Birth Lottery win

 Thanks for choosing this book, for your research and thoughtful presentation of the history of Louisiana and the corruption, cruelty and inequity that have persisted since the first explorers claimed lands for their European empires. 

It never ceases to amaze me that the doctrines of freedom, democracy and true capitalism I had been inoculated to believe were underpinning our North American wealth and privilege (privilege presented as rights) when I was growing up through school and through until somewhere in mid life was based on outright lies and misrepresentations of race, culture and religion. 

There is something so very uncomfortable in the learning of this. When I started thinking about it my Privilege of being born middle class and white in Canada was a gift at birth I didn't deserve but having lived with it so long I now felt entitled to ... which is an icky kind of feeling, because I just couldn't figure out why I would be so blessed and other people not. I studied Economics in University and for a while I totally bought into the belief that our free American countries were desirable places with the opportunity for anyone to create financial security for themselves if they worked hard, and that our political economic systems were the glue that kept everything together. Through philosophy and searching for some bigger meaning to life I came in the back way to examining what colonizing entailed and how everything we have today was built on the back of exploitation. Exploitation of people, resources and the environment. There was no "fair" fight for freedom, for land or for rights. America, our bastion of freedom, is a house of hot air and posturing that tries to gloss over and justify atrocities only humans with our egos, our fears and our imaginations can design. 

Reading Sarah Broom's story in The Yellow House was another peeling of that onion. A personal story of a family that grew up with a very different reality than mine. It is hard to come to terms with a lot of this, yet this is the path we need to go so I recognize my culpability and take action against the inequality still happening in the present. 

Jeanne

Uncertainty

 “It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.”

Richard P. Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

The most valuable tool for understanding is admitting we don't know. There are always questions we can ask. I am not sure why we are comfortable with repeating opinions that come from people whom we agree with. What purpose does that serve? 

Of course it is easier not to challenge our thinking and certainties and obviously our group is more enlightened and right because we are smart discerning people. This means we can accept being part of a group that feels the same way and use that to ultimately justify our beliefs and actions ... Hmm, what has that thinking led to in history?

It is a pretty cool exercise to think about something we think we know and then ask some questions about it. Being wrong is not a crime and being right is likely an illusion. Curiousity and humility along with empathy and love are the stepping stones to change and maybe help us address some of the inequalities perpetuated by "knowing" based on our limited knowledge and experience.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Richard P. Feynman

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

Cheers

Jeanne

Procrastination is poison

“It’s important to transform distant deadlines into daily ones. Attack them bit by bit. Big tasks need to be translated into smaller ones that show up on your daily task list. The only way to walk “It’s important to transform distant deadlines into daily ones. Attack them bit by bit. Big tasks need to be translated into smaller ones that show up on your daily task list. The only way to walk a journey of a thousand miles is to take one step at a time.”
Barbara Oakley

"Procrastination can be like taking tiny amounts of poison. It may not seem harmful at the time, but the long-term effects can be very damaging."
Barbara Oakley

This past year I have thought of doing many things. Some of those things I've done, lots of them I haven't. I'm discovering things now that make me want to challenge all the assumptions I ever made about how hard things can be to do. Seriously, we can learn and do almost ANYTHING! I know I am repeating my message with many of the quotes I have been sharing this past year. It is because all this stuff about learning and making things happen is exciting!! The older I get the more I am thinking about time and how precious it is. I am (trying) to focus on what I want to do and learn and experience and to use my time to do these things and the results are crazy!! The opposite of what I thought would happen is happening... time is opening for things I want to do, and it is becoming easier to stay present with what I'm doing rather than go in circles over the news and what's happening, how much I want different things to happen. 

And thinking of procrastination as a slow poisoning makes me look back on my life and see all the things I wanted to do but didn't make time for, all the friends I lost touch with cause I got distracted in temporary life shit while time eroded connections I had taken for granted, all the opportunities I missed because I was afraid to seem bold, didn't want to risk, feared failure or feared what success would mean...  This hindsight is literally a gift, handed to me as it comes now before I die! In the pause of pace this pandemic has created I'm realizing there just isn't time for procrastination, we are not stuck in time and if it doesn't bring what I wish for I can make use of it to learn and try new things, which paradoxically takes off the limits to those wishes I wished for before.  

To make myself feel like I'm doing something about all this I've been reading and listening and watching anything I can find about learning how to learn, how the brain works and tools I can find to train myself (and trick) myself out of procrastinating. 

I started a new MOOK, I didn't know there was a name for the courses I've been taking, but this is super cool available learning to anyone with a suitable electronic device and internet access (Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are free online courses available for anyone to enroll..)  The current one (link below) I'm taking is where I heard about Barbara Oakley and is my evening entertainment until I need a break to process or I get tired of focusing or fall asleep. This week also I'm reading Jann Arden's book "If I knew Then" which reminds me that I'm not alone in aging and learning and loving the messiness of life, that freedom can be learned and earned and is always to be respected, that remembering people in our past with compassion, curiousity and gratitude can lead to forgiveness, that we can challenge any assumptions we've carried and it doesn't matter how ridiculous we come across we are going to be ridiculous anyways, which I really like!!

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects | Coursera

Cheers
Jeanne