The point of this exercise is to show what I was thinking
going into this thing and how my thinking has changed or evolved over the
course of the quarter.
1. What is with the
name Making a Difference, Present and Future Tense?
This spring quarter contract is an unofficial continuation
of the work I was doing fall and winter quarter in Making a Difference. Adding Present
and Future Tense is just kind of an affirmation to practice what I’ve
learned in the present and the future.
2. What is the
significance of getting credit for “self-care” type of stuff? Can’t you just do
that stuff on your own free time and spend more time on academics or
reading and writing?
A reasonable question. I can do this stuff on my own,
outside of school, but since the last time I’ve started school and have had to
commute and balance academics with a job, I noticed that I had no time to
partake in these simple self care type things, and I think that taking care of
your body and mind are just as important as being a critical thinker. There is
a synergic relationship between the self-care component of this contract that
benefits all other parts. If I have a healthy body and mind I’m more likely to
make good decisions in life that you know, help to make the world a better
place.
3. “Making a
difference” is kind of a vague statement and you risk biting off more work than
you can chew or just being way to ambiguous to make any sense with what you’re
trying to achieve this quarter. Can you elaborate, or more so, specify what
exactly you mean by making a difference and what that looks like?
It’s very challenging to sum up in so many words or explain
what I know in my head. Sometimes I forget that other people don’t understand
something unless you explain it to them in a reasonable, coherent fashion.
Simply put: what I’ve learned and discovered about myself over the last two
quarters has changed how I view education and has changed how I view the world and
my place in it. Sociologist Allan
Johnson tells us, “We are always participating in something larger than
ourselves, and if we want to understand social life and what happens to people
in it, we have to understand what it is that we’re participating in and how we
participate in it.” You can apply Johnson’s words here to just about anything.
The really big idea is to develop the ability to see outside of ourselves our
own immediate needs, and to understand that every little action we take effects
others and the environment that we all live in.
Understanding
this signaled a profound shift in my goals and what I want to do in my life.
For me, it’s not just about getting a diploma or a making a lot of money or
being esteemed. All of these things are fleeting. What matters most to me is
doing my part to understand how my actions affect other people and the natural
world and what I can do to change my actions if my actions are adversely
affecting the system of things. I’m not a religious person. I don’t believe in
heaven. When I die though, I want to know that I was more than just a consumer,
going about life without any concept of consequence or community. Even if we
are playing “garbage men” cleaning up the environmental and sociological
problems of a century under industrialization, then we are still doing profound
work, and that personally gives me a reason to be alive and gives me hope for
the future.
Specifically,
I am focusing on how our day-to-day actions and consummation of things have
grave environmental consequences. This applies to all sorts of things from what
and how we eat, to what we shop for and where it is made. I’m not interested in
coming to any major revelation, and I’m not doing the hard work that scientists
do in the field or the hard work that sociologists do in communities. What I am
interested in however, are practical ways that ordinary people can live more
environmentally conscious lives, and make more sustainable decisions to how we
consume things, without disrupting our pre-existing life narratives. Some
environmentalists and those in the academic field will argue that these tiny
individual actions aren’t enough to change our path and that we need profound
systemic change. I agree. But with systemic change we also have the decision to
take individual actions together and feel empowered and not apathetic in the
face of environmental problems. I think that everyone should and can be an
environmentalist without having to quit their day job. Continuing analytic work
and investigating practical ways that ordinary people can live sustainably,
(i.e. making a difference) is where the work comes in Spring Quarter.
4. This is your first I.L.C, are you
taking this route so you can live in Seattle and not have to commute to
Evergreen?
While this is an
exciting perk after commuting weekly for almost two years, I assure you that I
aim to get the most out of it and not just fall into typical, unfortunate
Evergreen stereotypes. This is a new to me, so I expect to gain a lot of
experience over ten weeks through a process of trial and error. Should be fun!
Warm weather is
surely just around the quarter, how are we to know that your evening writer’s
session on Monday nights wont lead to Frisbee playing and day dreaming in
Discovery Park?
Along the same lines
of the previous question, I am slightly intimated by the independence I have,
but because of this independence, and the fact that I want my education to mean
something, me staying goal orientated and organized is the only option. Lucas
and I have also agreed that as long as we dedicate ourselves to a good chunk of
time weekly, and genuinely try to help each other out, then this whole
experiment (one that we have actually talked about doing for a year) will be
fun and provide ample growth for the both of us, not just as writers, but as
people.
On that note, the
books that we choose focus more on integrative, synergetic creative processes
and avoid the typical, self serving “WRITE YOUR NOVEL NOW AND GET PUBLISHED AND
MAKE MONEY DOING SO” kind of crap.
What are your
personal goals as a writer? Do you want your writing to do something or is all
just a self-serving process to get famous? How does your writing tie into the
contract theme of “making a difference” that you have been working with all
school year?
Writer is an art
form and the process should be fun and if you have fun then the people reading
it will have fun. Being an “environmentalist” has always seemed like such an
intense, truly alternative kind of role. Derek Jensen and Frances Moore Lappe probably
wouldn’t garner crazy ratings on primetime television if they had their own
show. They both are incredibly popular, but I often times wonder why people
sending such an incredibly important message don’t receive mainstream attention
and what that even says about the mainstream right? My real inspiration is
writing entertaining essays packed full of nuggets of wisdom and important
truths. David Foster Wallace and David Sedaris do this, and you wouldn’t
necessarily find their essays or work under “self help” or doomsday predictions
or something. I like the idea of making sustainability fun and self reflective,
but a little less Captain Planet kind of deal, or junk food that is secretly
packed with vitamins. Does that make sense? There is a fine balance between
being entertained and getting real. Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine wouldn’t have the same sense of immediacy if it
was full of witty gags. I do think that humor and humbleness in writing is an
affective tool that can make serious issues more accessible for regular people,
like my mom for instance, or anyone else who on an intrinsic level cares deeply
about the environment, but doesn’t know what to do about it. Why do you think
pop documentaries are so popular? They are entertaining and evoke empathy in
us. Would anyone in the mainstream move to action as fast if they hadn’t seen The Cove or An Inconvenient Truth? I guess in writing I am trying to balance
that out.
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