“Making 2018 Meaningful”: Part 1: Articles
“Why we fell for cleaning eating”, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-fell-for-clean-eating
What it was about:
How #cleaneating is becoming more and more like a cult movement, because it is stubborn/tenacious, emotionally divisive, irrationally absolute, “facts-adverse” and guilt tripping.
How it schooled me?
I fell victim of this #cleaneating cult. I was obsessed with clean eating. I found so much satisfaction following reading liking sharing content about clean eating, and imposed a very strict diet onto myself.
I then started to be overwhelmed by the never ending guilt and anger whenever my views were not supported. This was especially bad with my family. Yes, for more than 5 years, my body fat % was less than 8. I was sick.
This article brought me back out and now I am less of that annoying self righteous asshole who wouldn’t eat anything at a dinner gathering.
“Last Longer”, Horace Dediu
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-fell-for-clean-eating
What it was about:
Horace Dediu expanded on what Lisa Jackson and Apple meant, when she proclaimed on stage, during the biggest Apple event of the year, that Apple’s approach to sustainability and environmental responsibility, would be to make devices “Last Longer”. Horace tried to make a point that this was a watershed moment for Apple and the tech world. He also talked about how this would be misunderstood by most, and how most would laugh at this notion that no planned obsolescence.
How it schooled me?
Fundamentally, this is a paradox. What it pushed me to ponder, was the importance of having such paradox, or audacity, in life. I live this paradox everyday, and allowing myself to explore the extreme ends of this paradox, led me to interesting places. It made me go after much tougher scenarios, such as pitching the importance of services, instead of the benefits of a better screen.
“The Study of Men, Chapter 14”, Rudolf Steiner
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA293/English/RSP1966/19190905a01.html
What it was about:
Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher at the turn of the 20th century, wrote a lot of stuff around many things, including education. He was the force behind the Waldorf education philosophy, which our school is based on. In this particular piece, he went on and on about how education was similar to the ecosystem of the human body. In the end, he brought out the significance of the three forces as the very “nerves” of pedagogy:
- The need for imagination
- A sense of truth
- A feeling of responsibility
How it schooled me?
I like finding philosophical or obscure things and then trying to apply them in real life. The more “out there” they are, the more fun the journey tends to be. Particularly, the statement “have courage for the truth”, was defeating. The word courage, now apparent to me, was carefully chosen. When faced with things that threatened my truth, fear came out. It exposed how I was mostly lip servicing terms such as open minded, diversity, people centric, empathy, everything else I liked and forwarded on social media …
Of course, it also helped me gain much better clarity on how we might need to nurture the ecosystem of our school, and that the mission will be very different, likely difficult, and lengthy.
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