Category Archives: Thoughts

0905, 2018

Notes from this Semester of Human Becoming

debs/ May 9, 2018

Before it happened, I simultaneously (a) fantasized about and (b) dreaded finding out what kind of adult I would become.

(a) I fantasized because, observing the adult world had been a marathon of “I would never do/care/like that when I become and adult!” and now I FINALLY get to make my own choices and be the adult I have always told myself I would become.

(b) I dreaded it because, in amassing a list of mantras, faux-pas, instructions on how (not) to be an adult (dedicated to adult debbie, courtesy of childhood debbie), I imposed on myself the herculean burden of becoming the adult that my childhood self would have looked up to.

1702, 2018

Thought Experiment: On Production and Distribution

debs/ February 17, 2018

I have a hunch that most of our “production problems” we have can be reframed as problems of distribution.

Here, I put this hunch of mine to the test against some iconic “problems of the world” in the crudest and most irreverent thought experiment ever, supported by no evidence whatsoever outside of what I can recall off the top of my head.

2811, 2017

A walk through the valley of shadow of death and back again

debs/ November 28, 2017

The process of mountain hiking is conducive to becoming a metaphor of journey, spirituality, and life. I mean, it literally has a rising action, a climax, and falling action. For the duration of the hike, I can self-indulge and romanticize myself (or my party) as a main character(s) in some heroic journey. Hiking is a celebration of life as a process rather than a destination; and that’s a much needed for a soul that’s trapped in a “destination”-oriented mind like mine.

While hiking, I need to be hyper-aware of time and space for mundane things like daylight, my own safety, and such. Yet for the same reason, the fact that a hike occurs within the time span of a really long conversation, puts the mind in a space where internal dialogues can fester and run (read:walk) their course. Given that long internal ~~dialogues~~ monologues are prone to recursive thinking (…at least mine are?), it follows that the activity of hiking is conducive to forming nested micro-metaphors within the broader “hiking metaphor” as a whole.

But–and forgive me for being trite–isn’t the phenomenon that hiking is fertile with nested metaphors, itself a metaphor for life? After all, any metaphor about life is just a subset of life that is modular enough for the human mind to appreciate the parallel. Every metaphor about life is nested in life. So it really shouldn’t be a surprise that a powerful metaphor of life, like hiking, is a Russian doll of nested-metaphors.

I’m convinced that the hike on this day is somehow a metaphor for all my other days. This is my absolute favourite “story” to tell about my trip because the things that happen in a certain sequence within a certain time. On a deeper note, I love telling it because I feel like the story hasn’t ended yet. I feel like this day had more subtle metaphors I haven’t fully teased out, and perhaps symbolism that I don’t yet know the meaning of.

2710, 2017

Quiet

debs/ October 27, 2017

“The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.” – Ecclesiastes 9:17

“Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.” – Proverbs 17:28

Both insecurity and dignity manifest themselves as quietness.

Quiet confidence is more attractive than loud confidence.
Quietness without confidence is self-interested, self-conscious.
Confidence without quietness is self-interested, self-promoting.
One with quiet confidence has the capacity to consider another:
security in One’s identity yields mental capacity to consider another;
silence yields physical capacity to hear The Other.

Activism is most admirable complemented with quiet activism.
The loudest activism is paramount when One advocates for another,
thereafter, One ought to assume quiet activism as a way of life.
Quiet activism is living with integrity.
Quiet activism is living in the world as if the world is already as it ought to be:
not locking your bike because the world ought not to need locks at all.
Quiet activism is turning the other cheek.

Back in the day, I desired to replace my awkwardness with charisma.
These days, I desire to transform my awkward silence to comfortable silence.

2310, 2017

Agrotechnooptimism

debs/ October 23, 2017

The techno-optimism in agrotechnology makes me a little queezy.

At first, the image of the vertical gardens of produce grown in abandoned urban spaces seems like such an attractive idea. One can only imagine how I fawned when my eager mind saw a possible union between community-based agriculture, environmental conscientiousness, and engineering.