can do with our minds? Certainly, the motion stuff requires energy (just as it would with psychokinesis). We've all felt sweaty and exhausted after a hard day's labor. But what about thoughts and ideas? Does the generation of thoughts always require an input of energy, or are there some which seem to bring energy into us, to feed us? In my experience, there are certain mental exercises which seem to 'charge' me. I'm no expert, but it seems like the principles that govern the external world must apply internally: that energy is expended when thoughts are oppositional in nature, whereas when they're congruent with the flow - cooperative - they draw energy into us. Here's my hypothesis: conflict-oriented thoughts drain us, while mutualistic thoughts feed us. This applies to thoughts about the external world as well as about the internal world (both of which are really the same thing, if you ask me, but I won't get into that here). When we seek conflict, we are sapped of energy. When we attack or defend, we are drained. This is particularly true when we attack ourselves, as we must then defend at the same time.

Thoughts?

Parallel realities and 'the way'

Today, as Americans, and as humans, we negotiate 2 differing realities. First, there is the reality that we're all born into, that which operates independent of any premeditated construct: the reality of our nature. We, like everything else on earth, are evolved as components in a biological system that functions so long as all parts are synchronous. Physically inferior to most everything else, we are fundamentally social creatures. We've been ever so successful because we work together. We give and take, like everything else, and the balance sheet remains in the black because of the near-endless shower of energy from space that is collected by our selfless green companions - plants.

And then there is the reality of our social order. Entirely the brain-child of we humans, our daily grind mandates that we compete for resources, gathering for our own what we can amidst the myriad legislative controls designed to maintain a certain level of equality and social justice. And over the decades and centuries skilled entrepreneurs have whittled away at the soft spots in that legal perimeter, finding loop-holes and entry points through which to navigate toward bountiful seas. It is the fool who enters the business world of our economy with any mindset but that of the plunderer. His loss is of his own accord, as my success is my own, and damn it to everyone else if they suffer in turn.

But the seas are finite, and the bounty has thinned. In time we'll be picking through the scavenged carcases of our fellows to find morsels of limited value... If we're not careful. Many have already chosen the life of the scavenger.

Why adhere to such a destructive paradigm, when our very nature compels us elsewhere? My answer is fear. Fear of the loss of control that comes with dependence upon others. Perhaps it wasn't the motivation for our system's initial design, but it must certainly motivate the players in today's economic reality.

But together we are so much more. Together we are thoughtful. We will always have some fear, but our modern body of knowledge is adequate armament to stave off much of what plagued our distant ancestors, and the faculty of our current population, largely untapped as it is, far transcends that of those who came before. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to find unity and empowerment through our connection (to one another and to the world around us); to reclaim the beauty that lies in our very nature, as a reflection of all of nature's beauty. Our souls know the way.

It's all about connection

We've all heard that it's more important who you know than what you know. The idea being that networking is one of the most important skills for life. I agree wholeheartedly. I take it a step further and say that I basically live for connections with others. It's just a rhetorical thought experiment, but in my mind's eye I would always trade every one of my possessions for a genuine connection with someone. You see, it has been my experience that powerful connections preclude any need to seek other things, as through connections everything that one needs can and will materialize. There's this hokey film out called "the secret," that proposes that by simply honestly willing the universe to grant you something, it will come to be. It actually works, though they don't explain the mechanism - connections (surprise, surprise). By seeking genuinely, by finding things that you want passionately, from your core, you will draw others to your cause, as people inherently enjoy a sense of purpose, and if you invite them, they will join. All of this happens quite unconsciously, of course. The interesting thing is that you cannot MAKE it so, though all things that should be will come to be, in some way, through connections. What I'm suggesting is that an effective fundamental mode of operating, one that will bring absolute fulfillment, is to seek connection in all people, indeed, all things. It is certainly my primary objective as a teacher to connect with my students, with parents, and colleagues too. I do it for selfish benevolent reasons; they are wonderful people, all of them, and our lives are mutually enriched through those relationships. I never have everything that I need. Generally, I don't even know what I need.

Interestingly, even in absolute solitude, I find myself feeling grateful for others who have allowed me to connect with them. Once I spent roughly a month living, three or four days at a time, out of a bivy sack in the mountains of central Idaho. Awaking before dawn, dusting off the frost and taking in the rich colors, smells, and vistas, I often found myself feeling deeply connected to those who weren't present. Perhaps it was because I was immersed in a very functional natural system, one in which all things are intimately connected to one another. Maybe it was the reminder of my own tendency to function like the rest of the natural world.

There are these fantastic moments when many things come together. When beliefs, or portions of them, converge to reveal a more fundamental truth. It has been clear for some time that we are (most of us) operating with deep dysfunction. I have known for many years that most of the sickening or despicable acts that I see around me are carried out by folks who see no better option for themselves. That is, I have known that people are fundamentally good, though vulnerable to fear and desperation. I have also seen how capable we are of surviving, changing our take on things in order to live with ourselves. There was a time when I was working for people who had collected empires of things in order to stack them into a wall that shut most everyone out. I didn't fully understand at the time why, but I referred to them as "disconnected." Even with their helicopters and mansions, I felt sad for many of them. They didn't seem very happy. I now believe that they share one thing with those at the other end of the spectrum, those who engage in petty crime in order to survive day to day; they are all lacking in connection. In fact, I'm starting to believe that a vast majority of those around me have a sense of isolation, at least at times, and that makes me sad. They say that loneliness is the only true sorrow. We are parts of a whole, and cut off from the others, we can not fully live. Oh, we can pacify ourselves with drugs and other...things--addictions, all, when they medicate--but genuine satisfaction will always elude us so long as we fail to invest sufficiently in connections. And as a teacher, I see students walking away from school for a lack of interest. When your only connections are with your peers, why sit in a sterile, punitive environment in lieu of developing the much more enriching connections that exist elsewhere? Perhaps worse, I see students conforming to the rigidity, building themselves up fact by fact into a fortress of knowledge. Then, they enter the world and wield the mighty machine in their head recklessly; without connection, we have no stop-gap for our own bad judgment. Without connections, we live for a selfish identity.

Consider this an invitation.

More evidence?:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

An initial attempt to communicate the big ideas

Herein, I will attempt to offer support for a growing movement in education, one that I believe to be urgent and important. Nothing is intended as an indictment, but just a collection of observations and interpretations. I have nothing but respect for those who came before, and suggest change only because change is occurring around us, and not because we have been shrouded in ignorance. I would caution the reader to consider what I propose, and accept it only after sufficient scrutiny, observation, and experimentation reveals some truth.

Because I'm no poet, I'll start with a quote from a Lebanese Arab, written in 1923. Do you know who it is?:

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of HIS wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.
And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

There is a difference between remembering and learning. Most of those who were charged with the education of my generation didn’t seem to understand this, or else they valued remembering over learning. This was even more true for my father’s peer group and, I imagine, still more so for his predecessors. Remembering is a skill, to be sure, and one with particular value, for it helps us piece things together (we must first survey the pieces). But the product of that construction – understanding – is a different matter altogether. Remembering has specific application, and otherwise has value only during this process of synthesis; information is incidental and almost always has an expiration date. Understanding, however, changes us forever. We change every time we discover new truths for ourselves, passing landmarks on our intellectual journey. In this way, we move past our old selves and our old truths, constructing ourselves anew. But perhaps the most important part of this process is the struggle that comes with assembling new truths. The terrifying experience of departing from the bedrock of previous understanding in order to consider a new, perhaps better picture for our reality, is one that affords us a powerful opportunity. Through fear, uncertainty and setbacks, we persevere, rising up with a new sense of our capacity for risk-taking and problem solving. This is how I suggest we conceive of learning, and the details of this process are as unique as each of us. As a science teacher, I make it my mission to teach students to pursue truth--their own truth--through empirical methods. I work to encourage them to seek truth on their own terms, so as to challenge themselves to take risks and refine their method for approaching problems. My goals for students go far beyond the content of the courses that I teach. I seek to support their personal development; to prepare them for the never-ending barrage of novel challenges that life will most certainly present them with.

This is a strong departure from the educational paradigm of the past century, whose motivating force was principally fear: fear of failure, and fear of our own weaknesses (fear of fear). For this, we have constructed artificial incentives, carrots and sticks, to herd the flock through the sieve of educational content standards. Those who pass through, having demonstrated an ability to satisfy their instructors’ contrived metrics, move on to refine their academic technique, perhaps making a few discoveries along the way, but just as likely gaining little in the way of an expanded worldview. Those unfortunate enough to be caught in the sieve built of someone else’s idea of truth, having little skill in acquiring knowledge about a static reality that is researchable in books, flounder in judgment of their inadequacy, groping for an identity not rooted in information treasure-hunting and “point” acquisition.

It has frequently been remarked that no matter how much money and resources we put into public education, we have little change in the outcome for students. This problem is very complex, and I think reflects a larger social quagmire that most educators are reluctant to address, but I propose that one aspect to the solution is a shift in education (and society) away from a material game of acquisition toward a deeper, more transcendental kind of educational nurturing. I don’t propose that we abandon the idea of knowledge altogether, but rather that we allow knowledge to be the byproduct of peoples’ development and refinement of their techniques for acquiring understanding. I believe that good knowledge is inevitable if we seek truth effectively.

The universe is chaotic. We are floating in a frigid airless expanse full of scorching radiation and giant projectiles. To make matters worse, things are continuously changing; weather is marginally predictable, resources run out, geological events alter the face of the planet, suns explode, the universe expands... Our existence is extremely tenuous, or at least it seems. A natural reaction to this is one that we, in our civilization, embraced some millennia ago: to create safeguards against the forces of change--to remove, or at least reduce, the unpredictability of the natural world. Such has been the charge of technological innovation, and we have had great success, at least in the short-term. We have managed to control the cycles of water in order to maintain a steady supply of food. We have developed ways of tapping into chemical energy stored in the earth to keep our towns lit at night and our homes a comfortable temperature. We have made the necessities of life so consistently available that people have time now to fret over what sort of shoes might go best with their new designer handbag. From our perspective, the chaotic has become rather static, though that is largely illusory. While we work hard to control the natural order, natural systems quietly busy themselves patiently assembling a counter to our structures. Soils deplete, the atmosphere changes, forests turn to desert, and rivers fill with soil. Eventually, all of man’s greatest creations are destined to be overwhelmed by the transitory nature of all things.

There is a major psychological consequence for this shift toward an artificially controlled ideal. In a static reality the universe is knowable; it is possible, in theory, to acquire a grasp of all that is, to become knowledgeable. And we have been at it for some time now. We hold in high regard those who are best at knowing, and feel ashamed of what we don't know. Naturally, our educational system reflects this. We are taught to seek knowledge, operate within a structured, rigid construct, and pursue a particular ideal character, regardless of our individual uniquenesses. We are assessed only on our organizational skills and our mental capacity for, and dedication to, collecting details. Meanwhile, genuine understanding and the tools to acquire understanding are often neglected entirely. With our sense of self now reliant upon knowledge, we cling to our internal libraries of static information, protecting them, occasionally to our detriment.

This mental game of acquisition has a physical parallel; there is a material outcome of this training. In the tangible world, many of us in our society find ourselves obsessed with objects. Our civilization is built on the idea of a life full of stable and secure possessions, cordoned off from others. We are protective of what is ours, and fence in our corner of the world, mirroring the confining and limiting nature of our intellectual reality.

And people face prejudice and discrimination based on the sorts of acquisitions they've made. Most subsets of culture have their own ideal image of success, complete with brand names and unique knowledge. There are private unofficial clubs whose job it is to keep possession of the great many things that have been collected by members over the generations (and some quite official ones). And there are similarly isolated groups who've been disenfranchised out of pursuing these things because the tools to acquire them are either alien or deliberately kept out of reach. Our obsession with things has lead to a modern caste system, maintained, in part, by a mythology that involves transcendence - the American dream.

There is a conflict. We are products of the universe, and the universe is continuously in flux. Our nature is to work within this chaotic sea of change, but yet we fight to control it, and ourselves, and we waste a tremendous amount of energy doing it. We limit ourselves to something static and almost immediately obsolete in the quest to bolster an ego whose foundation is unnatural.

But there is another way. We can choose to value the pursuit of understanding and wisdom, with no judgment for where one might find themselves on that journey. We can live for the journey, rather than comparing ourselves to some artificially constructed end product. We can teach our children the processes by which they might seek understanding, and trust them to find their own truths, in their own way. We can embrace diversity, flexibility, and the artistic nature of exploration.

I heard something beautiful the other day from a professional on the cutting edge of science education. She said, "if you're not comfortable with uncertainty, then you cannot do science. In other words, the process of pursuing truth is an uncertain one, and nothing but your own validation (or that of your collaborators) will guide you along the way. And this gets right to the essence of the matter. Rather than seek a discrete set of information as evidence of success, a scientifically proficient student would simply have a refined method by which she seeks truth. She would be able to state, with confidence, her conclusions, whatever they might be, and include a summary of her uncertainty. If her method were well-developed, then she would likely encounter some quality knowledge, but that knowledge would be almost incidental. What is much more valuable is the ability to distill truth, and to navigate in unknown territory. Her life will almost certainly be studded with innumerable obstacles that she will need to negotiate, and the greater her skill, the more she will gain from each challenge. Further, the kinds of knowledge that she acquires will have a greater likelihood of possessing ingenuity and artistic beauty, as it will reflect every stage of her unique journey.

I talk about science because it is the area that I study. But this is only one road and one skill set. There are paths for all of us, though the unifying idea is the search - the journey. If we honor each person's path through life, we can begin to do something bold and transformative for society.

Many academic-minded students have all but mastered the skills required to achieve success in that environment. They say and do the things required to achieve good marks, which requires significant organization (both physical and mental) and prudent communicative reservation. But these same people might have little or no ability to deal with situations with which they are unfamiliar. A colleague recently completed a linear study of a group of high school kids with which he worked for four years. He gave them a well-developed assessment of reasoning skills (Lawson’s) at the beginning of 9th grade, at the end of 10th grade, and then again at the end of 12th grade. He then compared their results to their grades in science and their overall GPA. Most alarmingly, he found 0.0000 correlation between reasoning skills and GPA for all three assessments. As you might imagine, their GPA also had nothing to do with their improvement in reasoning, and perhaps most surprising, their science performance also had no relationship to either their reasoning or their improvement in reasoning.

Perhaps the best example of what I’m talking about might be art. If you wanted to teach a person how to paint, you wouldn’t necessarily just tell him to reproduce a particular painting. While this might be a useful exercise, it will not help him become an artist. What is more important is that he learn skills: certain sorts of brush strokes, how to use different brushes, how to mix paints in a variety of ways, etc. And when he does something that you didn’t teach him, you wouldn’t scold him, but praise his creativity. You also might want to help him find images that are inspiring, or learn how to connect his technique with emotions or his imagination. The point is that if he is going to create something that has meaning for him, he need only learn a set of skills/processes, and then move forward in his own way. He should practice the creative process until he finds his certain knack for self-expression. And even then he might find that sculpting affords him a more ready avenue for artistic expression. Such is the case with every form of learning. The best thing we can do for students is to help them refine their process, to help them learn the skills that will lead to the development of their own methodology, which will hopefully then be a sound one (if it isn’t working, we can guide refinements). With this equipment their journey can be full of adventure, challenge, and passion, rather than stress, fear, and disappointment.

We are killing our kids’ inherent tendency to explore. Human beings are seekers by nature, and all of us have a unique quest. We explore and figure out, driven by our personal passions toward an unknown destination. We are not meant to compromise, and there is no excuse for compromise in today’s world - where we have the means to satisfy every person’s basic needs such that their minds can be liberated for the journey. I’m not saying that every person is destined to be a monk or wandering mystic. There are some of us who, without external influence, would find ourselves working as accountants or electricians. There is a lot of satisfaction to be found in that work. I’m not even suggesting that this paradigm shift would necessarily alter anyone’s life choices in any significant way. All I’m saying is that it would change the spirit in which many of us do things. We would be driven by the empowerment that comes with making choices for ourselves, rather than by the impression of necessity. Most every challenge in our lives could be an opportunity instead of an inconvenience.

Here are some of the possible changes that would take place in the world if we stopped fighting to control possessions and embraced the journey, the chaos, so as to finally begin working with the nature of things instead of against it: [to be inserted later… the list keeps growing]

I propose that we shift our paradigm. We should move from a vision of the world as discrete, static, and controllable to one that embraces the continuous flow of things. Our innovation has been sorely limited by an insistence on a sessile attachment to what came before (while history is very instructive, it is certainly not deterministic). Our capabilities have been bridled by an artificial perimeter to our reality, and those who have broken out of the box have either been heralded as genius-heroes or crucified for their heretical objection to their contrived containment (or both). We have shown what we can do when we put our minds to something, now the next step of our social evolution is to step back away from our egos, view the world and ourselves as we truly are, and return to the endless flow of change.

Obscenity

Ever notice how popular romantic comedies or otherwise good-spirited entertainment these days almost universally features very wealthy people, often with little explanation as to how they manage to be very wealthy? Also, take a look at similar genre films from the 80s and note how they generally featured middle class folks - blue collar workers or perhaps academics (who don't make much more than blue collar folks). When I was a kid, every one of my teachers had a house, and most of them had spouses who didn't HAVE TO work to support their families, which included, on average, 2 kids. I am a teacher, and a new father. There is no way that I will ever be able to buy a home for my family, unless my wife also works and earns at least as much money as I do. And even then, we could never buy in the communities in which we have lived recently. But let's say that we sacrifice much; we eat frugally, take no vacations, use public transportation, entertain ourselves cheaply or for free, and work a lot of overtime. I'm sure that with careful budgeting we can eventually scrape together enough to buy a modest house, and we might be able to pay it off by the time we're in our 70s or so, so long as we don't try to pay for our son to go to college, or have another kid. In the mean time, what kind of life have we lived? We spent minimal time with our son and enjoyed ourselves even less - save for the joy we get from our work... hopefully. Now, maybe it's not so bleak as it seams. Perhaps I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed right now and I'm not seeing something that will become clear later, but for the time being, it sure seems to me that a person has to sacrifice something, or a lot, in order to have a modicum of security. All I would like is a little house, a reasonable schedule, and no fear of eventual poverty. As it stands, I don't know whether illness, serious injury, banking fine print, or whatever might cast us down into a very uncomfortable situation.

But let me back up a little here. I had a student this year who remarked (I'll paraphrase), "you're a really smart guy. Why are you wasting your time teaching? You don't have to be smart or talented to teach. You could be doing something much better." After some probing, I learned that "better" to him meant "more profitable." This got me thinking... I chose teaching as a career because I love people. I love connecting with people, and I love the idea that I can do something to improve the lot in life for at least a sliver of the population. I am dedicated to teaching, and it is not an easy job. I would say that, on average, while teaching full time, I am 'working' in one form or another, a good 70 hours per week. And there is really no break in the summer, when I find myself reflecting on the efficacy of what I did the previous year, planning new approaches that might improve my results. I can say that I have a passion for the work, and I think that as a result I am fairly effective. Now, my dedication has no financial incentive. Money is an abstraction that has been made a necessity by the structure of our society. It seems that if a person can find something that (s)he enjoys doing and does well, something that society needs done, that they should expect to be able to live a decent life while doing it. The fact that there are many professions for which the compensation is much more modest than teaching, and/or the expectations are such that those folks have no chance of living a balanced, healthy life (my cousin works for John Deere, and is expected to work, high pressure, in the office 12-15 hours/day for his salary), is cause for alarm.

There is a sickness in our "civilization," and we are not the worst off, though we might be the most obscene. Nowhere else is wealth so highly concentrated, and yet the facts of daily life so atrocious for a majority of the citizens. This represents horrendous mismanagement of resources. To make matters worse, many of our best minds are being squandered, either through their application to commit financial crime, or because they are not being nurtured (in the case of some of our brilliant poor). If you grow up in this country in a situation that isn't privileged, the American dream will not likely become a reality. You will find yourself poorly educated, without adequate health care, under-qualified for decent work, and eligible only for ridiculous sorts of loans if you want to invest in yourself or your ideas. The middle class is about dead.

We are heading toward a sad, dark place visited by many societies throughout history on their way toward a brutal self-destruction. Even those who are profiting from this deteriorating arrangement are in danger, and if they think they can insulate themselves with the ever-growing disparity between themselves and the masses, they are delusional. History does not favor injustice. Only by cooperating can people succeed in the long run. Isolation and separation are the tricks of the doomed. Before too much damage has been done, we will have to re-evaluate and re-build ourselves. IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO HAVE SOCIAL JUSTICE, A MINIMUM STANDARD OF LIVING, AND TO DO IT SUSTAINABLY. All we have to do is commit to it. Mainly, those with all the power have to commit to it - a difficult thing considering all that they will have to "give up." I put that in quotes because they will gain so much more, but that which they will gain is not given much value in the current scheme, while that which will have to be given up is highly prized, though without actual value. There is no price tag on human dignity.