20 Ocak 2021, Salý
saat: 03:13
This turned out to be a pretty good day for the first day of the Spring semester! I was going to just write a long rambling post about it for no reason other than I want to, but the day wasn't a disaster, almost everyone showed up to the 8AM class, and I was done with my two classes by 11 AM, so I can't really complain, can I? Plus, I actually woke up at 6:30 this morning and watched the sunrise as I drove to the campus, which really surprised me - I thought all that happened much earlier in the day! Anyway, no one was around (the classes are remote for the first week), and it was very nice.
I am also infinitely grateful that absolutely nothing about world politics is uninteresting to me. So many people talk about two minds and place themselves in little thought camps where the same topics are recycled, and they mock the other thought camp despite very little difference in the way the system is working, and neither sees that "it's just one small path to feeling a sense of belonging that paradoxically also alienates and limits them." There is a comfort in the belief that a group thinks like you, thinks about the same things as you, but (and this is major here) you will hear only what you would tell yourself and then what is the point of any of these interactions beyond self-validation? A feedback loop of egos? Also, don't we do we reduce the self to a trope we reduce others, even those in the group we believe ourselves a part of, when we operate in this way?
I don't know, it may be the way I was raised, or it may simply be the freedom of aging plus the life wisdom and perspective gained through teaching politics, but I just don’t care as much what people think of me, and I also understand much more deeply the processes through which people come to learn new things. Both of these mechanisms make it much less terrifying for me to learn new thing/explore others from different perspectives because I know how to say to myself, “all right let’s figure out what I need to know, and let’s find some people who can show me their perspectives, and let’s remember that every time I struggle to learn a new thing I am re-remembering what it might feel like for my students to grapple with the skills I teach.” I feel like it’s just a better way to live for me, in my own head and in the world. My 30s are about cultivating that growth mindset, baby!! We CAN grow and change and learn new things, and we WILL!
